Inflation is cooling, yet many Americans are still living paycheck to paycheck

If you really want to compare that to inflation slowing, then you haven't turned off the oven, you just slowed down the rate that you are making it hotter.

The levers which incentives wages closing the gap on the "super inflation" are probably more realistic than the levers that would cause the prices of everything to deflate.

to most people is how much stuff costs.

inflation to most people is an increase in the cost of stuff* FTFY

also to be clear, the goal is that wages rise to meet the increased inflation, that's the historical trend.

Inflation can happen for a bunch of reasons. It's just always cited in arguments against raising wages. The proper answer to which is, prices went up last year anyways, why can't prices go up a cent so I can have a dollar?

The median sits around 80k these days. Everyone should be cheering, right?

What nobody wants to acknowledge is that the mode is still high 30's. Until that changes, we're leaving people behind.

But it's also because inflation is a measurement of velocity, not a static indicator. If you have a year with ten percent inflation, that doesn't go away without deflation happening and the finance industry would rather nuke the stock exchange than allow deflation.