Has American standard of living gone down or up in the last 50 years?

Hmm, as an outsider please let me ask: Why, when I visited the US, was this European shocked by finding many Americans can't afford decent housing, can at best rent one single room in a house? Very different for many European countries.

This reminds on the situation in a country I know a bit, New Zealand, where housing also the last 20 years became more and more unaffordable for MANY, with the Kiwi dream of your own house for a good part of the younger generations much further away than 20 or 30 years ago.

You mention clothes, whiteware etc. This is, as a German banker once famously called it, "peanuts" = nothing. Housing is the single one thing that decides over standard of living. A fancy 65" TV and having Netflix doesn't compensate for having to watch Telly - and to live(!) - in a shed.

With housing as the main criterion I am not that sure how much the standard of living really did increase for a good part of the Western population - especially in the English-speaking countries.