I'm not aware of how things are on the ground in the US; it's more of a general perspective not tied to any specific country (which is my separate "meh" about strongly America-centric Lemmy, but it's very tangential)

But seeing people actually hit the absolute mandated minimum is indeed depressing. I might expect that waiter's income with tips is normally greater than the federal minimum, so maybe there's a chance not all waiters will agree to work for that, which should balance it a bit?