Inflation here? gas/grocery prices just continue to climb

So if you didn't get at least a 6.2% pay increase, you took a pay cut basically.
That's pretty misleading.

Many items that contribute to a market basket inflation rate are irrelevant to your typical middle class household.

You don't have to purchase plywood and lumber to run your home. Aluminum and steel building products aren't a big proportion of home budgets, but food costs and transport play a pretty big role these days.

We can expect some of these changes to pass over the next few months as fleeting market adjustments, but some things simply aren't going to change and the $8 per hour employee is now an historical artifact.