Previous generations had significantly higher tax rates for the ultra-wealthy and had wages that were in line with inflation. Those wages have stagnated for decades and all those taxes have been pulled back. All of this started to happen around the time of Gen X onwards.

In exchange we have cheap Chinese produced crap that shows the mirage of wealth but in reality there are external costs to all this tech that is not priced in when you go to pay for it. Costs such as the slave wages paid to the people who produce them and the environmental cost to produce and dispose. If US consumers had to pay the true cost of all these toys then it would expose the wage gap much more clearly.