I'm fairly certain this is the result of excessive wealth concentration combined with printing huge amounts of money, combined with the need for companies to constantly grow.

Things got more expensive due to inflation over time, especially in the past year due to inflation. No one has more money because it's all in the hands of a wealthy few. Those wealthy individuals aren't re-investing it, they're just buying stock. That stock can't be funneled back into wages because it would drive down profitability, which would tank the value of their stock. So wages can't increase, so the companies start to sell less, which means they have to cut more, which means people have less money. Now you're back to step 1, and the cycle repeats.

This is the logical conclusion of capitalism. There are a lot of things that could happen to kick the can down the road or correct the situation so that capitalism will keep on going for another decade, or maybe forever. I'm sure we'll see one of them happen once enough people get angry enough.