Maybe it’s time to end variable pay and tipping in the US. It’s ridiculous that restaurant owners can pay waiters less than minimum wage and assume that tips will make the difference in salary (saying nothing of tip theft).
While variability may be stressful and I wouldn’t consider the lifestyle to be particularly healthy, many waiters consider it a feature associated with having flexible hours to do other things. If they want more hours, competent waiters can almost always pick up as many as they want and it has been a sellers market for waitstaff labor here for as long as I can remember.
Even illegal migrant workers made much more than minimum wage when I lived in rural flyover areas. A chronic labor shortage will do that.