Gaslighting? Did you read the article? It doesn’t say that the economy is fine. It’s about how social media makes people feel shitty about how much money they (don’t) have, because they see so many people living glamorous lives online.
To know how endemic it is to younger gens, we would need a baseline and to know the prevalence in prior gens.
I suspect that the progression of social media and influencers has amplified a false lifestyle perspective — the same as tv and ads/consumerism would've amplified them for prior gens — but I haven't seen any large cross sectional or generational studies; only ones that are, at best, anecdotal.
Purchasing power of different generations tells you everything you need to know - there's zero ambiguity in this - things have objectively got far worse and far more unequal since the 70's.
Just because one person has an issue and one doesn’t means nothing to the actual story. But I don’t know why I expect anyone to actually read the articles. Lot to ask, I know.