It's quite hard to evaluate USA personal wealth, let alone quality of life, over the last 20 or 30 years, many of the official stats have been so messed with. I have seen credible data that indicates the income of the lower 80% of the US population has declined fairly steadily in constant $ terms since the late 1970s. I think that US per capita wealth in constant $ terms peaked in about 1978.

The truth for more than 50% of the US population is probably: life is worse now than 30 years ago. Despite economic growth, despite the extra consumption of fossil hydrocarbons, despite the extra money bouncing around. I'm not talking relatively (they feel poorer but are actually richer) I am talking in absolute measures of life quality. Is a child richer for watching hours of cartoons on TV or for interacting with a parent?

Later, when we or our descendents look back, I think they'll conclude that somehow we bought a delusion and went off the rails in many ways. It will seem so obvious then, in retrospect. They will find it hard to understand how we couldn't see it.

There are many inaccuracies in Halfin's post. US oil consumption was exponential to 1973, corrected by 20% by 1980 then grew on a linear basis to date and is forecast by the EIA to continue so.