Base salary vs inflation

I think its an interesting topic, but so far I believe things haven’t changed much and funds are still paying $150-200k to senior analysts as base salaries. With housing costs almost doubling (incl. interest) a 35 year old with a family/house in a HCOL is not exactly in a great spot given 23 year olds are getting $120k base.

Now im sure somebody will come in here and say how stupid it is to discuss base salary at a HF. To an extent that is true but putting your analysts in a spot where most need to dip into their bonus to pay everyday expenses is equally stupid.

Given the industries that HFs compete with for talent (IB, consulting PE, corporate jobs) have hiked base salaries more or less in line with inflation, why would you think that HF have fallen behind? $150 is the new $125 (i.e. what pre-MBA / 2-3 YOE junior hires made in base in 2019) and $175 is the new $150 (post-MBA / 2+2 profile hire). You're a sucker if you're choosing jobs strictly based on salary but you're also a sucker if you don't recognize that your salary is your bond and that will be all that you get 10-20% of the time so you need to base your lifestyle on it. Talk to your boss. They know this. They've either not kept up because they're greedy or because they haven't thought about it. I recently did so and relayed that I expect a COLA adjustment every 1-2 years and he thought that was perfectly reasonable. 

My perception is that base did increase but at headline CPI levels not core CPI (i.e. did not cover for rent increases in NYC like areas)

Are you taking about new hires getting higher bases or existing employees getting a bump?

If the latter I heard MLP did increase bases at least for some pods, but maybe that just depends on the PM.

How do you have a family in NYC with a $200K base salary? I understand bonuses should be factored in but hard to factor that in given the volatility of a HF career. It seems almost impossible to make monthly payments on a $1.5M+ house with daily living expenses. 
Just to be clear, I fully understand that there are families that get by with much less, but I’m speaking from a comparative sense for a mid-career professional in hedge funds vs. other finance roles that may be available to a similar type of candidate.