This is partly why some people use more "holistic" indices like the Human Development Index which includes education and longevity. It's an attempt to account for non-monetary goals that people have. The truth is that there just cannot be an objective and accurate measure of human wellbeing, and therefore there can be no true measure of economic progress.

That leaves us with imperfect proxies and resorting to questions like whether similar lifestyles could be afforded in the past.