Like it or not — and most of us lean toward not — the majority of American restaurants rely on their customers to subsidize servers' wages.

We call this subsidy a tip.

By federal law, restaurants are allowed to pay servers as little as $2.13 an hour. Our tips are supposed to bring them up to at least minimum wage.

Last year, Congress raised the hourly minimum wage for the first time in 10 years. That increase — from $5.15 an hour to $7.25 an hou ...

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