daylia:
The article was dull and technical. Except for the conclusions, I don't remember it well. It focused mainly on economic and social issues; things like the number of weekly work hours needed to pay for food, rent, medical care, and so on. The availability and cost of education and technical training. The possibility of upward social mobility. Intangibles like the diversity of available foods and cultural events. The number of hours wasted each week in necessary chores such as getting to and from work; hours needed for shopping, and so forth. It didn't claim that life was better for the common man than it is today but that it was perceived as being better; that, on the whole, people were happier and more hopeful than they are today.

I can give a small example from my own family history. My grandfather was a Polish emmigrant who didn't feel he could raise two children properly on his wages. His boss, another Pole - an orthodox Jew, hired my aunt as a 'Shabas goy'. Her duties were light, except on Shabas, and she was able to spend an hour or two at home almost every day. Till the day she died, she regarded them as an extended part of her family. In fact, I think her teen years were happier than my father's.
He was born in 1903 and she in '05.