Some helpful information to correct your misperception of inflation. Telling people that wages have gone up and so offsets inflation is like saying people that we shouldn't care if someone is killed, since they would have died anyways... eventually.
Inflation is especially cruel, since often those most impacted by the rising costs of inflation, the working poor and retirees do not enjoy the "benefits of inflation" only its harshness. For seniors their social security is indexed (though lags inflation) meaning they are "always trying to catch up with inflation" and savings and pensions are not indexed with inflation. So, I suspect if you ask around, they will point out how much inflation is hurting them and you saying but not to worry the tech worker just got a huge wage increase is not going to "sell" well.
The working poor and others who work in highly competitive markets do not have the "pricing power" for their services to get the "wage increase" you are talking about. I spoke with someone who works as a barista at a local coffee shop, he likes his job, but he has to find another one, since the coffee shop thinks raising the price of a latte from $5 to $6 will not fly with all the local competition, so the owner simply can't raise wage levels at this time.
But it gets worse. People who are locked into home ownership with long term mortgages don't feel the impact of rising real estate prices and in fact may even benefit in the future from the appreciation, but renters see the rising real estate prices translate into higher rent rates since as properties trade hands, the new investor has higher costs to cover.
Poorer people spend a much higher percentage of their income on energy for transportation, heating, home utilities, etc. They also spend a greater share of their income on food (where fertilizer is produced using natural gas). So, inflation in fossil fuel costs can be brutal to the poor. The fact that it is less brutal for the well to do, who might even have the cash to buy an electric car and install solar panels on their homes means the wealthy can act to blunt inflation in energy, while the poor get hammered by it.
Biden is responsible for a good share of the increase in energy costs. His decision to end the US purchase of Russian oil is a decision I support, but he needs to supplement that decision with a decision that the US will go all in on becoming the world's largest supplier of fossil fuels until we develop the technologies needed to displace their use. We should aim to supply the world with the cheapest fossil fuels possible, while working to make fossil fuel obsolete with even more cost-effective renewable energy technologies. Instead, his polices by design are intended to raise the cost of fossil fuel including directing his agencies to figure out how to make "borrowing money" for fossil fuel energy development difficult and making permitting for new drilling take 70 times longer at the Federal level than it does at some states.
Meanwhile, the reason we were importing Russian oil is because it has been impossible to get the permits to build pipelines from the Midwest to the east and west coast and so importing is far cheaper than sending tankers around Florida or through the Panama Canal.
But for those with low interest mortgages who are able to command inflationary wage increases and use their incomes to reduce energy consumption, inflation is a good thing. I had this experience in the 80s, when others were being hurt and I was seeing annual wage increases of 20-30% through a combination of inflationary increases and promotions. My mortgage payments became a smaller and smaller part of my check, my energy costs relative to income went down. Food costs dropped relative to income. My standard of living soared (at least until my divorce... a story for another day).
Bottom line, you are right "big picture" about "net inflation" (inflation less wage increases), but you are wrong with how that impacts Americans. Each American is a different story and those unable to respond to inflation get hurt and hurt badly. Telling them "on average" they are doing well is like pouring gasoline on the burning despair.
Ron Insana is a bright CNBC TV personality who is speaking the "averages". Let him walk in the shoes of the barista I spoke with... he might just come to a different conclusion. Let me drive around with my retired friend, who just saw his idyllic retirement dramatically change (like me he lives in southern California but spent his week driving from place to place to meet up with friends, now he sits home three days a week since he cannot afford to spend more on gas.
As we have exchanged messages in the past, I know you to be an intelligent person who does care about others. I only caution you to be careful about spreading the political talking points of the liberal media. Trump won in 2016, because he connected with the "regular guy". Right now, the progressive elite have lost touch with the "regular guy".
Last point, those great employment numbers were great for the wealthy, since it does mean that more goods and services will be coming on stream in the future. But below the numbers was a disturbing observation, that many "lower income workers" are getting second jobs to keep up with inflation.
Is that really what we want? After all the noise about a "living wage" are the progressives pushing policies that force people to work 16 hours a day to keep up with the cost of living?
The formula to get inflation under control is simple.
1) promote "cheap energy" that does not preclude green energy, but simply changes the paradigm from "green energy" to "cheap green energy"
2) promote productivity by pushing for capital investment. Making more stuff with less labor drives down the cost of goods and services, while allowing wage increases without adversely impacting the cost of goods and services.
3) drive job creation, you need labor shortages to translate productivity gains into wage gains.
I don't see Biden's policies doing these things except perhaps the third one which is helped by massive government spending.
