Employees asking for raises results in basically nothing unless the employee has leverage so broad-based raises are a sign of a market that wants to hire more l

Employees asking for raises results in basically nothing unless the employee has leverage so broad-based raises are a sign of a market that wants to hire more labor than is readily available (of course, this is what led to a lot of that aforementioned housing inflation, but it wasn't as tight across as many industries as it is now). Major cost of living components like housing have been going up rapidly for tens of millions of people in major metro areas for a decade. Employees wanted more money the whole damn time. They didn't get much willing movement there; they didn't have the leverage in the employment market. Legislatures in many areas stepped in instead after failing to see wages in most industries keep up. It's not clear to me that this particular version of the feedback loop is inherently bad long-term or unstable. Why should I assume it's going to spiral out of control rather than eventually slowly grind to a new equilibrium as some employers can't keep up with market wages and fall out of the market and supply vs demand stabilizes? And government wages seem like the least relevant - government pay was uncompetitive in so many areas to start with.