Employers are probably waiting for the pandemic and unemployment insurance to end so they don’t have to raise wages to attract workers to these now-hazardous working conditions, as it’s hard to walk back wage raises. Every employer benefits from a society where everyone pays their employees more, but also if they are the only employer to pay their own employees as little as they can get away with. Yes, the minimum wage does need to be hiked (arguably not to $15/hour), as it’s in the best interest of both employees and workers.

> it’s hard to walk back wage raises.

That's what inflation is for. The problem is that the minimum wage should increase with inflation. Inflation is best used to lower the pay of the higher paid, not the borderline (for which there's no savings because of resultant increases in crime and the need to supplement low pay with transfer payments - which is just subsidy of private industry.)

I've always found it weird when countries have big gaps between benefits and minimum wages. It's basically saying "you can only have 2 dollars an hour from us, but you can't have less than 10 from them, hmmm I hope no one cheats on this system...".

They have to raise due to inflation regardless. A lot of people didn’t even receive COLA for the past couple of years.

That's kind of how we got into this mess in the first place - employers not giving COLA over decades.

That's because company owners and shareholders did all the hard work and deserve any increases in profits.

/s