So my theory is that it’s all due to averages and stratification. There are certain portions of the population that have much more disposable income than did before. The spending by those groups is more than offsetting the loss of spending by group such as yourself. This makes it looks like the economy is doing well…. on average.
And in fact when you look at it in the average, which is how it’s reported, it is doing better the economy is better. The only problem is there are some people doing much much better and some people doing much much worse. So yes, the economy is doing “better”, but most of that better is going to a small group of people.