[antiutopian]

In general, employers do not want to offer higher wages because they predict it will be very difficult to lower them later down the line. They feel if they can weather the current storm, things can get back to "normal" as far as wages go. In places like the restaurant industry, they just carry on with short-staffing, putting more pressure on the remaining employees.

[gotoeleven]

And they shouldn't raise wages unless they have to. Raising wages without a commensurate increase in productivity is pure inflation.

[whoknew1122]

This is ignoring that wages have more-or-less remained stagnant while productivity has risen tremendously for decades. The bill's coming due.

https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/

[Supermancho]

Inflation is considered a given, as the economy has been inflationary for decades.

> the annual inflation rate in the United States has decreased from 3.2 percent in 2011 to 1.2 percent in 2020.

So right now, wages simply haven't been adjusted to the existing inflation. This is not inflationary itself.

[joshlemer]

Not necessarily. Even if productivity isn't increasing in your business, as other sectors increase their productivity, the opportunity cost of the labour grows, so even with the same productivity, you would expect the cost of labour to rise, to compete with other more productive things the worker could be doing.