Well, they look at average wages, average hourly wages, median household income, median disposable income. All of these things improved right alongside "inflati

Well, they look at average wages, average hourly wages, median household income, median disposable income. All of these things improved right alongside "inflation" to the point where anyone who was not an outlier for those statistics ended up no financially worse off (and arguably somewhat ahead) than where they were pre-COVID. The problem is that people remember the "old" prices, not the "old" paychecks. It has been said that people see wage increases as something they have a right too (periodically, anyway) but see inflation as something imposed by a 3rd party with bad intent.