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Yes, Things Get Better Over Time, that’s also not a new phenomenon. Even if you don’t compare against a well-off previous generation, there are 2 issues:

1) Not enough young people can contribute to make social security payments to the elderly, across most of the developed world. A typical pension in Belgium is almost comparable to a typical young person’s salary.

2) At a young age, the previous 2–3 generations could afford social mobility levers, i.e. a house and car.

Note that I’m not commenting on the management, investment strategy, returns, or sustainability of social security (point 1).

“Across the vast majority of space-time”, the elderly also somewhat contributed to the tribal/community needs, trained their replacements, cared for grandchildren, and so on. Oh, and everyone was poor, so the range in standard of living was reasonably tight.