Technological advances will always ensure that by some objective standards, life is always getting better. Medical advances, improved consumer goods, etc. will always make things better in a sense. But in broader terms, when I look at my parents' trajectory, it's pretty clear to me that there's a significant difference between then and now.
They were born in the mid-1950s to working class families and their lives basically went like:
-graduate university at 22 with almost no student debt (despite their families not really being able to contribute much) and walk into solid careers upon graduation
-buy a house at 23 which cost about $210K in today's dollars. Yes, rates were higher, but even at peak rates their mortgage payment would have been about $2K in today's dollars. And yeah, it was a relatively modest house, but today that exact same house is worth well over $1M and would require a mortgage payment of about $5K.
-have kids starting at 25
-upgrade their house a couple of times in their 30s and 50s to their current 5,000 square foot ocean-view house.
-retire in their mid-to-late-50s with very generous pensions
-buy a vacation house in California in their mid-50s and spend 1/3rd of the year there during their (long) retirement.
Is that doable for someone coming out of high school now with similar effort and aptitude? Not remotely. Yeah, if you're a high enough earner, but my parents had normal jobs. Their trick was generally living modestly in their 20s -> 40s and saving money, but housing has become so expensive, that you simply can't pull that off through saving.
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