I can tell you that every family that I know in my department, unless they're independently wealthy, is seriously hurting compared to any time in the past decade. That includes faculty and students.

Metrics don't include many things. For example, the fact that your ability to buy a house has fallen dramatically. Or the fact that rents in my city have gone up 25%+ in the past 3 years and now graduate students have to share 1 bedroom homes (they use curtains to separate out the living room). Or that the cost of childcare has skyrocketed to the point where it's far higher than a mortgage.