> Maybe it's just rising expectations, fueled by rising inequality?
Rising inequality is entirely enough to explain the whole thing. The bottom two quintiles saw their cost of living absolutely explode, and their salaries not keeping up. Median real income will never reflect something like that.
And that's a lot of people.
Real income (i.e. inflation-adjusted) actually increased the most for the lowest-percentile households from 2022 to 2023. https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2024/09/10/...