An area where the poor in the US are frequently worse off than in the past is in access to quality education for their children, which then holds families and communities in multi-generational poverty, and reinforces the trends described in the article.

When I was young, a unskilled laborer's child had access to the same or similar quality schools as I did (although I had much bigger advantages in culture by having educated parents). Today, the working poor in the US are often "richer" in shallow ways - they can buy a smartphone and a big TV - but they are less able than ever to afford a good education for their kids, usually because they simply cannot afford a home in a good school district.