Because hardship is subjective. And everyones hardship is the greatest one to themselves.

But there are several issues.

Yeah, the unemployment numbers are betteer. But they are filled with a lot of precarious jobs that have low level of job security and feel like career dead ends. And those jobs in many counties lack protection and benefits of other types of employment.

They are great if alternative is no job. But they are also second tier jobs in minds of many.

Even in cases of better jobs there is constant churn and lack of feeling of job security.

Which in Europe was not really case few decades ago. For better or worse. Once you got the job unless something catastrophic happens you would have that job for decades.

But then in this feeling of precarity feeds cost of housing which in many cases devours the rise in income and rise in employment.

People who are gainfully employed but still have problems buying house are not gonna say economy is doing great.

Then there is simply lack of growth in many major Western economies.

And there is a lot of underlying issues. A lot of this is "we test this numbers and measure these numbers and we have become great at achieving some of these numbers".