I remember thinking $50k was an awesome salary when I first started working. Now I think "damn how do families survive off that kind of household income" after seeing essential goods and services cost roughly 1.5x what they were pre stimulus.
Median household income has gone up. It's currently the highest it's ever been in real terms. Households are better off today then they have ever been in their day-to-day affordability of goods.
You also can't cherry-pick a handful of things that have gone up a lot and then assume that it applies to everything. Some things have gone up in price, others haven't. Inflation is sitting at about 6%, which after a decade+ of sub-2% might seem like such a shock, but it isn't really a big deal.
Real wages have been stagnant since 1970s in the US. Median household incomes have only gone up because some people work in highly paid industries, like IT, plus household incomes include income from stocks and real estate AND most households now are two working adults.
Average hourly wage near me is like $12/hr. That's basically 50k in a 2 adult household. If anyone is projecting it's you thinking everyone has a middle class job...