just because the USD is strong relative to other currencies doesn't mean there isn't devaluation. Cost of living has not tracked salary increases since 2008.
In Canada it is, yet shelter inflation numbers are almost exactly inline with overall inflation in all regions, regardless of whether prices are up over 100% or not. Reality has no effect on the printed number.
Oh sure, this is explained somewhere, but the point is looking at the numbers as a reflection of reality is a poor idea
Do you trust the inflation index (btw, inflation index != cost of living) which encodes choices by some very privileged people (and has questionable decisions, like hedonic adjustments that often have quite arbitrary factors use to periodically renormalize) to reflect the needs and worries of the median person? Go out onto the street and ask people, not even in SF or NY, and find out if they feel like they're doing better or worse, if they're struggling more or less to stay afloat.
Finally, even if inflation exactly tracks nominal wage growth, i.e. real wage value is zero, that's not enough. You would expect that there are real returns to technological advancement that are a tide that makes all boats rise. If that's not the case it is indicative that the structure of modern economy is such that that a very disproportionate amount of returns to global social and technical innovation are sent to the already-wealthy.
I trust the opinions of experts over anecdotes from random people on the streets. People always complain, no matter how good or bad things are. Ignoring it is always the best thing to do, and instead look at the numbers. Society is so complex these days that many people aren't capable of analyzing their problems.
Total compensation has been growing very steadily, but healthcare costs have been rising and eating much of that, so while compensation rises, much of it goes to healthcare and wage growth becomes anemic.
Real estate policy is the #1 issue in America in my opinion. We aren't building enough houses, we have too many policies designed to inflate home values (because for some dumb reason a house is considered an investment in america), we make rent seeking behavior too easy. This issue is politically unpalatable though, for both parties as it would require a shift away from the "house as an investment" idea that is doing so much damage to our country.
Keep in mind that while "the news" reports only a single "inflation" number, the available data is quite granular and is available for a large number of geographic areas[1]
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
Maybe it hasn't in SF or NY or other insanely prices areas, but that is 100% because real estate policy in those areas is a disaster.