Democracy is ostensibly majority rule (don't nitpick).
The majority of people are poor.
Therefore, democracy is the rule of the poor (Aristotle).
We do not live in a democracy.
The poor have the opportunity to vote, and rule indirectly, and yet for many reasons often vote against their own best economic interests. Some of those reasons are good, and some are not.
If you look at the progress of the poor in the US over the last 200 years, they're doing really, really well.
"For example, in 2005, 63.7% of those living in poverty had cable or satellite television. In some cases the report even said that people currently living in poverty were actually better off than middle class people of the recent past. For example, in 2005, 78.3% of households living in poverty had air conditioning, whereas in 1970, 36.0% of all households had air conditioning." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States#O...
So in 35 years, 78% of the poor had something that only 36% of households had previously.
Lacking access to necessary food/shelter/health care is "absolute poverty" (not the usually reported "relative poverty" rate https://www.debt.org/faqs/americans-in-debt/poverty-united-s...). And by that measure, including existing government and other benefits and transfer payments, the US poverty rate is near zero. https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2015/09/17/americas...
I'm not saying we can't do better, but we should also realize how far we've come.
If you go to Mexico, you'll see people living in much hotter conditions without air conditioning (but they still have satellite TV).
Cable TV and air conditioning show the shifting standard of living that represents "poor" in the united states, and illustrate that a large percentage of "poor" definitely have the necessities (shelter in particular), as opposed to the "absolute poverty" who lack basic necessities of food/shelter/access to health care.
Quality of life is a different question, and very difficult to measure.