In short, from an economic growth perspective -- things have generally worked out. Not that things are perfect, or that I love that anything sitting in my bank is slowly losing value. Just that things have been generally going in a positive direction and I'm personally cool with a slowly devaluing dollar if that means that same general trend continues.
Obviously if you start bringing things like iPhones or pop tarts into it, it becomes entirely subjective, and under certain metrics people today live better than the kings of ancient times simply because we have A/C. But then it becomes more of a philosophical question.
Over the past several hundred years the 'pie' that is total economic goods and services has grown enormously.
However, the share a median income can buy of the pie has shrunk greatly. Inflation vs median income intuitively gives a sense of this while not necessarily being scientific. But then economics is the dismal science.