Life has never been better for the vast majority of the world, always remember that the media are always looking for news stories and controversial or negative ones are often easy targets. There is definitely a bit of a crunch going on in peoples finances because inflation has warped the economy in the last few years, however that is starting to stabilize now and pay increases did somewhat keep up for many people. We are potentially entering a new "boom" era with interest rates coming down and that is usually a prime time for earning money. We will see all those people with expensive mortgages having more spending power unlocked and that will be spent elsewhere in the economy in good or services.