> Jobs that are customarily tipped (I'm thinking food service) have a lower minimum wage they're required to pay than other sorts of jobs. In those cases, the business owner is literally demanding that the customers subsidize their employee's wages.

Tipped employees certainly have a lower federal minimum wage, although the employer is required to pay more if the minimum cash wage + tips doesn't hit the minimum for nontipped employees. It's specified as the minimim wage is $X and the employer can take a tip credit of up to $Y, if tips happen. If somehow tipping stopped universally, employers would simply need to pay full minimum wage.

Additionally, in many states, minimum wage is the same for tipped and non-tipped employees.

True, I forgot about this. So I can just stop tipping everywhere with a clean conscience!

I mean, I dunno about a clean conscience, but you don't need to worry that they won't get minimum wage. Depending on your tip amount, it's still a big change to effective hourly wage.

That's not true for where I live and yet people still tip wait staff & minimum wage is over $16 an hour here.

> yet people still tip wait staff & minimum wage is over $16 an hour here.

Which is still a bit over half (adjusted for inflation) of what minimum wage was when I was in high school, and even then minimum wage was widely considered too low. But that's an entirely different discussion.

I worked minimum wage jobs w/out tips that were definitely harder work than serving. It was entirely too low to actually live on if I wanted to do anything, but walking to the grocery store/work and eating crummy food worked. I'd often just hang out and read at the book store for entertainment.