This is a ridiculous argument and, honestly, reminds me of corporate thinking. Is the line going up this quarter? That’s all that matters. Yes, assuming inflation is CPI, the last year has seen wage growth. For two years before that, it showed an even more severe wage decline. It seems a bit out of touch to say “Hey, look, I know your savings are dry and your spouse dropped out of the work force because childcare costs outpaced their income but it’s starting to get better! If we use this particular method to examine your well-being the last year was back to normal so quit whing and be grateful!”
The first article linked is alleged to demonstrate that wages have exceeded inflation for over a year. That article includes text like this after this graph:
if we look at the fourth quarter of 2019, which was the last quarter before COVID, the real wage is $362. Now nearly four years later, it sits only $3 higher at $365. Four years of zero wage growth is also something that could perhaps bother people.
So instead they looked at a longitudinal study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, which assumes CPI is the rate of inflation. They ended up with this CPI adjusted wage growth graph.. Even with their metric it shows wage growth being in the red from early 2021 and not recovering until 2023.