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Your link does not support your claim or in fact mention living standards at all. The fact, widely evident to every American not in the upper 20%, is that your paycheck is bigger, your house is worse, your food is worse, your healthcare is worse, your life expectancy is worse, your children’s education is worse, you have less free time, you can take fewer vacations, and you can buy less of what you want.

The US was #1 on the Human Development Index in 1995, and is now #20, sandwiched between Slovenia and the UAE.

What your link does show is widening income inequality.



Link says the numbers are adjusted to 2023 dollars and a three person household.


I saw that, yet all the above remains true. Income, even after inflation adjustment, isn’t the same thing as living standards.


According to Wiktionary, the standard of living is "the level of income, comforts and services available to an individual, community or society."

Levels of income have risen. Comforts and services available are not as simple to measure as income, but consumption (a decent proxy) is also trending upwards.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.CON.TOTL.CD?location...


Most of that is driven by the top 10%. The top 10% now make up 50% of all consumption in the US. Again demonstrating that inequality matters.


Income can grow (even inflation-adjusted, real income), while standard of living falls.




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