Economy looks pretty good and when you look at the data it looks pretty good. Unemployment is very low, we're now in about our 12th year of what would have been considered full employment in the 1960s and 70s with unemployment below 5%. But rate of growth in middle class income is in a long term period of stall. It's stalled at the highest level that it's ever been.
Author Gregg Easterbrook talks about the ideas in his latest book, The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse. How has life changed in America over the last century? Is the average person getting ahead or are the rich taking all the gains? Easterbrook argues that life is better for the average American in almost every dimension. The paradox is that despite those gains, we don't seem much happier.