The chart above is from a 1995 Reason Magazine article " The Good Old Days Are Now ," by W. Michael Cox, senior vice president and chief economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

Forget what you've heard in the media about "working harder and getting further behind." Most Americans today have both more leisure and better goods than they did even 10 or 20 years ago, and most of us certainly live at a much higher standard of living than our grandparents or great-grandparents, despite the fact that many people today mistakenly think their standard of living is declining.

Exhibit A: Look at the evidence in the chart above, and consider that further improvements have been made since 1990. We now live longer, start to work later in life and work much less annually (1,562 hours annually in 1990 vs. 3,069 hours in 1870), spend 30% less time working around the home vs. 100 years ago, retire earlier, have an increasing number of years in retirement (expected time in retirement was 0 years through all of human history until the last quarter century or so), experience 3X as much waking leisure now compared to our ancestors in the 1800s, etc. etc.

According to Dr. Cox, "Being distracted by the myth of declining living standards isn't getting us anywhere. The evidence is overwhelming. On average, Americans are better off than ever before."

Just ask yourself: would you be willing to trade the life you lead today, with your current income and with all of the modern conveniences, all of the new and improved products like computers and cell phones, all of the medical advances, for the life of your great-grandparents? I sure wouldn't, and I think the people who would trade their standard of living today for their grandparents' would be the rare exception.