Increasing income inequality does not automatically mean that living standards are declining.
It can mean that the living standards of the wealthy is growing faster than the living standards of the less wealthy.
As an example, jump over to your LLM of choice and ask it to compare the rate of air conditioning in homes of people at the poverty line, comparing now to 1995. The numbers have jumped substantially since the cost including running cost (energy efficiency) of that technology has improved greatly.
You were confused at that statement of mine that you quoted. What I was trying to say is that you complained about posturing but then engaged in very similar posturing. You’ve made the baseline assumption that living standards are decreasing obviously without any substantiation.
And maybe you’re right, but you haven’t substantiated it, you’ve just engaged in the same style of posturing that you criticized.
Here’s a couple pieces that substantiates my point, which is that global poverty is decreasing (certainly with continuing challenges but overall decreasing): https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/WLD/wor...