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I don’t think it misses the point at all. The world is amazing today, and a larger number of people than ever get to experience an extraordinary standard of liv

• b20000 5y ago
  amazing? years ago you could buy a house as a single person for cheap, you could save for retirement easily, no college debt, blablabla. what are you talking about? current and previous generation have it much more difficult than the boomer generation. without insanely high salaries you won't be able to buy a house in the bay area and pay for everything else.
• havelhovel 5y ago
  In this particular case, the presenter is talking about the US middle class, and not worldwide trends, where I would otherwise agree with your sentiment. So I really do think it's missing the point to say that the middle class isn't actually shrinking because we've got all these great new gadgets and services instead of traditional middle class trappings like housing. Compared to prior years, the difference in housing affordability relative to median income is equal to hundreds of maxed-out iPhones. [1],[2] Avoiding a new iPhone purchase or canceling a Blue Apron subscription won't make up the difference. These things aren't priced equivalently, and frugality doesn't work if one is completely priced out of the market. [1] https://quotewizard.com/news/posts/americas-unaffordable-housing-costs https://quotewizard.com/news/posts/americas-unaffordable-hou... [2] https://www.longtermtrends.net/home-price-median-annual-income-ratio/ https://www.longtermtrends.net/home-price-median-annual-inco...