The article cites income increase but doesn't talk about the necessary factors even if you're only talking numbers:
1) real inflation (ie, cost of living has skyrocketed due to rent/medical) outweighs any income increases.
2) overall wealth was not accounted for - in fact many Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, probably far more than at any corresponding postwar period in the US.
In short "prosperity" != income. Ignoring things like cost of living and the high possibility of surprise bankruptcy due to medical emergencies lead to a very inaccurate picture.
Well said, and the easiest metric you could look at w/r/t cost-of-living is the average income : house price ratio. What was once withing reach for most educated workers is now often a fantasy for the rich. Unfortunately it is also what the lion's share of paychecks is often spent on.
This. An incredibly rich top 0.1% percent could skew GDP per capita a lot, but a happiness index not so much.
Simplifying things to the extreme, take 100 people where half of them earn $1 and are unhappy and half $2 and are happy. Give one person a $150 raise-- you just doubled the GDP but at best increased happiness by 1%.
It is no secret that a small percent of people have been getting very rich [1].
1) real inflation (ie, cost of living has skyrocketed due to rent/medical) outweighs any income increases.
2) overall wealth was not accounted for - in fact many Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, probably far more than at any corresponding postwar period in the US.
In short "prosperity" != income. Ignoring things like cost of living and the high possibility of surprise bankruptcy due to medical emergencies lead to a very inaccurate picture.