That makes it clear. For a reference I've been in between the USA and Australia since first coming to the USA in 1997. The change in wealth of the USA is dramatic. Things were never as extreme in terms of the 3 miles of homeless camps i see in SFO just North of Kings st station. I've never seen so many sleeping under bridges in the valley are itself.

Things have objectively taken a downturn in the USA for the bottom 50% but somehow there's push back against this fact? People are arguing against numbers in this thread.

Perhaps the difference is that since I've been between two countries i haven't suffered the frog in a boiling pot of water effect? To me i leave and come back half a decade later and see huge downwards changes and get frustrated that no one else is noticing :(

I'm sure there's a bit of that, I've traveled to SF and Seattle every few years from NYC and both cities looked drastically more depressing each time that I visited. At the same time I haven't really noticed the huge rise of homelessness in NYC.

From talking to both Americans and immigrants from Asia and Eastern Europe about these issues it seems to me like a lot of Americans have never been outside of North America and have a warped view of the rest of the world, while immigrants from poorer nations still see America as a land of opportunity and compare the living standards of the middle classes in the US vs their home country.

It's really wild to hear Americans act like universal healthcare and free/affordable college is a radical communist agenda that's not fiscally feasible even though most other 1st world nations are able to do it (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_univers...).

Wow, you can really see the top 1% being affected by major financial events: '92 recession, '01 dot bomb, '09 global financial crisis. Meanwhile, the bottom 50% is just a slow downward slide, not majorly affected by any of those.

Wait till you see the impact of quantitative easing and the K shaped recovery:

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/07/09/us/covid-fed-qe-p...

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/07/12/opinion/covid...