Many people don't realize that the average real wages remained stable over the last 30 years either lol. You can buy more subscriptions and other useless gadgets but the basics are the same (cars) or higher (rent/building). You're in a blind spot because you're in the top 30%, go ask the bottom 70%...

Even if everything was "stable adjusted to inflation" it would hardly be a win, and definitely not something to cheer for or call "progress", that's 30 years of stagnation with a few bells and whistles

https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/

https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/blog_...

https://inflationdata.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2023/1...

https://assets.weforum.org/editor/HFNnYrqruqvI_-Skg2C7ZYjdcX...