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> The US has tipping because for some reason, the law allows restaurants to pay below minimum wage

Tipping predates minimum wage laws. (indeed the first laws to ban tipping in the US also predate minimum wage laws, but it clearly didn't stick)

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I'm not talking about the history of tipping. I'm talking about why tipping exists right now in the US. It's a form of additional tax on consumers that the restaurants don't have to pay and exploits workers with the promise of tips. Restaurants going below minimum wage should be illegal and if they can't afford to do that, then I'm perfectly okay with them going bankrupt.

You made a claim about causality, I'm suggesting the causality is the other way around: these laws exist because the US has a culture of tipping. It seems unlikely that this existing culture of tipping would've stopped being a thing if these laws didn't exist, given the long confusing list of people you're apparently supposed to tip in the US.

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