It seems to me that this generation will be better than their parents even if wages remain completely flat due to technology innovation.
In the first half of the 20th century, much of the personal productive gains were in labor saving devices like dish washer, washing machines, vacuum cleaners etc. that saved time doing boring household chores. Today there is a lot of time-saving as well. I save 15 minutes an hour watching TV shows due to ad blocking, I know longer have to cut short a shopping trip to rush home to see my favorite show, I spent a fraction of the time being lost in my car than I did 15 years ago, and I know longer play phone tag with a travel agent to book a vacation. Finally, let's not forget the time savings of search. But the technology also brings much more choice like online shopping for virtually anything.
But is also important to understand the economic benefits of this new tech. For a $50 internet connection, $10/month Netflix and $10/month spend on Steam sales have multiple lifetimes of high-quality entertainment available. Now a rich person could spend orders of magnitude more to go see the movie in a theater, buy the game on day 1, go to the sporting event live, or go to a concert. But I'd argue with the possible exception of the concert the quality of their entertainment isn't any better. I remember as a teenager being bored in the summer, it wasn't that there wasn't anything to do, (although with only 5 TV stations all playing re-runs TV wasn't really an option) I just couldn't afford it. I could spend $5 today for a movie, skip movies for two weeks and spend $10 for an album, or save up $20 for a board game and concerts were just too expensive. The range of entertainment choices for a rich person was vastly better than a poor person a generation or two ago. Today, a billionaire who buys every a DVD of almost every movie is no better off than a NetFlix subscriber.,
The smartphone isn't just a time saver it is a huge money saver. A smartphone replaces, alarm clock, watch, tape recorder, camera, scanner, Gameboy, Walkman, paperback novel, DVD player, notebook computer, organizer, GPS navigation, guide book, pay phone, video conference, video camera, and dozen things I haven't even thought about it. This is thousands of dollars on things that a poor person doesn't have to spend money on. A 25 year old today making $34,300 has the same real wage as somebody as 25 year old making $25,000 in 2000. But today's 25 year old has very limited need to buy any of these devices that many 25 year olds desired in 2000.
Last week I got to drive a Tesla with autopilot for a couple of days. It is a huge quality of life improvement, instead of being stressed with bumper to bumper traffic, I move a lever and the car drives itself leaving me to spend the next 20 minutes reading Google News.
Today's batch of babies is going to grow up in a world of on-demand chauffered-driven point to point transportation, aka autonomous Uber cars. Not only will this be a service that only the very rich were able to afford before, but the economics will make it very practical for families to have zero or one cars. A very rich person may still have a driver, and their car will have nicer seats and maybe a bigger screen, but functionally even lower middle-class people will be able to easily get to where the need to go quickly and affordably.
If you don't own a car in SoCal in 2010 you were a 2nd class citizen. I know a group of Gen X and Gen Y in So Cal some are Uber drivers and others Uber customers. While non-car owner still have some quality of life issues, it is lot better not own a car today then it was when I lived there in the 1970s.
My guess is that a 2 person autonomous uber car will cut the price of uber ride by 2/3.
This will dramatically cut the transportation cost of everyone, and luxury item for their parents (a chauffered car) will be normal for today's babies.