Well... technically inflation should be the increase in all prices and so wages would be increasing along with the cost of goods. Cost of living can just represent things like housing, food, etc. You could split them apart like that, although it makes the last two years look even worse, so it would be a bad argument for Pelosi! (I want to point out that I dislike this modern, or later half of the 20th century, definition of inflation as "a general increase in the price level". I vastly prefer the previous definition of an "increase in the amount of money in the market relative to the amount of other goods". But then, I am possibly the youngest old man.)