> Wages for the average person (working class) typically remain stagnant while cost of living increases, particularly through inflation.

If wages were stagnant, nominally, you'd be making like 25¢ per hour. Wages are stagnant[1] only in real terms (i.e. adjusted for inflation). Cost of living and inflation are very different concepts, but since you indicate that inflation is responsible for most of the cost of living increases, wages have kept pace anyway, so...

[1] Technically not even. Wages are growing faster than inflation, but the margins are small enough that we accept calling it stagnant as a close enough approximation.