Not sure where you're getting that $43k number. The most up to date number is $65,052[0].
reply"Median weekly earnings of the nation's 120.9 million full-time wage and salary workers were $1,251 in the second quarter of 2026"
Taken directly from ssa.gov:
replyhttps://www.ssa.gov/OACT/COLA/central.html
I suspect the difference is that "full-time wage and salary workers" is a much smaller group than "all workers". I admit that I used the word salary in the original post though.