This is the gap between your nominal wage (the number on your paycheck) and your real wage (what that number can actually buy after prices rise). A 4% raise sounds generous until you realize prices for the things you actually buy rose 6% in the same period — you got a raise and a pay cut at the same time, and only one of them was announced.
Official inflation statistics track a broad "basket" of goods across an entire country. Your personal basket is not that basket. If your spending leans heavily on rent, health insurance, or childcare — categories that have outpaced average inflation in many economies for years — your personal cost of living can run well ahead of the national number, even when the official rate looks tame.
This is why the feeling is real, even when people insist "the data says inflation is under control." The data is describing an average household that doesn't exist; you're living the specific one that does.
The bottom line: A raise that doesn't beat your personal inflation rate isn't progress — it's a treadmill with better lighting.