Or worse. At least those dull and exhausting jobs could formerly afford you a reasonably content middle class lifestyle with a modest home, but that is increasingly out of reach of even some of the most successful in society at least in some countries, if you'd like to live where there are actually jobs.

As we continue down this road to a winner takes all society, I'm not so sure this is what I'd call progress, and I'm easily in the top 20% of income.

Both a middle class lifestyle and a modest home are moving targets. People eat out a lot more than in the 70’s, they have larger homes and smaller families, they have safer and more reliable cars, they live longer.

As far as being able to live where the jobs are this is a problem caused by NIMBYs. This is not a problem they have in Japan.

The root cause is fewer desirable jobs. Fewer businesses with a larger share of the market, in fewer and fewer places.

Desirable jobs is also a moving target. I’d bet a lot of money that virtually every job is safer than in the 70’s, more are indoors, fewer are outside or demand physical labour. If you mean that the supply of desirable jobs has increased slower than demand, sure, I can buy that.

Fewer jobs offer job security and decent pay. Because of less job security, you need to be in a market with many employers (aka cities), and this results in more people living in fewer places, which means higher rent.

That translates to needing higher pay, or at least a career where you can outpace rent and insurance costs. There are some manual labor jobs that pay well outside of cities, but you have to watch out for the condition your body will be in since people live longer and there will be less of a social safety net for when you are disabled and/or are too old to work.

Bottom line is more and more people are less and less valuable.

Japan doesn't have an artificial demand problem like some other countries. They're also not mentally disabled by skin color.

> How long before we get to a situation where this is a realistic proposition for many people?

the FIRE (Financial Independence / Retire Early) movement is showing how most people can do this in a matter of 20 years instead of 40, with those who are highly-compensated doing it in 5-10 years.

20 years of drudgery is much better than 40-60, so I'd say we're at least making progress. The hard part of realizing that goal is the much more difficult skill than the math: establishing what is "enough" for a good life.