The Relative Game of Status

In the United States, even within the lowest quintile, people generally have air conditioning, a refrigerator, a car. The level of actual wealth is much higher than it's been in American history to the point where a poor person today has it better than Rockefeller did back in his day. So you can be a cleaner and be perfectly happy as long as you feel like you're an above-average cleaner,. Once you've got that, everything else is status.