I've said it before and I'll say it again.... the part you guys always seem to miss is that you keep comparing our pay to the official inflation rate which highly understates actual inflation by design! Real inflation is at least double whatever the government measures it as. All of their costs are tied to inflation... all their cola increases, raises, tax brackets, etc... They have used "too low inflation" calculated based on a cpi formula they rigged in their favor to justify keeping interest rates artificially low and printing money for the the past 2 decades all while claiming their policies don't cause inflation. It's because America can't afford higher interest rates with the amount of debt we have but politicians don't want to level with the people and would rather just keep promising more and more government "for free" financed my deficits monetized by the federal reserve because "there's no consequences and money printing doesn't cause inflation and we can live beyond our means forever without consequences."
Unfortunately the consequences have arrived. They can no longer pretend inflation is too low when even their bullshit formula is reading more than quadruple their target. The fed has raised interest rates just 1.5% off the 0 level they have been at and we're already staring recession in the face which will likely be confirmed whenever the Q2 GDP numbers become official.
So please, for the love of God, stop saying we're not getting fucked too bad. We are if you live out in the real world and buy groceries, rent an apartment, buy gas, healthcare, electricity/nat gas, go to restaurants, buy a car, or do anything else that requires money.