>>514764951 (OP)
No, its not just you, its fucking awful.
TLDR. Wealth concentrated within the highest social classes, the remaining wealth spread out over more people.
Economically there is only so much cake. Yes, the cake can grow as a result of higher efficiency, various windfalls, and improved technology. More wealth can be generated by increasing the population but that means more people wanting a share of the cake.
50 years ago the wealth was heavily concentrated in the West. Even then it was more evenly more distributed across the classes. That's why you typically many people enjoying a middle class lifestyle, own home, supported by a single income.
Then two things happened. Big business began to offshore manufacturing overseas where labor costs were crazy cheap. This resulted in huge profits them, but also resulted in some 3rd world countries being able to lift their standards of living. Secondly the population boom after WW2 resulted in many more people, which meant higher demand for natural resources such as energy and building materials. While many natural resource remain the cost of extracting them had become higher, and the increased demand began to push prices up. Housing became increasingly more expensive.
As the asset purchasing power of the middle class bean to decline we witnesses the beginning of what I call the "the neo-feudal era", with the wealthy buying up property the middle class could no longer afford and cementing ownership over remaining resources and other assets. It was a vicious cycle as the more wealth became concentrated in the hands of a few they more political power they were able to exercise, which inevitably meant tightening their control over wealth distribution.
At the same time developing nations, such as China in particular were advancing to the stage where their common people anted a slice of he good life too. Although still living in conditions well below Western standards they all wanted a microwave oven and even a car too.