Right. People are going crazy over the $500k number 40 years out but, in real dollars, that could easily convert to a middle-class wage today.

Actually, one of my (many) issues with political discourse today is that thanks to inflations, "the rich" has been defined down brutally over the past 30 to 40 years. Anyone currently making $250/year, yeah, if they're hurting it's their own damn fault for overreaching, but that is very rapidly becoming merely upper middle class. Meanwhile, neither our legal/tax nor our social definitions of "rich" are being updated at anywhere near the proper speed.

I recall somewhere seeing that if you take the term "millionaire" at the time that it was coined, it would today take 130 million to have that same level of wealth. I can't seem to scare up a reference, but it's at least broadly correct even if I'm off by 10 or 20%. If you don't retire a millionaire in 2030/2040 money, you're going to be in real trouble. You're probably in trouble if you retire merely as a millionaire.

And yet many of the things that average people enjoy today could not be obtained with any amount of money when my grandfather was alive. Where I live, today, an annual income of U.S.$250,000 is very comfortable indeed (and rather rare).

Right, this is a common economic discussion. People under the poverty line today can afford a roof, TV, and a home phone; 70 years ago they would stand in bread lines. Quality of life has definitely improved.