How many PT folks have worked through the pandemic? Did you get a +20% raise?

I work for a company that was considered essential services so I haven’t been affected by any work stoppage due to Covid19. Got my same old 3% raise in 2020 along with a temporary 10% pay bump for working when Covid19 first began shutting down businesses. The 10% pay increase lasted until October of 2020.

I’m guess my story is pretty typical for people who were required to work through the early onset of the pandemic, meanwhile millions of Americans were laid off and many made more money on unemployment benefits than they were making pre pandemic.

These same people who were laid off in the service sector and other lower wage scale jobs have seen the jobs they left raise starting pay 20-30% and many still are not biting. How does the 20-30% pay increase for lower wage workers affect you?

Every industry that’s increasing their starting wages by 20-30% will do so hoping to entice Americans back to work, those wages are not dropping back to pre COVID levels. For those of us who have worked through the pandemic, well you’re gonna pay higher consumer prices and in essence you have assisted the government in giving the lower skill workers that fabled $15/hr minimum wage you hear nothing about anymore.