> every country in the world today have much higher life expectancy than USA in 1900. That isn't perfect, but they aren't dying in droves. Sure. That's aligned

> every country in the world today have much higher life expectancy than USA in 1900. That isn't perfect, but they aren't dying in droves. Sure. That's aligned with my point, since [i] modern medicine exists, although the benefits of not dying from preventable disease are unevenly distributed [ii] I wouldn't consider the average US citizen in 1900 to be anything other than very poor relative to modern living standards. I've spent time in the developing world so I'm well aware you can get a long way with a lot less than developed world minimum wages. I'm also aware that, say, $2.50 PPP (typically about $0.50 in actual local currency) doesn't buy you much of a life even there. And yes, I've also chosen to work less than modern western labour says we should for large parts of my life. But again, if that was taken into account then most of the people in the bottom half of the global income distribution would be worse off, since they're the ones that don't have favourable labour laws, state pensions or the disposable income to take career breaks. I'd agree people on typical Chinese income aren't doing too badly in having material needs met, but the working hours and conditions many have to tolerate [for now] shifts a lot of them back towards "poor"