There’s nothing that you can explain with that fact. Inflation is a measure of dollar value in relation to goods… including goods that you don’t actually need. Simply knowing that wages outpaced inflation tells you nothing about the economic conditions of individual people.
Here’s a more detailed breakdown, which DOES emphasize the things that everyone needs:
baguettefish@discuss.tchncs.de 1 week ago
i sure do love single permille growth yoy
graph from epi.org (economic policy institute) showing that starting around 1970 in the US worker compensation never grew as fast as worker productivity anymore, almost stalling completely