Until we have a more robust conception of what human wellbeing is and what contributes to it other than ("well not being dirt poor and on the verge of death helps, and at some point there are diminishing returns") data like this just strikes me as barking up the wrong tree.

Humans, so far, have been pretty good at improving shit within the current boundaries of their awareness of improvement, and often at the expense of "other people that don't deserve it". Capitalism has been particularly effective at unleashing energy, productive and destructive - though there's also fossil fuels in there. But it could perhaps be a product of that energy release, not it's cause.

By and far, they've been shit at understanding the meta effects of what they are doing or the long term effects of that. Which is hard. Our brain is not built for long time horizons or non-linear causation or even very much meta.

It's a good thing less humans are super poor. Still some questions about whether this world is the only world in which that would happen.