Not sure where you're getting that $43k number. The most up to date number is $65,052[0].

"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"

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/wkyeng.pdf

Taken directly from ssa.gov:

https://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.