Our standard of living has been in decline for generations, I've made that argument before but the upper class has never been wealthier.
Wingnuts $#@! the bed over the concept of "wealth redistribution" and I'm not suggesting that, but the market is not free in the sense that the upper class has a distinct lock (privilege) on it. The middle and lower class can work hard and make the right moves and still, consistently, not achieve peak success.
This system is broken because we let the upper class govern ourselves, of course they're going to look out for themselves first. This is why it pisses me off when I see regular people like us kissing the rich white guys ass by saying "we wouldn't have jobs, we wouldn't have capital, we wouldn't have economic growth if they weren't so $#@!ing filthy rich" which is just utter bull$#@!.
So we bicker over minimum wages, shrinking middle classes, taxes, welfare and the upper class gets fatter and fatter.
So how are we collectively not a pack of idiots?