>what's much more common in my experience is frustration with the mathematical invariant that 50% of households can't afford a 50th percentile lifestyle.
Are we calling "shelter and 2 kids" a "50th percentile lifestyle" now? Is half the country now destined to either not raise family or raise a family on substandard conditions (putting a huge systematic burden on a child's upbringing)?
If such basic goals set by biology a million years ago cannot be obtained, we aren't truly a society anymore. And probably won't be for long.
Again, it depends entirely on what you mean by "substandard". It's entirely reasonable to demand specific standards - "children should have healthy food", "children should have health insurance coverage", etc. The median American child gets these things, with 81% of American children satisfying even the strictest standards of food security and 94% having health insurance. Getting these numbers closer to 100% is a laudable goal, and I've never encountered an effort to do so that I didn't support. Perhaps there's some other standard that isn't commonly tracked but should be!
If you mean "comparatively substandard", again, you have an unresolvable argument with mathematics. No system can possibly arrange things so that 80% or even 60% of American households have a 50th percentile standard of living.
Are we calling "shelter and 2 kids" a "50th percentile lifestyle" now? Is half the country now destined to either not raise family or raise a family on substandard conditions (putting a huge systematic burden on a child's upbringing)?
If such basic goals set by biology a million years ago cannot be obtained, we aren't truly a society anymore. And probably won't be for long.