The gap between the richest and the poorest is probably the largest ever, but today people are also living far more comfortably than ever: electricity, heated water, food and water at a press of a button, generally good transportation to pretty much everywhere.
What is lacking, for the less privileged, is mostly lack of access to affordable housing and a bad diet (arguably this is mostly due to the enticing nature of fast food and lack of education about how bad it is). Other than that the basic life necessities don't differ too wildly for the rich and the everyone who is not homeless.
I think it's a little to easy to overlook the abject poverty which still exists in this country. More than two million Americans lack access to clean water or sanitation. I personally know millennials who didn't have hot water in their house growing up. They would heat water on the stove for baths, at least when their utilities were turned on. There exist towns where literal sewage is running out of people's houses in areas where kids play. Hookworm for example is still rampant in parts of the US. Half of our rivers and streams and one third of our lakes are too polluted to swim or fish in, much less drink from. 99% of households having a refrigerator doesn't mean these folk are living comfortably.
I believe it needs to also be said that bad diet is a side effect of everyone trying to produce with cheaper and cheaper materials. I shudder to think what kinds of ingredients are some of the foods I see in cheaper shops made from.
This is not sustainable. It cannot last for that much longer IMO. Literally and metaphorically, people are getting sick of it. They notice. They are not dumb. They might be in denial (people just LOVE their chips and cola for some reason) but they are not dumb.
I see more and more people in my neighborhood going to the local market and negotiating with vendors coming straight from agrarian villages for a "monthly subscription" of sorts -- you bring me one huge basket with fruits and veggies every weekend, I pay you, say, $200 a month. The vendor gets a stable income, you get actual bio food and don't have to pick and choose every tomato and parsley leaf every damn time. The vendors have a vested interest not to cheat their most stable and profitable customers.
Sadly all these societal changes are glacially slow, giving the opportunists plenty of breathing room to swindle people and get rich for decades but oh well, until we develop collective consciousness it seems that this won't ever change... :|
