I believe that real incomes, even under some expert analysis incorporating my vaguely-proposed adjustments and assuming I'm even right in the first place, are up! I haven't done the legwork to be prepared to argue against that, and anyway I very much doubt it's wrong. We are better off, over all, I think, than in the early 20th century (say).
I just also don't think we're as much better off as some common metrics suggest. I especially worry that those kinds of measurements have been badly decoupled from reality over, in particular, the last ~50 years or so, such that experienced improvements in standard of living are far smaller than one might think from looking at the numbers, and I think that's true not only because we see certain very-important things like housing, healthcare, and education costs outpacing inflation, but because of declines in the quality of many (not all!) goods at nominally-same (inflation adjusted) prices. In fact, I think this is part (in addition to the oft-blamed Baumol's cost disease) of why those important things are outpacing inflation so very much—they can't cut quality as readily or as much as other categories of goods have been able to, so only have actual productivity increases to put downward pressure on their costs, and I think actual productivity increases have been... quite a bit smaller over the last five decades than some figures suggest they are.
I think progress is far more mixed—and that an awful lot of real progress has manifested due to regulation forcing quality above certain levels, in concert with improvements in industry & materials, not solely from productivity increases or better materials. This is a sharply different narrative than the common one, especially since Reagan in US popular culture, and in modern libertarian-influenced discourse that's now fairly influential.
We have better ordinary, bottom-tier ready-made bread than in 1850 because it's illegal to mix in sawdust now, and not only is it illegal, there's a good-enough chance of getting caught and punished that it isn't really a thing any more. We have better housing (to the degree that it is better, which is a mixed bag but I would certainly concede leans overall better) due both to improvements in how we build houses and to new materials, and because legally-required minimum quality is way, way higher than it used to be in a variety of important ways. Cars are very safe mostly because of regulation (they're more reliable largely due to international competition! Market pressure does work, I'm just extremely skeptical that they're as magically-effective, and certainly not as optimally-effective-when-minimally-regulated, as some suppose)
I just also don't think we're as much better off as some common metrics suggest. I especially worry that those kinds of measurements have been badly decoupled from reality over, in particular, the last ~50 years or so, such that experienced improvements in standard of living are far smaller than one might think from looking at the numbers, and I think that's true not only because we see certain very-important things like housing, healthcare, and education costs outpacing inflation, but because of declines in the quality of many (not all!) goods at nominally-same (inflation adjusted) prices. In fact, I think this is part (in addition to the oft-blamed Baumol's cost disease) of why those important things are outpacing inflation so very much—they can't cut quality as readily or as much as other categories of goods have been able to, so only have actual productivity increases to put downward pressure on their costs, and I think actual productivity increases have been... quite a bit smaller over the last five decades than some figures suggest they are.
I think progress is far more mixed—and that an awful lot of real progress has manifested due to regulation forcing quality above certain levels, in concert with improvements in industry & materials, not solely from productivity increases or better materials. This is a sharply different narrative than the common one, especially since Reagan in US popular culture, and in modern libertarian-influenced discourse that's now fairly influential.
We have better ordinary, bottom-tier ready-made bread than in 1850 because it's illegal to mix in sawdust now, and not only is it illegal, there's a good-enough chance of getting caught and punished that it isn't really a thing any more. We have better housing (to the degree that it is better, which is a mixed bag but I would certainly concede leans overall better) due both to improvements in how we build houses and to new materials, and because legally-required minimum quality is way, way higher than it used to be in a variety of important ways. Cars are very safe mostly because of regulation (they're more reliable largely due to international competition! Market pressure does work, I'm just extremely skeptical that they're as magically-effective, and certainly not as optimally-effective-when-minimally-regulated, as some suppose)