This factoid is, at best, disingenuous. They only have to match minimum wage across the entire pay period, which is typically two weeks long. One bad shift isn’t going to make the employer pay you more, because the other 9 shifts in the same pay period balanced it out to be just above minimum wage. But that one bad shift will be felt by the employee, who went home with less money that evening.
Or even worse, if the restaurant requires tipping out the back of house, situations can arise where the employee ends up losing money in a day. Because if you get stiffed on a big 20 person party, (which happens a lot. Every individual at the party assumes someone else tipped), then you have a massive check with no tip. But the restaurant requires that you pay a percentage of the check (not the reported tip. The total check), to the back of house staff. So if tipping out is 5%, that 20 person party took two hours, and you got stiffed on an $800 ($40 per person. Not unreasonable for a restaurant) check? You’re only making $2.13 per hour (minimum wage for tipped workers) and just had to pay the back of house staff $40 out of your own pocket. You just lost $35.74 in those two hours. Because all of your time was spent catering to that party and you only got paid $4.26 for it.
Ah okay, you’re the person who fails the shopping cart test. Got it. If you want to change tipping, most would agree with you. But protesting at the tip line is only hurting the wait staff. I agree that tipping has gotten out of control, and 15% should be normalized again. But I’m the type of person who has no issues with just using the “custom” line and entering my own tip.