TL;DR: economists are still stuck in the idea of the market as a perfect force for reaching optimal outcomes. They're ignoring the simple fact that businesses are putting prices up purely to increase profits. And that they can do this because the economic ideal of perfect competition (where many small firms compete with near-identical products) does not exist. We have a small number of very powerful businesses—oligopolies—in nearly every market for consumer-facing goods.
Economists aren't really in denial, they are just doing their job of giving a false sense of scientific legitimacy to the plan the ruling class will enact anyways: discipline labor, cut social spending, bail out finance when they inevitably crash.
Aye, there's a reason economics is called "the dismal science."
Who's going to fund the new economics building at the University, the working class or some billionaire? Better make sure you don't have any Marxists on staff.
What got me off conservatism is the fact that even Friedman wanted a Welfare System through negative tax returns.
However that idea was absolutely dismissed by conservatives.