“What I am debating is whether raising rages simply causes inflation that then negates the effect of the wage.” You could argue that exactly this has happened

“What I am debating is whether raising rages simply causes inflation that then negates the effect of the wage.” You could argue that exactly this has happened when upper incomes were raised disproportionately in the last few decades. All the major expenses/investments of that class like housing, health care, education, stocks and others shot up. Seems there is more money around than they can use productively so they just kept bidding up prices.