At least you can be guaranteed for certain you won't be going hungry in Istanbul, Warsaw or Amman.
Of course many do struggle, and that should not be dismissed by pointing to the past. But it nonetheless strikes me as naive to believe that people today are hungrier than at any point in recent history - the obesity crisis, and its lack of discrimination between social classes, should at least in part demonstrate this.
In my opinion, such exaggerations mostly serve to discredit and distract from legitimate complaints about the cost of living today.
The obesity crisis is in part because of the unavailability of nutritious food and the proliferation of cheap junk masquerading as food. But even that is getting expensive these days. Actual food prices have been going on an uptick since the 00s.
I will make my stand on the fact that more people lived better during the 90s in the West than now.