Economists are dismayed by the people who routinely claim that life in not getting better.
FWIW: I seriously wonder if inability to process this is actually a psychological condition that will one day get into the DSM, or be treated with pharmaceuticals.†
Anyway, Gwern brings us “My Ordinary Life: Improvements Since the 1990s”, a long and diverse list of things that have gotten better.
In terms of macroeconomics, each one of these is a way in which real GDP and/or real GDP per capita growth rates understate changes in well-being.
† This is not a view I have come to lightly. For example, the obsession with measuring which country is “winning” by who exports the most most, had completely turned the truth upside down: on their own, exports requite work without any benefit. Or take the example of plastic pollution in the oceans. People are concerned both about large pieces floating in the Pacific because they have not broken down, and microplastics floating in the oceans because they have broken down. Yes, I understand and want no plastics in the ocean at all. But what concerns me is the number of people who don’t recognize those as potentially contradictory dislikes that one should be able to prioritize.
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