The common wisdom is that nearly 100% of wage increases will get passed directly to the customer. This has resulted in both defective arithmetic and defective thinking. For most products, a 20% increase in wages will come nowhere near to a 20% increase in production cost. And, of course, the cost passed on to the customer will be far less than a 20% increase in list price. The portion of wage increase that gets passed on to the customer tends toward a maximum determined by the ratio of labor cost to total product cost. The trend nowadays is toward lower proportion of labor cost. For some products, a big increase in wages would barely appear in the final cost of a product. In the past, when our national productivity was more closely tied to labor, it is true that a rise in wages could significantly affect prices. A wage-price spiral would be the feared result. Today, however, the link between wages and production cost is considerably weaker than it was in the past.
When wages are below the true cost of labor, as is the case for heavily subsidized minimum wage labor in the U.S., the result is a distortion in the economy caused by cost shifting. This type of economic distortion is significant in the present U.S. economy. The difference between the true cost of an hour of labor and the price paid for that labor by the producer is made up by the government. Or, in the case of young labor still living at home, by individual families. The economic distortion caused by wages below their true cost is eliminated when wages rise to their true cost.
Naturally the producer is inclined to use wage increases as an excuse for higher prices. In markets that are both globalized and subject to internal competition, however, competition holds prices in check.