Increasing the cost of human labour is an objective; it should encourage more automation and shorter working hours (which are probably more productive anyway, but people are irrational). And hopefully it will reduce the gap between good and bad jobs, giving people more choice of how they want to work.
Increasing the cost of everything is an unfortunate side-effect that will hopefully not be very big.
Increasing the cost of everything is an unfortunate side-effect that will hopefully not be very big.