The standard of living isn't even that high. Everything just costs a shitload because we refuse to densify/reduce carbrain infrastructure and ship things from the other side of the world instead of producing locally. There's too many middlemen driving the cost up of everything. So despite the relatively high wages, life still fucking sucks for most people.

What most Americans see as a reduction in living standards would actually be a huge increase once they got over their dumb rugged individualist brainwashing.