Life is more expensive now & wages can’t keep up at least partially due to:
1. more regulations, which provide for safer and longer life (such as fire code, probably worth it)
2. things like extra unneeded functionality in smartphones, tvs, washing machines, coffee makers, and so on.

It has come to the point where the cheapest things to mass produce are things that most people rarely or do not need at all. This will only get more so the case with the high processing demand of artificial intelligence, which gives humanity amazing power, but in many cases, far overkill.