> Relative to the times, obviously, people at every time do exactly as well. You would be measuring a thing against itself. My point is that "relative to the t

> Relative to the times, obviously, people at every time do exactly as well. You would be measuring a thing against itself. My point is that "relative to the times" captures a lot of the crucial things worthy of comparison. The fact that menial, what would now be considered "gig" jobs, in the 60s and 70s all were W2 and all had unions and pensions, many of which are still paying out to this day, is a gargantuan difference to how things are now. It's something you can't simply ignore. Imagine an Amazon warehouse worker making enough money working fair hours to build a house and then live off their pension for 30 years. It would be physically impossible in our current timeline. In this timeline, even tech workers don't have benefits that will last beyond their 2.5 year tenure at whatever startup, and those lucky enough to have equity have no guarantee that it will be worth anything for more than a few years. The favorable circumstances of yesteryear are gone, and that's the elephant in the room that any charitable analysis of this absolutely needs to quantify and address.