Difference between the inflation rate and growth of wages in the United States from November 2020 to November 2024
www.statista.com

February 2023 seems to be the turning point your current alias' comment wants to hit, where wage growth exceeds inflation.

There are several "economic" issues with this "economic statistic":

1. This data is not cumulative. Inflations (and wages) accumulate: plot and overlay them both over "cumulative S-curves" and you'll see that inflation curve is way higher than wage curve over last 4 years - simple math, smaller percentage of initially larger number may give you a larger delta over higher percentage from smaller number. Just because the average wage growth overtook average inflation for a period of time (in this case ~1.5 yr) doesn't necessarily compensate, and in fact may still increase the loss of real purchasing power. You can plot and verify this in any spreadsheet.

2. Wages and inflation numbers are "average" numbers; however, the growth in wages is much higher at the top quartile (including WS and financial / professional sectors and performance bonuses when stock market took off in October 2022 - OpenAI/ChatGPT announcement - which explains early 2023 average wage/inflation "turning point") while bottom quartiles had slower growth in wages but much higher expenses / "inflation" as percent of their earnings, particularly in shelter and food segments - "real inflation" was not distributed equally at every level.

3. Also, inflation [growth] applies to everyone (even if unequally), but wage growth only applies to [current] wage-earners, but doesn't include those out of work / job market - retired / "grey" population of non-wage-earners is higher... yet labor participation rate is 62.5% - still below pre-pandemic and near 1977 levels - of which ~20% are working part-time, maybe multiple and/or gig jobs.

Inflation "number" is also underweighted, particularly for lower end-user segment, e.g., in the last 20 years Social Security annual COLA increases averaged about 2%, while Medicare Part B premiums increases averaged ~5% annually. (www.statista.com - Part B premiums 2003-2022)

That's why Biden's approval on economy was ~33% - almost exactly corresponding to ~60-70% of people thinking "we are in recession" / "country is on the wrong track" - numbers that Dems kept ignoring or chalked up to "deplorables" and "ignorance."

www.newsweek.com - As Biden Bids Farewell, Americans Sting Him in Final Verdict - NW, 2025-01-15
|------- His approval on a number of issues - immigration, foreign affairs and the economy - similarly returned with approval ratings of 31 percent, 32 percent and 33 percent, respectively. Unsurprisingly, then, the overall rating for his presidency sits at 38 percent of respondents calling it a success and 61 percent calling it a failure.
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Economy average/compound growth # looked good - but distribution was top-heavy, as was predictable from demand-side / "trickle-up" economy, especially compounded by "industrial policy" of mostly wasteful spending, particularly on "manufacturing" which, according to last week's numbers, is still in recession.
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