LOL classic "back in my day."
I just sat for FM in June, so I'm more qualified than my larger fellow forum member 😉 to speak on difficulty. Of course after you've passed an exam, and have more experience in the field, you'll think the past material you've covered was harder than when you see it today. That means you learned, good job!
Regarding the recent ~ 15% jump:
At least in my area all April FM sittings were canceled, but SOA gave the option, later on, for those that were sitting then to sit at the end of May. My friend decided to do that and passed it, but for some reason it's not showing on his actuarial-lookup transcript. So there's a good chance those 81 people sat for FM in May, not April. Only people confident in passing would have taken that May sitting. Same goes for the June sitting.
I was actually worried going into my June exam that they would make the exam harder to compensate for all the extra study time people that were planning on sitting in April now had. I really do not believe that increase was caused because SOA made the exam easier, just that people had more time to prepare and could reschedule for free to another date.
Weird that you would be using Covid (such an unprecedented event) to fabricate your false narrative.
One person says they found the exam easy... CONFIRMED!