The tipping custom in the US is weird, no doubt about it. I would prefer to see wait staff paid a standard wage, and tips be a voluntary gift rather than a necessary payment in lieu of wages.
I suspect the tax system, wage laws, and old tradition combine to a hard-to-overcome status quo.
Its all of those things. But now we have dug a financial hole in this country with inflation where we would have to choose. Lose 90% of the restaurants in the entire country or pay a fair standard wage that won't put workers below the poverty line. Anything less and the math just isn't there. Rock and a hard place now.
"We" haven't done anything. Place the blame where it belongs. The government is not us.
For sure.