The traditional methods for measuring economic prosperity are basically the same way a cancer cell measures its success: growth. If Gross Domestic Product increases, the economy is successful. Well, productivity has always been increasing, sometimes more, sometimes less; but as it has been growing, the profit from this growth in productivity has been accumulating in fewer and fewer hands. GD grows, and along with it income disparity grows. That is not what most of us would consider a healthy economy. GDP can increase even while jobs are lost, wages decline, cost of living goes up, and quality of life deteriorates; the fruits of labor are not equitably distributed.
If you study economics in any institution of higher learning, you will never learn about inequality; it is irrelevant to economics theories. There is a disconnection between the economy and real life, between the economy and society, in most economics theories. You just need growth, and growth is the definition of everything good. But the economy does not grow the same way for everyone.
In this way economics is not the science it pretends to be, it is philosophy; indeed, it can sometimes almost become theology.