That is just a huge mess of tautologies. Like the way they measure the housing you need to thrive is by the 40th percentile of rent. But today's apartments are much nicer than apartments in 1963, so the 40th percentile is buying a much better product today than in 1963.

This makes "thriving" a constantly moving target, because by definition 40 percent of people have housing that sucks too much. This does reflect realities of human psychology (our happiness is mostly about relative well-being, not absolute well-being), but it is not remotely useful for comparing material living standards over time.