People are not growing poorer, they are growing richer
https://www.bls.gov/charts/usual-weekly-earnings/usual-weekly-earnings-over-time-total-men-women.htm
People make more money now than before the pandemic, even inflation adjusted
Inflation adjusted looking pretty flat and that’s if you trust their optimistic inflation calculations that likely underestimate it. Housing, education, and health care greatly outpace inflation btw, but hey, at least TVs are cheaper.
Source on inflation being underestimated?
Also if something like housing grows in price faster than inflation, then something else has to grow slower than inflation for the inflation number to be what it is. No matter what category you pick that grew faster than inflation, it doesn’t matter to the overall increase in prices by definition
For example, grocery prices have increased slower than inflation. It doesn’t actually make my argument any stronger, since it just means other things increased faster