Agree with your last paragraph. As I say the time to fix a lot of this was decades ago when we could have reduced heating needs and cheaper energy production that isn’t as sensitive to energy shocks, but these are structural things that take a long time, all we can really do now is subsidise energy.
Why do you think wage rises would lead to much higher prices? I’ve posted the research for my piece, especially in retail and leisure wage increases also increase your customer base.
Really I think this stuff only applies to government set wages, so public sector and minimum wage jobs. And competition would take care of the rest.
There’s been a lot of research on this in the states with the talk of a $15/hr minimum wage and the same concerns raised but I’m not sure it bears out in reality. Obviously that’s only minimum wage, but I don’t see why it would apply elsewhere:
View attachment 27702 https://docs.iza.org/dp1072.pdf