Comparing the cost of living between 1975 and 2015:

[whatthehey]

41. No. I'm implying, or rather explicitly stating, anecdotes are not data

There are millions of people worse off than their parents and millions better off. DU tends to both welcome and consider normative the former, and resent and dismiss as exceptions the latter, as can be shown by different reactions to them here and many other threads. Rationally, everyone should simply accept both positive and negative anecdotes neutrally, and as having no, or technically an infinitesimally small, impact on the larger economic story. But overall (and not cherrypicked and misleading like the above) data show slow incremental improvement in real median income at all economic levels, certainly outstripped by the very highest earners, which is certainly a problem, but the unceasing doomer DU drumbeat that all but the ultra-rich are losing ground and at grave economic risk is just bullshit that needs to be challenged despite its ubiquity. Are some losing and at grave risk? Obviously, and I vote to raise my taxes to help them every single chance I get, because that's what civilized societies do. Others however are in better shape despite not being within a country mile of the 1%, because despite what DU doomers say, the US economy and labor market are not custom designed to make people poor and keep them that way. Above all, I want to reflect reality, not wallowing in the constant self-justifying doomer nonsense.