False. The tipped minimum wage exists as a wage deduction allowance that restaurants are able to take out of their tipped workers’ wages. The federal maximum deduction under these rules is $5.12. The federal minimum wage is $7.25, and this is how we arrive at the $2.13/hr hourly rate for tipped workers. Employers are required to pay at least federal minimum wage, but as long as they can show in their records that your tips are making up for that $5.12/hr deduction, all they have to pay you is $2.13/hr.

The last time the federal minimum wage for tipped workers was changed was 1991. As early as 2011, I was working with people who were born into the system. They’re not buying into or supporting anything. It’s been foisted onto them by the people who made the rules: their parents’ generation.

ETA: Tips don’t exist to make up for the low hourly wages. The wage deduction (or tip credit as it’s also called) exists because tipping is so commonplace. A lot of people don’t understand that very fine point.