Originally Posted by Baradium

I just have to say something here because the bad math bothers me.

Let's use a 30% tax rate just for ease of numbers.

If you make $200,000 a year you are paying $60,000 in taxes, giving you a take home of $140,000. If you have a pay increase to account for inflation taking you to $206,000 (a 3% increase), you are now paying 61,800 in taxes giving you a $144,200 take home, which is 3% more than the previous take home. The only time adjusting your pay at the inflation rate results in "losing out" is if you change tax brackets.

The idea of larger increases doesn't bother me, but your reasoning is not correct.

I'll also add that only pay rates don't automatically fix QOL issues. If someone just cares about time at home, pay rates do nothing if they can't drop trips or bid for more days off. If they want better deadhead rules, they lose out if they have to pay for them each time since (as already mentioned) it's after tax.