Wages are extremely sticky. Consumer prices are not. You’re looking at older people running a business who has a perspective that paying someone $18 an hour is a big cost for a base level position in their business. I remember being stoked about getting $11 an hour when went full time with a photography company. Literally only ~10 years ago. I fought hard at my internet technician job to learn everything I could whenever they had internal courses, which almost always were followed by a 0.20-.0.25 wage boost if you stacked enough “proof of knowledge.” I spent years acing test on how signals and internet shit worked for that $17 per hour.

Now though, many of the same people are running those companies, and have no idea that the person they are hiring can’t do shit with $18/hour. $18 is the new $9 per hour. Literally

This is exactly why inflation is so horribly destructive. It takes YEARS for wages to adjust, and in those years inflation is still churning. In a broad sense, and worse as you get into the lowest wages, you literally NEVER catch up to getting paid what you are earning and what the cost of living is.