It's truly absurd. People who are actually getting consistent raises are often only getting 2-3% raises. Meanwhile rent is going up 5-20% a year and food prices are up (according to the sources I'm seeing when googling, honestly it feels worse than this to me) like 25% since 2020 which is an average of over 5% increase a year.

With consistent raises my real income is consistently lower every year. I'd like an economist to explain why I should be happy about that.