To exapnd a little, it's been an ongoing issue due to import-export imbalances for years. I work for an international freight forwarder, in years past I worked for a different one. With that one, for Trans-Pacific containers from US back to China we were literally filling up containers with paper recycling and with trash to get some sort of value for shipping them back. Just offsetting the cost.
Ye gods, why are you still working for the same amount you made in 2014? You can buy a heck of a lot less for that same money in any category. You have effectively been given a large wage cut in the past seven years, if you value your wages in what they can purchase. I believe one of the other posters said inflation in the US since then was around 14%.
And part of "just business" is employees fighting for raises, as well. If you haven't been doing that are are still making what you did seven years ago, I can understand that's not how you want it to be. But that doesn't control the drum for everyone else. You need to go stand up for yourself. Or find a new job.
Of course it's done both. Inflation is base economics 101. Material goods will cost more. Services will cost more. Employees will want to be paid more. Other employee compensation like health insurance coverage will increase.
All evidence is to the contrary. From what I can tell, D&D has never been more appealing than it is right now, in year 2021.
Well, no, I’m fortunate enough to be getting paid more than I did in 2014, despite working in a field that typically doesn’t value its front-facing staff a fraction of as much as my particular institution does. I still don’t really make a living wage, but I have more stability than most people in the same field, and I have an incredibly supportive family. But I’m much more fortunate than most.
Employees can want in one hand while their employers poo in the other, and health insurance coverage is abysmal in the only part of the developed world where it still depends on employers. Inflation doesn’t make one iota of difference in those matters for the vast majority of the workforce.
Yet wages do rise, even if not always as in line with inflation as they ought.
An individual’s wages may, if they are able to get raises and/or promoted. Minimum wage mostly doesn’t, so people who get passed up for those increases or for various reasons have to move from job to job (which is most of the workforce) get left having to work multiple jobs to survive.
