> It doesn’t make sense for every level of American to be meaningfully wealthier and higher income than 20 years ago and yet also be suffering… Maybe optimizin

> It doesn’t make sense for every level of American to be meaningfully wealthier and higher income than 20 years ago and yet also be suffering… Maybe optimizing for a high and perpetually growing GDP is not in fact conducive to the mental health of those who generate it. But in any case, I’m not sure that it’s true that every stratum of US citizen has experienced income growth relative to inflation. Thomas Piketty’s analysis of US national income data points to a decline on the bottom end - a group that experiences disproportionately higher rates of mortality and morbidity.