@caryann8514 It might be hard to believe but save for the lack of affordable housing, we're actually better off. Advances in global job outsourcing, OFW inflows, and industrial manufacturing has allowed our economy to experience one of the longest bull runs in economic history from the 80s up until the pandemic hit.
This has allowed the growth of the middle class to its largest ever, alongside growth in pretty much every metric. It's not the best compared to our peers, and frankly we could've grown much more than we did, but the point is people are better off (on the average) now than our parents before us.
On a more personal level, you'll notice it too, there's simply more service and retail businesses catered to middle class than ever before. Luxury niches that couldn't survive as late as the 90s are now staple. The increase in traffic congestion is also from the increase in the availability of cars, and those who can afford cars.
The one downside here is housing, specially in the greater metro areas. The demand greatly outstrips the supply and the increase in purchasing power of the targeted demographics of the real estate, and the drop in base interest rates from 20 years ago, has caused prices to soar. The number of houses barely doubled while the population overall quadrupled in the metros, and that doesn't even include demand from outside the cities.
So yeah, pretty much in every aspect we have it economically easier, except housing, which unfortunately is where you really feel it the most.