This made me wonder if inflation is enough to account for price increases. For instance, it could be the case - I don't know since I'm not an acquainted with the field/data - that the costs of important goods such as homes, cars, education, health care, etc. has increased more or less that what that 10k approx. 70k figure tells you. For instance, maybe its the case that for a generic 10k its worth 70k distributed over all goods and services, but for those that matter most maybe its 250k or 20k, I don't know. Does anyone know more about this topic?

I think they use a basket of goods to calculate inflation, but how has that basket changed / been updated over time? Can any economist weigh in here?