high salaries and booming stock market are the result of an increased standard of living due to technological advances. If you looked at the standard of living of a middle class person in 1975 it would be worse than someone making $15/hour today on average.

More and more people are not interested in spending 50+ hours a week in bullshit jobs to just be able to buy a Mercedes and join a golf club. A lot of us are perfectly happy driving Toyotas.