Fruits and vegetables are very nutritious, but the price I pay for them has little bearing on their value to me. I would easily pay double or triple or even more. But I do not because a different fruit and vegetable seller is willing to sell them for less.
Similarly, it is possible for the supply and demand curves to move in a manner that makes the price of certain types of labor not increase or even decrease compared to price increases of other types of labor.
For example, labor where you can sit safely inside a home behind a computer screen rather than deal with sick people with contagious infections.
Not getting a raise doesn't mean your employer necessarily values you less - it could just mean others value you less so your employer has less competition for you.
Supply and demand. If nobody's buying hammers and the price of hammers goes down, that doesn't mean the value my hammer brings me has gone down, but if I need to buy a new hammer I pay less.
Humans, unlike hammers can decide to train to become a screwdriver or change from Binford Tools to Craftsman, who may value low turnover more than Binford and thus pay more to retain employees.
If the management or ultimate customers of your industry or firm don't support paying you a wage that keeps up with the CPI, I suggest working hard to find better managers and customers. You are fighting a losing battle otherwise. There is a ton of demand out there right now for almost everything.
Your employer doesn't care what inflation is. They care about what they have to pay on the market to get you, and they care what you produce.
Going to them and talking about inflation is making an irrelevant argument. Inflation isn't part of the equation that determines how much they pay you. Tell them your market value, and tell then your productivity. But talking about inflation is just going to illicit a 'so what?'
But - again - you aren't paid a salary based on how well the business is doing. When a company's profits double do you think they double everyone's salaries? Of course not - surely you know that? You're paid based on what the market for you is, and what you produce and how valuable it is to the company.
Like inflation, the size of the business isn't part of that equation.
That's the right argument to make. Not inflation as you were saying before.
Talking about inflation to motivate pay rise is a logically unsound argument.
'Inflation is up 2%' - so what?
'I can get 2% elsewhere' ok we can talk.
I get the rest of what you're saying, but I don't see how it's logically unsound.
To me, it logically unsound if a company raises prices to match inflation, and all of it's costs other than employee salaries raise at roughly the inflation rate. Why are salaries solely exempt as a cost subject to inflation?
So how much do they pay you to work for them? As little as it takes to convince you to work for them and not someone else.
So how much does it take you to convince you to work for them? Just a little more than anyone else will pay you.
So your pay depends on how much anyone else will pay you.
Where does inflation enter that logic?
You can say 'my costs have gone up by inflation I want to be paid that much more' but can you see how your costs don't figure into what they pay you? If you said 'this company will pay me more' than that works. But just 'inflation' doesn't.
If I were to quit, I'd end up with another job that makes me work for 30+ hours a week, for the exact same salary. And that's just one example. I know many more like that.
Your supply and demand can't explain that, yet it is my daily reality in a capitalist society. Capitalism is just another lie we tell each other to make each other believe we live in a just world.
That seems entirely consistent with the supply and demand explanation? If your employer thinks they're getting 100k worth of value from you, and that there's nobody that can do your job for cheaper, the fact that you wfh for 3hr/week doesn't affect the analysis.
>If I were to quit, I'd end up with another job that makes me work for 30+ hours a week, for the exact same salary.
That can partially be explained by the fact that labor is an illiquid market, caused by switching costs and lack of information. On the flip side, you might be able to get 500K working for MANGA if you grind leetcode/whiteboard prep.