Your article is simply not true. The world has been overly better off, including Americans over the past 300 years or so. Life is improving despite of economic recessions. Proof with evidence here
The rich invest their money in industries that employ the poor and middle class. Otherwise they wouldn't be rich or becoming richer. The wealth gap might be increasing but so does life quality.
Never in history you can go to a shop called McDonalds and have a full meal with just a dollar. You are just measuring the haves and havenots with your own version of equilibrium. If I have a house and a steady job and you have also a house and steady job but also earn 100000% times more, I am still better off rather than compared to 100 years ago where you had a house and job and I was living in the streets while our wealth was only 100% wide.
Don't worry. America has no "hunger" problem. Quite the opposite. It has a problem of abundance (if you could call that a problem).
if you dont consider half a dozen burgers as a meal then I dont know....
but the amount of money people had was also lower, one reason being the type of money people were using. Real precious metals and such.