My workplace increased hiring wages by $3.50/he and told us that we’d receive a comparable raise, plus our annual merit increases.

Apparently a comparable raise plus “merit increase”, is between $1.00-2.75 an hour. The more you already made, the less you got. They made a huge fuss about announcing this market wage adjustment, and that they were hoping that this would help retain and attract talent. We haven't seen a raise since 2019. They laid off something like 60 or 70% of us in 2020; many of us returned in 2021. We've gotten countless emails thanking us for our hard work, for our flexibility, for handling record volume, unprecedented times, and uncertainty. And they spit in our faces like this. While asking us to refer family and friends to work there. The audacity of these fucking people.