I beg to differ. You propose wage increases cause inflation. Chicken or egg, cart or horse? I propose inflation causes wage increases. As in not worth a continental. QE 1,2,3,4. Take your pick. And long before our recent recall also. Fractional reserve banking printing fiat money. Printing money with no value, (most created $ is digital and not in circulation), is The definition of inflation. The money supply is inflated, (inflation) by definition. It is the unseen, hidden tax that gouges us all. Sleep on your cash and it loses value quickly. Won't buy what it used to. CPI, is used to bring wage in line with inflation. Although that doesn't work in most wage earners favor either. Infaltion happens, CPI follows.
price inflation can be effected by a variety of means, but in the end it always comes down to the same thing:
scarcity of supply amid high demand
raising wages does not increase standards of living, since a man who can spend 30% of his wages on an apartment or house still pays the same 30% even if the number gets bigger.
when the minimum wage in california went up to $8.25 the shitty low rent apartments (even the government run ones) jumped up commensurately.
raising the minimum wage is actually just a dramatic pay cut for everybody who WAS making more than the minimum wage (like all those schlubs making $8 an hour who suddenly became minimum wage earners, effecting a pay cut of $2.75/hour for those poor fucks.)
the minimum wage and the poverty line are political tools used by populist demagogues to gain the support of the least educated, least intelligent and least driven.
if you actually believe labour costs do not affect the costs of operating any business then youre woefully ill-informed.
if paying you cost me an extra $1.75/ hour (putting you at the $10/hour wage level) the cost of everything i sell to my customers must increase to compensate for the increased labour coists, likewise, since $10 is now minimum wage, the people who were making more than that will now demand MORE to stay in their positions, or they will find somebody who will pay them better than minimum wage.
essentially raising wages across the board, as a social policy, without regard to the actual value of the employee, does nothing but move the numbers higher, while maintaining the status quo. (except foreign made goods will seem cheaper in the short term)