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There is effectively no special below-minimum wage in the US either. The servers have to be paid at least minimum wage, with tips or not.

On paper, this is true. In effect, however, it often is not.

How does this rule get circumvented?

Waiters getting fired (or some other consequences) if they don't make the minimum wage through tips.

The problem with that claim is how tight the correlation is between low tips and poor performance.