Considering the decline of economic mobility, increasing income inequality/wealth concentration and most importantly the stagnation of real wages[0], all of which started around the 1980s, it would seem the economic policies prior were more successful in raising all people.
I don’t mean to trivialize the complicated nature of the matter, with the effects of the world wars and globalization + many other factors, it is hard to separate things, but it really does not seem all that difficult to argue that trickle down economics is not better than what we were doing before and to do so in good faith.
Of course, the actual goal of trickle down economics was to concentrate wealth and power into the hands of a few and in that regard it is undeniably a success.
I don’t mean to trivialize the complicated nature of the matter, with the effects of the world wars and globalization + many other factors, it is hard to separate things, but it really does not seem all that difficult to argue that trickle down economics is not better than what we were doing before and to do so in good faith.
Of course, the actual goal of trickle down economics was to concentrate wealth and power into the hands of a few and in that regard it is undeniably a success.
[0]: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/08/07/for-most-...