Compare this to a graph of ‘increase/decrease in wages’ over the same period of time. If wages did not increase, then this inflation affects people remarkable. The price increases are cumulative over time. If someone’s wages have not increased then it doesn’t matter if inflation slows down or even stops completely, their relative level of income and direct material well-being has gone down.

We can even make this more nuanced. Rather than look at average wages that can be affected by extreme outliers or just an economy where high earners get a lot more relative to the rest of the population, we could instead look at median wages or quintiles for more granularity. This inflation might not be seen or even affect the bug eating Karen PMC. However, it may be massively painful for a subsection of the population who’s wages have stagnated. Even if this segment was a minority, it would be incredibly tone deaf and ignorant to ignore their plight and just focus on the whole population. The issue at hand would then be distribution of wealth - but liberals of course like to ignore that at every opportunity. Enjoy your worsening material consulting, serf. Middle management and shareholders gotta get paid.