> What has changed since the 1970s is a greater proportion of productivity improvement has gone to capital vs labour.

The evidence just doesn't support this. There are analyses that purport to, but they look at wages rather than total compensation (including benefits)

Do you think adding ~10k/year/person for very good group health insurance[0] fully closes that gap? I recall the divergence being a good deal larger than that. At the median, that's about a 20% boost in wages; still doesn't close the gap here, for instance: https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/

[0] 2020-2021 prices from a previous employer's details

This chart tracks the income (including benefits) of "production/nonsupervisory workers" and compares it to per capita GDP. This is not quite the same claim as the one I was replying to, which is that labor in general gets a smaller share of the national income than it used to.

Yes, but the big increase in reported mental health issues started around 2007 or so.

Not communal idyll but a shift in expectations.

The internet, social media, higher living standards, globalization, etc. all of these things have moved people out of their local bubble and into a global worldview. It's much easier to be depressed when your expectations are 10x those of your parents or grandparents because you are now growing up in a more stable time and have more exposure to what is possible.

There will be exceptions but talk to older boomers or ideally the silent gen then talk to a recent college grad. I'm not playing "whose suffering is the greatest" or "greater suffering invalidates lesser suffering" but there is a massive difference in perspective and expectations.

I fall into the expectations trap myself and talking to older family members helps me get grounded, avoid doom-spiraling, and appreciate the freedom and opportunities that exist today.

Productivity is up due to technology, not increased working hours. Americans work a lot less now than they did in the 1950s: https://www.humanprogress.org/senator-sanders-and-the-averag.... In fields where technology doesn’t help, productivity is basically flat for decades.

Likewise, capital’s share of GDP is flat since the 1950s and if you factor out real estate, has declined from 25% to under 20%. https://www.brookings.edu/bpea-articles/deciphering-the-fall...

I would also posit that moving far away from grandma and not being forced to socialize with mixed-age communities at church had a much greater impact on ordinary people than whether capital has 20% or 25% share of GDP.