Which is largely a result of 2 things :
"Levelling up" where other countries are enjoying better living standards. And part of that is less exploitation as ethics influences businesses via customer pressure.
Worse exploitation where customer pressure isn't happening. For example, most of our consumer electronics are now made in virtual slave camps in China.
Have you heard of "markets" ?
We are, wether we like it or not, part of a global marketplace now. That means that for many things (see above about electronics & China), a UK manufacturer cannot compete on price while paying a decent wage. Similarly the way Amazon is winning the race to the bottom. Hands up who's bought stuff from Amazon "because price" - if you have, you are part of the problem.
That is certainly a valid description. One way to fix that is to force decent wages for all - for example by increasing the minimum wage, and measures to stop exploitation by zero hour contracts and forcing "employees" to describe themselves as contractors (Anazon again, but they are far from being the only ones).
Increasing the minimum wage immediately makes UK manufacturing less competitive in the world market. Fixing zero hours is very difficult as that wsy of working does suit some classes of worker.
But, having said all that, for the older ones among us - look back a few decades and be honest. Apart from housing, most of what we can buy these days is much cheaper in real terms than it used to be. Remember when TVs, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, ... well most appliances were expensive enough that we'd have them repaired - not just chuck it and buy new ? Written as someone who's just finished putting the tumble drier back together afyer a near full stripdown to get at the £2 motor cap - I've extended the wires so it's easy to change next time, this is twice in 8 years.
