If you were to look into trading companies, mostly located in Chicago/NY, you would find positions paying competitively (or better) with FAANG salaries.
Group 1: companies in a good enough financial situation to not need layoffs
Group 2: companies in a dire financial situation requiring layoffs
After 3 years, what group would you expect to perform better financially? And if we told you it was a tie, you might ask: what did group 2 to improve their situation? Layoffs? Ok, sounds like they worked.
It's always been hard for people in those income buckets. But if the question is: are we in a massive economic downturn over the past half year, it's really hard for me to look at the data and answer with a yes.
And that's showing that for the first time in over a decade, the bottom half is seeing real wage/wealth gains, even after recent inflation. Am I missing something? Because your sentiment is the more common one.