[lazyier]

Wealth spread really doesn't matter so long as everybody is getting wealthier.

Which is exactly what is happening. By every metric imaginable the entire population of the planet is gaining in wealth. Some quicker then others. But gains are largely universal. Poverty is at it's lowest point in all of human history. And in a month it'll be even lower.

Also when wealth goes up, overall consumption as measured by actual natural resources consumed goes down. People have this misconception that increased wealth equals increased consumption, which is hardly the case. Wealth represents a increase in well being, which more often then not, is a result of increased efficiency.

By 'increased efficiency' I mean less human effort is required to produce more with less.

[throwawaybbb]

The bottom 50% of the US are poorer than they were in 1968 in both real and absolute terms.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_Unite...

[nkurz]

I skimmed through the Wikipedia article you linked, but didn't see proof of that. I certainly could have missed it, though. Which part of the article do you feel supports your claim?

[thepangolino]

Income inequality is a very flower metric to mesure wealth variations.

Imagine country A, awesome with very little income inequality. Half it’s citizens earn 9k a year and the other half 10k a year.

Now country B, is very bad. 90% make 50k a year and the other 10% make 500k. That’s terrible, isn’t it? I wouldn’t want to live in country B.

[throwawaybbb]

The bottom 50% of US citizens have -0.2 trillion in wealth. That's right, they are in debt.

Never in the history of the world have the poor had less than nothing.

[danharaj]

But smartphones! /s

[TFYS]

Wealth spread does matter, though. Inequality decreases happiness, increases crime rate, concentrates power, etc. If you're poor the fact that you have a roof over your head, food to eat and a smartphone in your pocket doesn't make you feel any better if everywhere you go you see people who are much better off than you.

[thulecitizen]

For me this claim that the world is only getting better has largely been debunked as junk science:

“ What Roser’s numbers actually reveal is that the world went from a situation where most of humanity had no need of money at all to one where today most of humanity struggles to survive on extremely small amounts of money. The graph casts this as a decline in poverty, but in reality what was going on was a process of dispossession that bulldozed people into the capitalist labour system, during the enclosure movements in Europe and the colonisation of the global south.” [1]

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/29/bill-g...

[AJ007]

Well you could look at childhood mortality rates as well.