It's always been hard for people in those income buckets. But if the question is: are we in a massive economic downturn over the past half year, it's really hard for me to look at the data and answer with a yes.
One thing I'm looking at is:
https://realtimeinequality.org/
And that's showing that for the first time in over a decade, the bottom half is seeing real wage/wealth gains, even after recent inflation. Am I missing something? Because your sentiment is the more common one.