The context of the thread assumes that we're talking about wealth. The original claim was something like, "in the US you must be in the management class in order to have a life worth living". I.e., we're talking specifically about wealth and not other subjective factors. To be perfectly clear, there are no metrics that contradict that the median American is wealthy by world or historic standards.

Maybe you're arguing that I have no way of knowing that poorer people would be envious of richer people; fair enough, "envious" was figurative language on my part.