> Americans are richer than ever.

By what metric? One way is to look at the Gini coefficient - that’s worse than ever.

The bottom 20% has 2-3% of total net worth in the US. The middle 40% has seen a decline from 36% in 1989 to 28% in 2020. The top 0.1% has seen their net worth capture double from 7% in 1989 to 14% today.

The subtle thing that net worth ignores of course is inflation from growth in costs, so actually it’s harder for most people than in 1989, unless you’re talking about the ease of buying a TV or phone. Technology is more available and cheaper than ever but food and medicine is more expensive than ever.