Mostly because the questions revolve around the economy at large, not what people experience. For a lot of these questions there are factors that make the economy look great, but screw over the average consumer. And none of these questions take that into account.
Comparing today to one year ago, which has increased faster on average across the US, prices or wages?
Inflation might drop, but the rate at which companies raise prices does not. Companies like to use inflation as an excuse to raise the price of a product far beyond inflation numbers just because they can blame it on inflation and get away with it. People are still experiencing rising prices beyond inflation numbers even when those numbers drop. People only get x% as a raise matched with inflation, but then have to pay x*y% more for their products.
Do you think the rate of inflation has gone up, down, or stayed the same since this time last year.
Inflation NEVER brings prices down. So people experience a bout of high inflation and all of the prices for their daily purchases goes up. When the rate at which they go up changes to a smaller number that doesn't make their expenses any less. They're just experiencing prices going up. This also does not account for factors outside of inflation, such as companies inflating the prices of products 30%, 40%, 50%, 100%, 200% beyond the inflation numbers. This does not account for enshittification where people get worse products for the same money. They do apparently try to account for shrinkflation and the metrics for that could apply to enshittification, but companies will often take measures to counteract this such as adding weights to tech products to make them feel more 'premium'. Or they will apply shrinkflation as well as enshittification so the numbers reflected in the CPI are mainly the shrinkflation numbers, not accounting for lowered quality. This does not account for when companies collude (intentionally or by greed motive) to never drop prices or raise prices at the same time.
In terms of net worth do you think the median American household is wealthier today than before the pandemic?
This might not account for the market price of their assets being higher, even though they have less assets in general. Someone who has a 2 year old car might have a more valuable car than a 2 year old car last year. But they still only have 1 car. Maybe it's a worse car that retails for a higher price. They have less in their house even though it costs more so it looks like they have a higher net worth on paper, just not in reality.
Do you think someone on a median income could afford a better lifestyle today or a year ago?
This depends on how you define lifestyle. If you just look at the prices of things that they have it's the same problem as the above question. If you are asking what they have access to and can do with their resources, then you'd get a completely different answer. Fewer people can go on vacations, fewer people can save any meaningful amount of money, more people are living paycheck to paycheck. If you look at employment numbers as an indicator, then it looks great. More people are employed now than in the last decade. But a lot of those jobs are gig jobs where the person can barely afford the gas for their car that they are using for uber. It all depends on how they define 'better lifestyle', but they don't include that definition here.
Do you think the share of Americans living in poverty is higher today than 30 years ago?
This is another definition problem. The definition of inflation generally has to do with living off of x dollars per day. But has that number kept up over the last 30 years? Unlikely. Does that number account for companies charging more and more for less and less and worse and worse products that degrade sooner and need to be replaced more often? Unlikely. If the definition of poverty is different, then you'll get a different answer. Try answering how many people are living paycheck to paycheck. And the people who were around 30 years ago tend to be the ones who already have a home and over estimate the ability of people today to get houses and cars and a good job and so on. Their experience is detached from reality because they are not living it the same way as the rest of us.
I could keep going, but you maybe get the point by now. Factors that improve the economy at the expense of the average person are always going to give different answers to the data if your data does not take into account the experience of the average person. And especially when their definitions are not stated upfront.