We're probably somewhere between 7 and 30 times better off than 100 years ago. The average citizen has no knowledge of the transformation of our economic life over the last 100 years, he says. Americans can be fairly accused of knowing not enough about our own past and our recent past,. So that we do far more romanticization of the recent past than we do study the actual social conditions of the time which are largely miserable for women.
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.