The problem with raising pay across the board is that it reduces the value of money. Everyone is making $15 more? Great! Now everything is $15 more expensive to

The problem with raising pay across the board is that it reduces the value of money. Everyone is making $15 more? Great! Now everything is $15 more expensive to make up for the loss in currency value; more money in circulation means each dollar and cent is worth less. This is then compounded because most business have no reason to not just offload the cost of increased pay onto the customers, who also got increased pay from their work. So by increasing pay, money and manhours both lose value while the value of goods stay the same. To be clear: Increasing pay is one of many levers that can be pulled to address inflation, but just increasing pay is not going to address inflation (and will likely make inflation worse).