Major metros where the multiplier has largely stayed the same:
Columbus 1984: 2.47x
2017: 2.97x
Omaha
1984: 2.3x
2017: 2.77x
Little Rock
1984: 2.85x
2017: 2.75x
Kansas City
1984: 2.64x
2017: 3.01x
Pittsburgh
1984: 2.16x
2017: 2.42x
Minneapolis
1984: 2.64x
2017: 3.34x
Houston
1984: 2.66x
2017: 3.68x
Chicago:
1984: 2.45x
2017: 3.49x
Also, inflation adjustments take into account the increase in prices of all goods & services, including housing -> https://www.bls.gov/cpi/tables/relative-importance/2019.txt. So even if housing costs have gone up more than overall inflation, other things have fallen, and OVERALL inflation rate is the best rough measure of "cost of living". There's disagreement over which indexes are better (based on how they weight different expenses); CPI-U vs CPI-W give different importance to different goods & services. Importantly, the inflation-adjusted incomes have gone up regardless of which index you choose to use.
* Boston Rent: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUURA103SEHA
* Boston Wages: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MHIMA25025A052NCEN
The same is true for almost every major (growing) city beside Houston & Dallas.
Combined that with the fact that income taxes are higher at these "higher wages" and that student debt payments are up 4x just since 2007 - who knows how much since the 1990s - and you can start to see why things aren't so rosy for young professionals.
* Student debt: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SLOAS
If you look hard enough, you can find any chart to support almost any opinion. The point of the "anecdata" was to get people to look at a certain side of things. Particularly for people living in HCOL cities that aren't "highly skilled".