Food and housing is extremely cheap in America. Americans have an extremely low cost of living and low taxes compared to every other wealthy country. Also higher wages for similar jobs.
One reason everyone thinks it's bad is journalists are 1. naturally neurotic people 2. all have student debt 3. all live in expensive cities like NYC and 4. their industry has fewer people earning less than they did 10 years ago. Similar for some other activist classes, though not all.