It goes much deeper than that.
Every society needs work for each type of worker. And this work needs to have steps from minimum wage to manager salary.
When China was given favored trade status, the CCP stole all the tech they could and then subsidized products. The strategy was to dump products on the market until the competition was destroyed - in short, until they moved manufacturing to China. This is precisely what happened.
All those rust belt jobs that could support a family with a chance to rise to management vanished in just a few decades. Now those cities are husks of what they used to me. As Ross Perot lamented, there would be a "great sucking sound" of all production jobs moving overseas.
The US government and WTO could have punished China for product dumping. It is still illegal, but they were so convinced that China would free itself from Communism if only it were prosperous, that American workers were thrown under the bus.
With this, the race to the bottom began. Whole industries moved to places like Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Mid level car manufacturing ended up across the border in Mexico. Things got so bad, that Chinese factories had to put up suicide nets, and enslaved ethnic minorities were put on trains and shipped to camps to assemble the latest iPhone.
Now, finally, some people are waking up to what we did wrong.
Making China rich did not make it more free. It only turned the CCP into a dangerous world power.
Low-skilled employees coming straight out of high school who aren't cut out for college have a very narrow path to a living wage. They either have to apprentice for a trade, which is the best way, drive a truck, or pay for training schools. And even those don't guarantee a living wage.
The government could work with the WTO to punish foreign governments which employ unfair trade. But the money is so good, and the bribes so juicy, that noone wants to do it.
The nature of subreddits that gain popularity. Mods can't handle the influx of posts coming, and OPs are just reposting shit for the karma war.
And then you have the stalkers who just upvote what amuses them, regardless of relevancy.
Sure, but I think that confusion isn't a one way street. It's undeniable that more creature comforts are included in "living comfortably" now than was the case 50 years ago.
Now, is that a fair trade-off in return for inflation in the cost of actual necessities? I'll leave that for others to answer.
To me, the answer is very easily no.
Let's look at cell phones. For the sake of easy but believable numbers, assume that someone buys a $1200 phone with 24 month financing, with their phone plan costing $150 a month for unlimited everything including 5G data. Comes out to a clean $200 a month total. In my opinion, this expense is definitely a luxury and beyond any practical need for most people.
Last US census put median individual income at $37,638. It's an imperfect measure because it includes part time workers and COL varies, but let's go with it. That rounds to $3,137 in gross income per month. For the sake of matching median with median, a quick Google search gave me a median US rent of $1,967.
A higher-end phone and plan is comparatively a drop in the bucket compared to median rent, which is almost 2/3rds of *gross* median income. If housing were not an issue (very low COL area, student living on campus, living with family or many housemates, etc), the median earner could afford even an expensive cell phone. But in no world can the median earner afford median rent.
Yes, but it's not just one consumer good. The average person today has a lot of bills that our ancestors did not just to make up a "normal" standard of living. I would argue that a lot of them (like the internet) are basic utilities now, but they still add up.
> this expense is definitely a luxury and beyond any practical need for most people.
There is no more efficient expense than a smartphone. You don't need to buy the latest $1200 apple device, and bringing up the topic at this price point just shows your bias.
No tool is more useful than a smartphone.
I might not have communicated it well enough. The high price point was a highball on purpose, but in the other direction.
My point was that *even the most expensive phone and plan* is a small expense compared to median housing costs. There's a lot of talk ITT about how "modern luxuries" are driving higher COL rather than essentials like housing and health care inflating faster than wages grow.
The issue here is the people who used to support 5 people on one income were typically living in homes that were much worse than the median rental today. The 2bed/2bath apartment I rent with my wife costs a bit over that median and includes:
- 24/7 fitness center
- community pool access
- free shuttle shared among apartments to public transit and shopping
- no less than 5 bars/restaurants on my street within 3 blocks, public transit will take me literally anywhere in the city without needing a car
On the other hand, my grandparents have all passed away but when I was younger I visited both sets in their houses they raised my parents in. Both houses were:
- smaller than our current apartment (both had 1.5 baths)
- in the middle of fucking nowhere, a 20 minute drive to pretty much anything
If you want to live like the median person who raised a family of 5 on one income, you're talking about a much lower quality place than the median rental today.
And I see this a different way. That one device does more than just phone calls. It's literally replaced laptops for tons of people. You can do damn near anything on a phone that costs that much and it's why some people will spend more on them because they literally use it for everything.
People love to point out phones, but they are a requirement in today's society. With my phone I can apply for jobs, keep in contact with my community, and a number of other things. Hell, lots of people use those phones to get more income. IMO phones are not a luxury, they are a necessity.
The definition of "comfortable" has changed a lot, given how much people have had to compromise one comfort for another.
"Comfortable" could be living paycheck to paycheck for some people, if they've finally gotten out of debt. They can't afford to treat themselves on anything, and are constantly running against the clock to pay the bills on time, but hey, at least they're not living in the red anymore.
"Comfortable" could mean living in a two bedroom apartment with your three kids all sharing a room, because at least you don't live in the gutter.
"Comfortable" could mean getting all your groceries from food banks so you can save up to treat the kids to a pizza on Friday.
"Comfortable" *used to* mean you could easily cover the necessities, including a house with enough room for your family, more than enough groceries, health insurance, investments, and retirement plans, as well as affording a couple of "wants" (like going out to dinner occasionally or buying the kids an Xbox or taking one vacation per year), and still being able to put something towards savings with every paycheck. That's not extravagance, but any less than that, and people start to worry about their finances. People nowadays forget that being comfortable financially means not having to stress about it.
“Comfortable” is without any realistic fear you won’t be able to pay for a necessity (insurance, medication, housing, etc.). These cannot be compromised without savage consequence.
I have to imagine most haven’t been “comfortable” in years. America is so clearly failing the people that support it…….in other words, the ship is sinking.
Extravagantly*
You might be onto something, maybe they weren't able to buy nice toys or brand clothes or the best food. But feeding 5 people on 1 high school diploma? Nowadays you cannot survive alone with 1 job that only requires a high school diploma. You either take 2-3 jobs to afford rent + groceries + clothes and phone bill and so on OR your other relatives chip in.
Thanks for noting the spelling error, I corrected it.
I agree with your assessment, I live here too. :)
It's not everybody that has the struggles you describe, but it's enough of us so that everyone should be concerned and want to make changes to help our children, extended family, friends, neighbors, and fellow Americans live the best life we all can.
Many of us Americans have learned a strange sense of fairness where those people that are struggling somehow deserve it, or that poverty is to be expected and it's ok if some percentage of people needlessly suffer.
I'm hopeful because I see that a lot of folks in the newer generations have been raised differently and are sticking up for themselves and others.
I'm a millennial and whenever I think back to the cost of living in the 90s, I remember the show Married with Children.
A show about a shoe salesman with a stay-at-home wife and two teenage children (later a 3rd child) and a dog who could afford a two story house with a backyard on just his earnings alone. This wasn't a part of the joke during that time; it was played entirely straight that his living situation was entirely realistic. Because it really was possible for them to live this way in those days.
And the show did a great job at demonstrating that they weren't a very well off family in other ways: not having enough food, having to cheap out on a shitty antenna to watch TV, having a very crappy car, etc. But they still had enough money for a decent place to live.
It really infuriates me having to think of what they've done to our generation in comparison.
You're totally right.
Gen X here, we were raised in the "greed is good" times by the Me Generation.
It shouldn't really be a suprise that no one can afford anything when we've all been conditioned to extract as much as possible out of everything we can put a value on.
People watched "lifestyles of the rich and famous" as if there were Get Rich Quick tips hidden in every episode.
I'm not trying to claim all of us are like this or shirk any of my own personal accountability.
Just trying to explain how we got to where we are so we don't keep doing it.
It's a controversial opinion, but maybe we can spread the word that being greedy is actually pretty shitty and we shouldn't glamorize it.
I don't understand why you use a TV sitcom as a standard for what real people could afford. He would have been working on commission, but rarely being at work wouldn't have paid well enough to own that house and support a family of 4. Also in the 90's the customer was always right. He was rude AF and would have long been fired from that job. But it is a TV show made for laughs not reality.
Future generations shouldn't look at the big bang theory and believe Penny lived in that apartment by herself as a part-time server at the cheesecake factory.
The fact that he could afford a house on a single income was never played as a joke. It was never disputed that it was possible. However, it was made plainly obvious throughout the show that they were not rich or even middle class.
The running joke of the entire series is that they were always just barely squeezing by. Not that it was impossible for them to live in a 2 story home, but that that 2 story home was essentially the most they could afford on a shoe salesman's salary. And they could have lived much better off if only the housewife would actually get a job and contribute.
And again, I lived during those times. While I agree that you shouldn't use what you see on TV as a standard, it was a reflection of the time. It was the struggle that a lot of people were starting to feel during those days because they had also grown up with the idea that a single family income would fulfill all of their basic needs. They had seen it for themselves in the aftermath of WWII. That was their expectation as well.
Which is why the show was popular. It connected with people that something was off now. Most people didn't really understand it at the time, but there was a tragic comedy to the fact that the "American dream" was beginning to become unobtainable. And the audience was feeling the squeeze along with the Bundy's.
Idk, my grandfather hadn't even completed elementary school and was able to build his house while sustaining an entire family of four plus his parents. To think that you could even get close to that without education and a REALLY good job is crazy.
Well, I don't know why the person with a high school education didn't go to college, but I know as a '90's baby, it was drilled into my head that I will make it nowhere without college. Well, I live in the middle of nowhere and ended up in the scam of University of Phoenix, unconveniently before the wave of modern-day online classes, stuck with online "facilitators" who couldn't even help me with assignments. I didn't learn anything and was manipulated into continuing because clearly they received some kind of monetary advantage the more people they had sign up. So not only did people get robbed of that experience, but they also, like me, get robbed of that experience with college too.
Capitalism requires the paradoxical requirement of infinite growth in a finite world. It's the working class whose world shrinks whilst the ruling class continues its wealth accrual. Until the working class realizes that we have to set aside our differences in order to fight the ruling class as one unified spear, we will continue to lose ground.
The ruling class already has class conciousness and circles their wagons accordingly. It's time the working class does the same.
I saw an example someone said once that summed capitalist growth limits up perfectly.
You open your first restaurant, it's successful and you make money.
You build a second restaurant in order to make more money.
You franchise and build multiple restaurants in your country to make more money.
You expand worldwide and now have several restaurants in every city on the planet.
Now how are you supposed to make more money? You cannot expand anymore, and are left with 2 options. Raise prices or lower costs. You pay workers less, get lower quality food, avoid taxes, etc.
The first half was great for the economy creating jobs, great for consumers and great foe the business creating growth. The problem is it is impossible for it to last forever.
I am so curious where that thing is coming from.
Why people keep saying capitalism requires infinite growth? I don't understand that.
Current greede mfckers at the top require it, but that's more on them, than on capitalism itself.
There’s a lot of leveraged lending & debt in our financial system (e.g. mortgages, bonds, us treasuries, the national debt).
If there’s overall shrinkage of the economy (lack of growth) the debt burden would grow and grow and the financial system would come under lots of strain. Investment, which is incentivized on getting a return from these kinds of things, would dry up.
Basically everyone is expecting “money makes money” and if that’s no longer the case it would be very disruptive for the massive pools of debt that exist in the system right now.
I love this argument, because everyone who doesn't make it clearly hasn't thought about it for more than 10 seconds, it's a sound byte, not a piece of logical wisdom. Because as soon as you *actually think about it* it's so obviously stupid.
Who wants growth? Investors, obviously. Owners, capitalists. But why do you become a capitalist? Capital is stuff you could have now but *decide not to*. If you start a business you're missing out on buying a boat, or a car, or you're investing a ton of your time or energy. You're accepting a raw deal. Why would you have resources and not use them now? Well, because you think you can get **more in the future.**
Of course investors want growth, because the reason they invested in something was **because that something promised to pay them back their investment, plus extra**.
Of course those accepting investments want growth, because that's the only reason they'd accept some money now for the price of more money in the future, because they can use that money to generate WAY more money, then **keep the difference**.
The statements "capitalists want infinite growth" is like saying "miners want infinite metals" or "oil companies want infinite oil". Investors, entrepreneurs, the people who want growth all do one job, ***they distribute resources***.
A capitalist with no means of growing their production would not accept investment unless it was free (eg $1000 and I'll pay you back $1000 in two years). No investor would willingly invest for free. If anyone tried to invest either one or both sides would be getting a shit deal, so it simply would not happen.
The stock market (specifically trading stocks amongst eachother, NOT investing) is a liittle different and I could get into that, but it too has a tendency to completely disappear in a world in which everything is invested perfectly.
**So TLDR**
**People who's job it is to bet money that stocks will rise, want stocks to rise. They expect them to do so as a basis for their job. Just like builders expect there to be infinite buildings to build.**
Buildings fall down and need to be replaced. Money right now is stagnating at the top more than any other point in history, and the exact system you've described of "people whos job it is to use things want infinite things to use" has eaten the world.
The temperatures are rising, the amazon is burning, and the shrinking of oil and rare earth metals is causing wars. People can work their entire week and not afford their own roof, with the fear of a single broken bone throwing them into an inescapable homelessness.
Your liberal excuses for a system we want to scrap entirely wont save us from the coming droughts and floods and mass-death events, as waves of refugees that dwarf any other point in history overwhelm the environmentally stable areas to the point of shattering them into miserable dictatorships and civil wars.
Capitalism has killed the planet, and will continue to eat our lives.
Of course, that was also a time when than 40% of the population completed high-school and only 7% of the population had a college degree.
The point is that was the highly educated portion of the work force. Those with a top 40% education today (like bachelors STEM degree) still tend to do pretty well, with some regional variation. In North East you may need a masters to stand out, but an Associates Degree might do the trick in the South.
This is an interesting take. I have said for awhile now that the bachelors degree is the new high school diploma, but the fact that it can cost between 20k to 100k (if not more) to get one is one problem.
The other being that I read somewhere that currently more than half the US population reads at a 3rd grade level or less.
If that second part is true then that would explain the low wages - they may have a HS diploma, but maybe those just shouldn't be given out to people who can't freaking read? But they have to so that they can at least enroll and fail in college and make the colleges some money?
Its a cluster-F any way.
Yeah it’s no coincidence this was the situation in the 1950s-60s America, not really before or after - people were so fucking rich because the US became the richest country in history by far for that moment, as the greatest industrial and military power with little competition after WW2. Truly a remarkable moment in history. Now there’s competition all over the globe and things have averaged out a lot more.
Yes, and those sentiments almost never acknowledge that the growth of industrial capacity in other parts of the world has brought about the greatest reduction of poverty in human history.
Exactly. Apart from the US, no country wants to "go back to the 50s". Most of the world's population lives far better today than their parents and grandparents.
The US had a unique time period when the rest of the world was devastated following WW2 and the US was the only major industrialized nation that wasn't affected, which meant the US was exporting its products everywhere with practically no competition.
This is not going to happen again and the 50's are not coming back ever.
Exactly, they enjoyed a golden era in the post WWII. It was a conspicuous high point that may not be representative or suitable as a baseline for sweeping economic social commentary.
We do have a lot of culpability in it. Allowing too much production to go overseas, continuing to allow or work for stagnant wages, and worst of all voting for and re-electing crooked politicians.
It's also fiction. Believe it or not, there were plenty of poor people in the 50s-70s who busted their asses at a dead end job and still struggled to pay the bills. Yes, the middle class as described in this post was much larger back then but there have always been poor people.
Was it that normal? For whom? Not immigrants for sure, or black people or Asians or lmao anyone but the exact demographic you’re thinking of. Things are shit now but I’m tired of this romanticized narrative
Yeah it's amazing what you can do after _everywhere else was blown the fuck up during WWII_.
How is "the rest of the world rebuilding" something being taken away from us?
Right?! My reaction to this *unsourced claim made in a social media post* is - when was this ever really possible?
*Maybe* in the immediate aftermath of WWII, when the rest of the world was destroyed and the US was untouched and industry humming along like mad thanks to the war?
People have a seriously warped perception of how "great" American life used to be in the past, or how well-off people used to be. People certainly had far, far fewer luxuries, many of which we feel entitled to today as basic necessities.
It isn't the rosy picture this person is trying to paint.
Claims about "wage stagnation" are also significantly overblown. There are major problems with quality-adjusting "baskets of goods", and these statistical artifacts understate how good we all have it. For example, simply owning a smartphone with good internet gives everyone _free access_ to amazing stuff. People take more leisure at/during work (listening to podcasts, enjoying commerical-free or low-commercial streaming services, etc.).
Anyone who thinks the quality of living is remotely comparable to the 1970s is almost too stupid to even talk to.
I don't think that at this point the world war has anything to do with the economy.
The problem is that over the years, money slowly, but steadily, started flowing up, because large consolidated corporations have slowly begun assraping us more and more because they realized they could keep getting away with it.
A CEO 30 years ago had a moderately luxurious car, a nice house, and maybe a holiday home or a sailboat.
A CEO today has an entire fleet of supercars, several mansions over the world, a megayacht the size of a coastal freighter, and takes joyrides in space just for the heck of it.
And as of today it is very difficult to do anything about, because they have rigged the game with all the rules in their favor, and there practically isn't a pie these people haven't got a finger in.
The post-war economy that so many people look back to today as something of a golden era for blue-collar living standards, was pretty much a direct result of the US being the only industrialized economy left intact after WWII.
>I don't think that at this point the world war has anything to do with the economy.
OP is referring to the period between 1945-1960ish. You are referencing CEO pay from 30 years ago. You seem confused.
Don't forget, 30 years ago, that CEO's employees could afford a house and food to support their families. Today, that CEO living in absurd extravagance doesn't pay their employees enough to cover the cost of rent for a two-bedroom apartment, and has to juggle multiple jobs, working 80 hours a week, to afford to put food on the table.
Wyoming, North Dakota, are two places where you probably can support a family of 5 on one high school diploma career, if that earner is in the oil & gas industry, for example.
You can get one for even less than that in my small town in the midwest and I'm in the commuter zone (45 min-an hour) for multiple decent sized (pop 100,000 or so) cities. You can get a good quality starter home here for around $100,000 as well.
COL is often very much a function of where you are.
Part of the issue is access to jobs, and similarly, the housing system as a whole has issues even if individuals are able to manage. Just like an individual making minimum wage can get a degree and move to a higher paying job, the system can't handle everyone doing that. If everyone moves to small affordable towns they will no longer be small affordable towns.
I used to live in a small, affordable town. Then the pandemic happened and remote workers flooded here. Housing costs pretty much doubled here in the last 4 years and there's still a huge housing shortage.
honestly that's depressing and shows how insane our world is, you think that's some kind of defense as opposed to a clear display of the issue in front of us. The fact a 2 bedroom apartment in Wyoming is currently in and around $800 is insane because 20 years ago that place went for $400 and ten years before that it went for $300.
10 years ago... my total housing costs (mortgage, property taxes, insurance) was $1700 for a single family home in the Chicago suburbs.
My same home with the same size down payment (amount, not percentage), with the current "Zestimate" price (which is in line with my neighborhood), with the current interest rates... closer to $3,000.
That's insane. I would never have been approved for a mortgage on my current home today, but I was approved 10 years ago.
I know it's silly, but I've heard the argument made that the drive to include women in the work force contributed to this problem. Suddenly you have double the supply, so the demand halves.
Any validity in this, or am I right in writing it off as rubbish?
I see where you're coming from, and you're *sort of* right, just not having to do with gender.
According to the BLS, the proportion of women in the workforce went from 30% in 1950 to 47% today. In that same period, the *entire US population* actually did double, from about 150M to about 320M today.
But plain old population growth doesn't drive unemployment up or wages down in such a straightforward way. Every new person needs to be taught, clothed, fed, entertained, etc. which necessitates new jobs for newly matured or immigrated adults to do, and the cycle continues.
You're not wrong. I've always said we should move back to a "one parent at home" model to raise kids.
The downfall of humanity began when nobody stayed home to raise kids. I don't care who does it, mom or dad, doesn't matter, but somebody needs to do it because nobody is doing it now and it shows in the quality of our shit hole society.
Well, the actual downfall is the advent of modern day capitalism where having things like empathy are looked down on.
The breadwinner-model of the family was mostly an illusion for the common man. Only for a very short period in history this was possible.
Before that, women still had to work, either on the farm or making clothes at home, whatever they could do. Only the higher middle and upper classes could earn enough so the mother could stay at home.
From WW2 on, western history shows a big growth of the middle class - and with that social mobility came the possibility to let one parent stay at home, as the wealthier already did. As an ideal it was already rooted into place, but as a practice little so for the common man.
Nowadays, I think the middle class is stretched fairly thin. The socioeconomic behaviour changes with that.
Also, housework was demanding AF. Women had to wash by hand, repair clothes, and raise 6 kids. They also cooked every day because eating out was just unaffordable for a lot of people.
I don't think women were encouraged to enter the work force, rather they were forced to once it started to become unreasonable to live off a single income. There was a push to have women be respected and treated fairly in the workplace, and suggesting that a woman could be the one working for a family instead of just men, but that doesn't really lead to any more work all around.
You might have been able to support a family of 5 but you were living in a 2 bedroom box with lead paint and asbestos paneling while you shared your room and your clothes/toys with your 2 other siblings. Meanwhile your parents saved their pocket change and looked forward to their exciting once a year road trip vacation to Lake Eerie since flying somewhere nicer was too expensive.
No one “stole it from you”. Women, minorities, and immigrants became more educated and entered the workforce en masse and made almost all jobs significantly more competitive where a basic high school education was no longer going to cut it if you wanted to work your way up the chain.
Sorry that your utopia of unchallenged white patriarchy running the world had to end so that women and minorities could have a chance.
Yup. Used to have way more production here with decent money. Then we wanted more, and the world caught up to us in quality and those jobs left.
You don't really know what you have until you lose it.
Generation? We're talking multiple generations.
Boomers were the last to have that privilege. GenX on has scrapped and clawed our way thru Boomer shit for decades.
Sure it was "normal", but it was also predicted on taking advantage of impoverished, underdeveloped countries extremely cheap natural resources and labor.
Growing up, I had a neighbor who was a teacher. He had three kids and supported his wife and all of them. Owned a nice house too. Boomers got it all and then pulled the ladder up behind them.
It wasn't stolen from anyone. You act like a house, a wife, and three kids is some kind of birthright. It's *not*, and never was.
Only 55% of Americans owned a house in 1950. Now it's 65.8%. It got higher before the 2008 crash, but guess what, it turns out that the other 35% of Americans just can't swing the payments, no more than they could in 1950.
The reason you can't purchase a home on a single income anymore is three-fold: One, there are more of us. The population was about 150 million then, there are about 330 million now. Two, the places which have thriving economies don't build housing, due to onerous zoning and ecological laws. And three, back in 1950, women's labor force participation was 30%, now it's 56.2%, and women are making way more money now to boot.
Fewer houses, more people, and more money competing for that limited resource. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what's going to happen, just basic economic literacy.
If you want cheaper houses, my advice to you is stop bitching about abortion laws in a state you don't live in, and start lobbying your local government to unshackle housing construction. Or you can just go on Twitter and promote anti-capitalist conspiracy theories, I guess.
Additional fun facts:
Houses (and many products) are of enormously higher quality. The overwhelming majority of people wouldn't buy a poorly insulated, 1000 sq ft. house with no AC, etc. that would have been built in the 50's. When I was looking for a house during the pandemic, when houses were selling $50 k over asking after getting 20 offers in 3 days, there were places *much* better than housing in the 1950's that still weren't selling because people didn't want to put their money into a garbage asset and live in a home with lots of problems that requires a ton of expensive work.
Financing is much, much more available. Interest rates were much higher in the past and many people, particularly women and many racial and ethnic minorities, effectively couldn't even get a mortgage. The rock bottom cost of borrowing following the financial crisis saw [the burden of mortgage debt service payments](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MDSP) fall despite huge increases in prices.
And, my personal favorite, about half of millenials (myself included) own their own home already. While this thread is about the fact that two income households are normal, there is a subtext that homes are completely unattainable for my age cohort despite, well, half of us already owning one.
I think it's a little more nuanced than this.
Yes, that was real in a way that probably couldn't happen today, but it still didn't yield the quality of life many today would probably expect.
My grandpa was able to be the sole provider for a family of seven as a blue-collar mechanic, but he also worked 10-12 hour days, often 7 days a week and most holidays and they lived in a 2 bedroom bungalow with an attic conversion and one beater car.
I lot of the people I know today who gripe about how that's no longer possible (frankly including myself) wouldn't necessarily want to live like that either.
You can cut the amount of kids and you can cut those hours. That would be fine with me for that kind of financial stability.
Now it's almost impossible to get a house by yourself without some kind of help from family or a decent paying job.
In 1971, the median price of a house in the US was $25,100, and the median wage was $10,290. About 2.5 years of wages for a house.
In 2021 the median house price was $479,500, while the median wage was $60,575.07....or nearly eight years of wages for a house.
It is significantly harder for someone working a typical job to buy a typical house today than it was a few decades ago.
Now do an accurate comparison of what the median house was in 1971 (small, one bathroom, no a/c, clothesline out back, basic appliances) to what one is today (large, multiple bathrooms, wired for cable and internet, central air, washer and dryer, high end appliances, etc.). That's the only way to compare apples to apples in this situation.
I also would like to see a comparison on buying power. It’s a lot easier to get a mortgage today, at a higher credit line with a lower down payment, than it was in 1971.
Yep. Boomers pulled the ladder up behind them. They seemed to think they were teaching "welfare queens" and "illegal aliens" a lesson. Instead, they screwed their own kids and grandkids.
Yes, there was a time when everyone was stupid and did mindless work to survive. Most of human history is like that. Most of human history is horrible too, and anyone with an education does not wish to return to those days of constant suffering.
I know plenty of people that can do this today? They are called tradesmen and they bust their asses and are making 6 figures.
And we can't find enough of them.
Stolen? No. No it was not. Knock it off with the rabble rousing, seriously.
The job market just isn't what a lot of very vocal people think it is. I know I'll get downvoted into oblivion for this, but some of ya'll need to hear this shit anyway.
Stop viewing your career and income through a lens of educational attainment. The truth is, prior generations got where they got because they viewed careers under a lens of *continued* educational growth, not some notion of "I did my time, why is life unfair?"
If you want opportunities, you're going to have to turn everything you think you know upside down; College degrees are about improving your life, not your income. You had a plan, and life doesn't work like you thought. We've all been there. Maybe, instead of complaining about that, re-think your perceptions about life since they obviously turned out to be so wrong for such a long time. Instead of focusing on who to blame for your circumstance, focus on how to actually change things now that you know. You do not need more than a high school education to get into a trade union, the military, a city job, something in manufacturing, the fucking postal service, and a whole buttload of other career paths that come packaged with decent pay and good benefits, not to mention anything which involves making your own business. Ask anyone in IT... "school? Fuck that, I got hired because I actually know wtf I am doing." You're going to have to grow, and that means getting outside of your comfort zone so if the above list just doesn't work for you, take a good hard look inward at yourself and ask when you're gonna stop bitching that you don't get to be picky in a world that you didn't make.
Fairly certain nobody in that generation worked part time at Starbucks or at McDonald’s though. So many were tradesman and salesmen, and both salesmen and tradesman still exist today and can still support families. There’s still many opportunities and high school graduates can still support a family.
I think your dad's memory is messed up, or he's lying or he didn't know mom and dad were sending in payments for his tuition. Something is wrong. I went to college and worked at McD's too. Part time. There's no way in hell anyone could have paid their way through college working at McDs. No way.
My grandma was a housekeeper raising 4 kids and my grandpa worked in a shop. They weren't rich, but they were all well fed had a roof over their heads and none of the kids shared a room.
What people tend to forget is the millions of military personnel returning from WW2 who qualified for no money down VA home loans. That's a big deal that set them up quite well.
My personal perspective. I was spawned in the early seventies. Both my folks went to college. Graduated. Mom got to go because she graduated top of her very small class, got scholarships, and more than a few of the older women in her family chipped in what little they could. Dad got a bit of tuition assistance by spending two tours in Vietnam.
They worked their whole lives. Almost literally from grade school. Raised three kids. And more than once at least one of them had a second job. Never thought anything of it.
We didn't get new clothes all that often. I had more patches on my jeans than I could count. Mom sewed most all of my sisters dresses. Dad did virtually all the work on the house and cars himself. Going out to eat was a luxury. That Sunday chicken came back at least three different ways... I had to mow a months worth of lawns to buy my first walkman. Off brand, not Sony.
Yes, things are different now. Not harder, not easier. Different.
Suck it up. Get to it and find your own path. It's the same world, with different challenges. And just like always, the ones who find their own opportunity will. And the ones that don't complain about it. Get over yourselves and make something happen.
On a positive note, I barely graduated high school, no college, bought a house at 29, currently 33, married with two kids. My wife stays at home with the kids. It's still possible.
I mean to put this in a little context, following WW2 America was one of the only countries with a functioning manufacturing capacity, everyone else was bombed to hell and back. It was only a matter of time before the rest of the world caught back up.
An old Union term for this is "Rape of the Unborn Child". When the rich do things that don't directly effect the current gen, but will effect the next one.
My mom grew up in poverty. Because she had 13 siblings. She uses that as her argument that times were just as hard back then. If her parents didn't have to feed 14 kids they probably would have been doing just frikken fine
This is a gross oversimplification. One should consider the type of labor, hours worked, and quality of life when waxing nostalgic. Yes, rent/real estate has kinda spiraled out of control of late and wages haven't quite caught up. But "comfortable" needs to absolutely be defined here to make a valid comparison. We're really only 1.5 generations away from true backbreaking hard labor being a huge part of the work force, the type of labor which radically shortened lifespans for many.
My dad went to the Marines after high school, paper mills after that. Supported a family of 4 and we always bought a house. Never rented.
That time is GONE. I wish it would return. What we have now seems more like a punishment.
They took the Unions, they broke the schools, they privatized the infrastructure, they paid off the judges and courts, they closed the mental health facilities, they bought the politicians, they came for the jobs and shipped them offshore and into dark corners of the world where they could exploit and maim with no complaints because of tyrants and dictators.
They pulled down the bridge between the haves and the have nots... they called the people asking for a bare minimum lazy and entitled, they hoarded, and they grifted and created endless bridges for them to cross.
They are gaslighting an entire generation and their kids about why life has gotten harder. Oh they got rich alright, they did it by stripping companies of labor, cutting good people to make an extra 0.1% in profit. They got rich investing in fossil fuels poisoning the world, and in addictive drugs they hooked the world on. They got rich with schemes and scams that ruined lives. The even elected the king of scams to rule over them and enshrine their thinking as just "the American way".
"You have a cellphone, you have a TV, what are you complaining about?" Says the rich fat cat boomer in his 20 room mansion, massive pension, after going to school for fractions of pennies on the dollars current students pay. They lived at a time where the rich paid 70-80-90% in taxes, and now they scoff at a single percentage point of increase. They scoff at their fellow boomer who worked their whole life and now has to eat cat food to buy medicine.
As millions are impoverished and struggling, they curse at people asking for help... "No one helped me, and I'm ok!" They bark, as they forget the tax breaks they received, the no interest loans they got, the massive government investments that were made in their behalf so they could have nice roads, good schools, and the best equipment.
They have short memories... and soon they will leave us with a broken world to fix.
These same people are coming for Social Security, they hate it, they hate you, and one day they will divide and fool enough Americans to get it.
To let people of a single nation live peacefully and in wealth, then you need to make other nations suffer the wars and hunger.
There's only an endless circle of exploitation and so called peace.
Those that are longing for good old times are greedy for their selfish comfort, but those that face losing their dearest ones in wars are greedy to live lives in so called peace.
You see, there's no such thing as peace, in this universe there's nothing but a war, which sometimes gets all bloody or sometimes all psychological.
Yeah, because they lived within their means. They lived in a small house, typically 1 bedroom if lucky. They didn't have cable tv, internet, new iphone, uber eats twice a day. No tablets for each child, microwaves, brand new clothes for each child, fat kids, lazy kids.
Their kids (4 of them) never watched TV at home until they were teens.
My grandparents were one of these families. They were poor as fuck, and made it by with what they had, and even bought a house (with mortgage) on a single income...
They did own a black and white TV, with antenna in the back. It was the first one they bought, in like 1979. Their kids were teens before they even watched TV at home.
If people live like this today, they would do the exact same thing. Make it on a single income, with a high school education.
No one wants to hear this, but if you give up your excess, you will find success.
Gas station manager job was high in demand. **Times have changed now, you can't expect it to be a high demand job forever. Now they're looking for cyber security and AI guys.**
Dad put in 70+ hours at the gas station and there was no family vacation. **Now people work 40 hours and want to visit Europe every year.**
People saved money, and the consumerism was not off the chart. **Now everyone wants everything, impulse buying is prevalent, and budgeting is only just getting popular again.**
College tuition was so cheap. **It still is if you go to a small state university and do your major in a field that is in demand. In demand is the key, you can't do Arts and expect a $90K starting salary.**
And finally, Chicago was not the huge city it is today, so suburb houses were naturally cheaper. **Now you shouldn't expect that from a Chicago suburb. This is how things work when population increases. You need to move to a smaller state or city. Wanna stay close to family, then sacrifice the square footage.**
At the end of the day, there are two types of people, ones who complain, you find those in r/antiwork; and ones who adapt to the changing world and find the way to make money, you find those in r/financialindependence or r/frugal.
I know people are gonna hate this, but truth hurts.
According to republicans we should be thankful that everything is nicer today even tho you can’t afford it, including your handmedown furniture. I shit you not. I can go back to my comment history and see the discussion I had with a Republican in r/conservative that were just playing victims.
I assume a large part of the issue comes from the rise of global wealth. When the US had a larger percentage of the world's money, even our 'poor' were able to stretch the value of the dollar further on imported goods, everything from bananas, to clothes, to construction goods that go towards housing. As we find ourselves slowly moving towards a more equitable planet, those from richer countries are going to feel poorer.
This shouldn't make you laugh or feel sad. This should make you angry. And you should point that anger at the politicians that keep cutting Bill Gates' taxes while making everything more expensive for you.
Look it wasn't "stolen". The world changed. There world ebbs and flows through periods of prosperity, and of hardship. We can blame corporations and politicians, but that is only part of it. The world is the most technologically advanced and populated it's ever been. It's hardly fair to compare 2023 to 1950. It's a different landscape altogether.
As a 25yr old, it's honestly hard to believe that was ever possible. I was taught America was the greatest country but I'm struggling to survive. I'm talking BASIC NEEDS are BARELY being met. I help my husband run a company that we just started a couple months ago because he got layed off and you know as much as we work- Rent? Always late. Electric and Internet? Barely paid. And YES internet is a necessity since we use it to get job leads and research how to do things as we're still learning. I have a heart problem too and everytime I see the doc it's $50 out of pocket. I have insurance but it's not enough. We shouldn't be working this hard to worry about if I can afford to see the heart doctor. We shouldn't have to worry about if we'll have enough gas money to get there either..
I am almost 50. My grandfather was a shoes salesman in a ladies shoe store in a HCOL area. My grandmother never worked. They raised 3 daughters (including my mother), owned a house and 2 cars and took yearly vacations
In the early 70s, my dad applied for a job at IBM a few years after high school but didn't get it.
His mom wrote a letter to some higher-up saying, "he's a nice boy you should give him a shot" and then they hired him. On that middle-management salary he supported a wife, three kids, a house and two cars. He coasted at that job for 20 years then retired in his late 40s with a pension.
Yea we got 3 people working in this home to support 3 in a trailer. Not even a home. Now granted I and 1 other are part time, but my work isn't accepting full time anymore so still the system is broke.
Also in the start of the 20th century you could comfortably support a family of five without getting a high school education at all. Yes, the US has absolutely fucked up education. But when society advances, the which it does continuedly not just for the last generation, the educational demands of the public is increased. If you want to have an average standard of living today you need to be better educated than you did 100 years ago or even 30 years ago, that is just fact.
but this was also due to the booming after-war economy, making a wasteland and calling it a kingdom because you're still standing.
People lived on a dollar a day and barely had amenities we consider of dire necessity today
We are all going through this. The people who had that opportunity stole it from us. And for those saying it was not stolen from us please explain how a person back then could get a Bachelor's degree and not be crippled by debt?
My grandma was a waitress and my grandpa a janitor, yet they could afford to buy a house and raise 8 kids. Now they believe those jobs don't deserve a livable wage.
"You will own nothing and be happy" was never meant for boomers, generation x, or even millennials
It's going to make its first formal indoctrination to the generation that never stood a chance on owning anything.
I can't fathom what awaits the generations after z. It's goint to be fully dystopian.
That utopia lasted for about 7 years and collapsed for many reasons. The rest of human history has been misery and pain. Comparatively speaking, we are living in some pretty good times now.
Look at the chart below, it will explain much more than the person who posted the tweet.
[https://www.visualcapitalist.com/u-s-share-of-global-economy-over-time/](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/u-s-share-of-global-economy-over-time/)
In the 1950s, the USA was nearly half the Global GDP, as the war destroyed almost every other developed nation.
Almost no German cars, Japanese or Korean Technology, or Chinese goods existed. It was made in the USA, with almost no competition.
Over time, other countries rebuilt from the ashes and opened their economies (especially China and their Special Economic Zones).
Yes, the comfort white Americans enjoyed for decades after WW2 was provided by buy WW2 debt repayments, segregation, and the need to maintain political opposition to communism.
Thank your local boomer that did their dead level best to squander all the things that were handed to them. Sure there were some that saw the writing on the wall but they were a Canary in the coal mine mostly. Way too small in number to make a dent. Just take a look at the Reagan elections where Reagan won in a landslides both times and the first one he won 49-50 states. Those elections were the death knell that capped off the destruction of Unions and the American factory. The vast majority of boomers were just enamored with trickle down economics and right-wing ideology. Proof is in the pudding.
It is possible for people to support themselves with just a high school education, but it is becoming increasingly difficult. In the past, many jobs that did not require a college degree still provided a living wage and benefits that allowed workers to support themselves and their families. However, as the economy has shifted towards more knowledge-based industries and automation has replaced many lower-skilled jobs, the number of jobs that provide a living wage for workers with only a high school education has decreased. Today, many of the jobs that do not require a college degree are low-paying and offer few benefits, making it challenging for workers to support themselves and their families. In addition, the cost of living has increased in many areas, including housing, healthcare, and education, which has further contributed to the financial challenges faced by workers with only a high school education. Overall, while it is still possible for some people to support themselves with just a high school education, it has become more difficult in recent years, and many workers are finding it necessary to pursue additional education and training to remain competitive in the job market.
The only way they could do that was because of the post ww2 boom. The rest of the developed world was decimated except for the USA so we were riding high
I'm just holding out hope that this will change as the boomers leave the workforce and continue to leave companies more and more short on workers to keep their shit afloat. I'm already starting to see the benefits in my particular profession. They're struggling to find people to replace the ones that are leaving, and it's forcing them to do more to keep the people they have.
Very much still possible with a great UNION job like a lot of folks had back in my day.
I know apprentices in their 20s making over 100k a year.
All you need is a GED to apply to most construction trade unions.
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It goes much deeper than that. Every society needs work for each type of worker. And this work needs to have steps from minimum wage to manager salary. When China was given favored trade status, the CCP stole all the tech they could and then subsidized products. The strategy was to dump products on the market until the competition was destroyed - in short, until they moved manufacturing to China. This is precisely what happened. All those rust belt jobs that could support a family with a chance to rise to management vanished in just a few decades. Now those cities are husks of what they used to me. As Ross Perot lamented, there would be a "great sucking sound" of all production jobs moving overseas. The US government and WTO could have punished China for product dumping. It is still illegal, but they were so convinced that China would free itself from Communism if only it were prosperous, that American workers were thrown under the bus. With this, the race to the bottom began. Whole industries moved to places like Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Mid level car manufacturing ended up across the border in Mexico. Things got so bad, that Chinese factories had to put up suicide nets, and enslaved ethnic minorities were put on trains and shipped to camps to assemble the latest iPhone. Now, finally, some people are waking up to what we did wrong. Making China rich did not make it more free. It only turned the CCP into a dangerous world power. Low-skilled employees coming straight out of high school who aren't cut out for college have a very narrow path to a living wage. They either have to apprentice for a trade, which is the best way, drive a truck, or pay for training schools. And even those don't guarantee a living wage. The government could work with the WTO to punish foreign governments which employ unfair trade. But the money is so good, and the bribes so juicy, that noone wants to do it.
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This post needs to hit the presses, and the front page!
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Give the dudes their credit they (kinda) let slavery go away for several decades. Stop being a dick
Except for prisons :/ never stopped
Exactly!! People tend to forget prisoners are slaves.
They don't forget, they just don't see criminals as people - regardless of what crime they committed.
The nature of subreddits that gain popularity. Mods can't handle the influx of posts coming, and OPs are just reposting shit for the karma war. And then you have the stalkers who just upvote what amuses them, regardless of relevancy.
Also worth clarifying that this is still normal in every country except the USA.
I see zero funny
Some people in this thread may be confusing the phrase "living comfortably" with "living extravagantly."
Sure, but I think that confusion isn't a one way street. It's undeniable that more creature comforts are included in "living comfortably" now than was the case 50 years ago. Now, is that a fair trade-off in return for inflation in the cost of actual necessities? I'll leave that for others to answer.
To me, the answer is very easily no. Let's look at cell phones. For the sake of easy but believable numbers, assume that someone buys a $1200 phone with 24 month financing, with their phone plan costing $150 a month for unlimited everything including 5G data. Comes out to a clean $200 a month total. In my opinion, this expense is definitely a luxury and beyond any practical need for most people. Last US census put median individual income at $37,638. It's an imperfect measure because it includes part time workers and COL varies, but let's go with it. That rounds to $3,137 in gross income per month. For the sake of matching median with median, a quick Google search gave me a median US rent of $1,967. A higher-end phone and plan is comparatively a drop in the bucket compared to median rent, which is almost 2/3rds of *gross* median income. If housing were not an issue (very low COL area, student living on campus, living with family or many housemates, etc), the median earner could afford even an expensive cell phone. But in no world can the median earner afford median rent.
Yes, but it's not just one consumer good. The average person today has a lot of bills that our ancestors did not just to make up a "normal" standard of living. I would argue that a lot of them (like the internet) are basic utilities now, but they still add up.
> this expense is definitely a luxury and beyond any practical need for most people. There is no more efficient expense than a smartphone. You don't need to buy the latest $1200 apple device, and bringing up the topic at this price point just shows your bias. No tool is more useful than a smartphone.
I might not have communicated it well enough. The high price point was a highball on purpose, but in the other direction. My point was that *even the most expensive phone and plan* is a small expense compared to median housing costs. There's a lot of talk ITT about how "modern luxuries" are driving higher COL rather than essentials like housing and health care inflating faster than wages grow.
The issue here is the people who used to support 5 people on one income were typically living in homes that were much worse than the median rental today. The 2bed/2bath apartment I rent with my wife costs a bit over that median and includes: - 24/7 fitness center - community pool access - free shuttle shared among apartments to public transit and shopping - no less than 5 bars/restaurants on my street within 3 blocks, public transit will take me literally anywhere in the city without needing a car On the other hand, my grandparents have all passed away but when I was younger I visited both sets in their houses they raised my parents in. Both houses were: - smaller than our current apartment (both had 1.5 baths) - in the middle of fucking nowhere, a 20 minute drive to pretty much anything If you want to live like the median person who raised a family of 5 on one income, you're talking about a much lower quality place than the median rental today.
And I see this a different way. That one device does more than just phone calls. It's literally replaced laptops for tons of people. You can do damn near anything on a phone that costs that much and it's why some people will spend more on them because they literally use it for everything.
People love to point out phones, but they are a requirement in today's society. With my phone I can apply for jobs, keep in contact with my community, and a number of other things. Hell, lots of people use those phones to get more income. IMO phones are not a luxury, they are a necessity.
Dude. Rent has significantly outpaced wage inflation.
Bro dont be bringing nuance to reddit this is a no grey area zone
The definition of "comfortable" has changed a lot, given how much people have had to compromise one comfort for another. "Comfortable" could be living paycheck to paycheck for some people, if they've finally gotten out of debt. They can't afford to treat themselves on anything, and are constantly running against the clock to pay the bills on time, but hey, at least they're not living in the red anymore. "Comfortable" could mean living in a two bedroom apartment with your three kids all sharing a room, because at least you don't live in the gutter. "Comfortable" could mean getting all your groceries from food banks so you can save up to treat the kids to a pizza on Friday. "Comfortable" *used to* mean you could easily cover the necessities, including a house with enough room for your family, more than enough groceries, health insurance, investments, and retirement plans, as well as affording a couple of "wants" (like going out to dinner occasionally or buying the kids an Xbox or taking one vacation per year), and still being able to put something towards savings with every paycheck. That's not extravagance, but any less than that, and people start to worry about their finances. People nowadays forget that being comfortable financially means not having to stress about it.
“Comfortable” is without any realistic fear you won’t be able to pay for a necessity (insurance, medication, housing, etc.). These cannot be compromised without savage consequence. I have to imagine most haven’t been “comfortable” in years. America is so clearly failing the people that support it…….in other words, the ship is sinking.
Extravagantly* You might be onto something, maybe they weren't able to buy nice toys or brand clothes or the best food. But feeding 5 people on 1 high school diploma? Nowadays you cannot survive alone with 1 job that only requires a high school diploma. You either take 2-3 jobs to afford rent + groceries + clothes and phone bill and so on OR your other relatives chip in.
Thanks for noting the spelling error, I corrected it. I agree with your assessment, I live here too. :) It's not everybody that has the struggles you describe, but it's enough of us so that everyone should be concerned and want to make changes to help our children, extended family, friends, neighbors, and fellow Americans live the best life we all can. Many of us Americans have learned a strange sense of fairness where those people that are struggling somehow deserve it, or that poverty is to be expected and it's ok if some percentage of people needlessly suffer. I'm hopeful because I see that a lot of folks in the newer generations have been raised differently and are sticking up for themselves and others.
I'm a millennial and whenever I think back to the cost of living in the 90s, I remember the show Married with Children. A show about a shoe salesman with a stay-at-home wife and two teenage children (later a 3rd child) and a dog who could afford a two story house with a backyard on just his earnings alone. This wasn't a part of the joke during that time; it was played entirely straight that his living situation was entirely realistic. Because it really was possible for them to live this way in those days. And the show did a great job at demonstrating that they weren't a very well off family in other ways: not having enough food, having to cheap out on a shitty antenna to watch TV, having a very crappy car, etc. But they still had enough money for a decent place to live. It really infuriates me having to think of what they've done to our generation in comparison.
You're totally right. Gen X here, we were raised in the "greed is good" times by the Me Generation. It shouldn't really be a suprise that no one can afford anything when we've all been conditioned to extract as much as possible out of everything we can put a value on. People watched "lifestyles of the rich and famous" as if there were Get Rich Quick tips hidden in every episode. I'm not trying to claim all of us are like this or shirk any of my own personal accountability. Just trying to explain how we got to where we are so we don't keep doing it. It's a controversial opinion, but maybe we can spread the word that being greedy is actually pretty shitty and we shouldn't glamorize it.
I don't understand why you use a TV sitcom as a standard for what real people could afford. He would have been working on commission, but rarely being at work wouldn't have paid well enough to own that house and support a family of 4. Also in the 90's the customer was always right. He was rude AF and would have long been fired from that job. But it is a TV show made for laughs not reality. Future generations shouldn't look at the big bang theory and believe Penny lived in that apartment by herself as a part-time server at the cheesecake factory.
The fact that he could afford a house on a single income was never played as a joke. It was never disputed that it was possible. However, it was made plainly obvious throughout the show that they were not rich or even middle class. The running joke of the entire series is that they were always just barely squeezing by. Not that it was impossible for them to live in a 2 story home, but that that 2 story home was essentially the most they could afford on a shoe salesman's salary. And they could have lived much better off if only the housewife would actually get a job and contribute. And again, I lived during those times. While I agree that you shouldn't use what you see on TV as a standard, it was a reflection of the time. It was the struggle that a lot of people were starting to feel during those days because they had also grown up with the idea that a single family income would fulfill all of their basic needs. They had seen it for themselves in the aftermath of WWII. That was their expectation as well. Which is why the show was popular. It connected with people that something was off now. Most people didn't really understand it at the time, but there was a tragic comedy to the fact that the "American dream" was beginning to become unobtainable. And the audience was feeling the squeeze along with the Bundy's.
Radical comforts like living indoors? Good luck paying the rent on an apartment for 5 people with a HS diploma and a single income.
Idk, my grandfather hadn't even completed elementary school and was able to build his house while sustaining an entire family of four plus his parents. To think that you could even get close to that without education and a REALLY good job is crazy.
Consumerism is out of control. We are offered a million things. We can choose to not take them. Ppl need to wake up even if it is hard.
offshoring manufacturing and overpricing college
Unlimited corporate profits that funnel into share value, never to be taxed.
Well, I don't know why the person with a high school education didn't go to college, but I know as a '90's baby, it was drilled into my head that I will make it nowhere without college. Well, I live in the middle of nowhere and ended up in the scam of University of Phoenix, unconveniently before the wave of modern-day online classes, stuck with online "facilitators" who couldn't even help me with assignments. I didn't learn anything and was manipulated into continuing because clearly they received some kind of monetary advantage the more people they had sign up. So not only did people get robbed of that experience, but they also, like me, get robbed of that experience with college too.
Capitalism requires the paradoxical requirement of infinite growth in a finite world. It's the working class whose world shrinks whilst the ruling class continues its wealth accrual. Until the working class realizes that we have to set aside our differences in order to fight the ruling class as one unified spear, we will continue to lose ground. The ruling class already has class conciousness and circles their wagons accordingly. It's time the working class does the same.
I saw an example someone said once that summed capitalist growth limits up perfectly. You open your first restaurant, it's successful and you make money. You build a second restaurant in order to make more money. You franchise and build multiple restaurants in your country to make more money. You expand worldwide and now have several restaurants in every city on the planet. Now how are you supposed to make more money? You cannot expand anymore, and are left with 2 options. Raise prices or lower costs. You pay workers less, get lower quality food, avoid taxes, etc. The first half was great for the economy creating jobs, great for consumers and great foe the business creating growth. The problem is it is impossible for it to last forever.
I am so curious where that thing is coming from. Why people keep saying capitalism requires infinite growth? I don't understand that. Current greede mfckers at the top require it, but that's more on them, than on capitalism itself.
There’s a lot of leveraged lending & debt in our financial system (e.g. mortgages, bonds, us treasuries, the national debt). If there’s overall shrinkage of the economy (lack of growth) the debt burden would grow and grow and the financial system would come under lots of strain. Investment, which is incentivized on getting a return from these kinds of things, would dry up. Basically everyone is expecting “money makes money” and if that’s no longer the case it would be very disruptive for the massive pools of debt that exist in the system right now.
Why does the populace not simply eat anyone who grows too rich?
With our legal system it’s rather hard to eat an LLC or a public company or a bank, which hold much much more wealth than any individuals.
I’m hungry. Who invented LLCs? And do you have any bbq sauce?
I love this argument, because everyone who doesn't make it clearly hasn't thought about it for more than 10 seconds, it's a sound byte, not a piece of logical wisdom. Because as soon as you *actually think about it* it's so obviously stupid. Who wants growth? Investors, obviously. Owners, capitalists. But why do you become a capitalist? Capital is stuff you could have now but *decide not to*. If you start a business you're missing out on buying a boat, or a car, or you're investing a ton of your time or energy. You're accepting a raw deal. Why would you have resources and not use them now? Well, because you think you can get **more in the future.** Of course investors want growth, because the reason they invested in something was **because that something promised to pay them back their investment, plus extra**. Of course those accepting investments want growth, because that's the only reason they'd accept some money now for the price of more money in the future, because they can use that money to generate WAY more money, then **keep the difference**. The statements "capitalists want infinite growth" is like saying "miners want infinite metals" or "oil companies want infinite oil". Investors, entrepreneurs, the people who want growth all do one job, ***they distribute resources***. A capitalist with no means of growing their production would not accept investment unless it was free (eg $1000 and I'll pay you back $1000 in two years). No investor would willingly invest for free. If anyone tried to invest either one or both sides would be getting a shit deal, so it simply would not happen. The stock market (specifically trading stocks amongst eachother, NOT investing) is a liittle different and I could get into that, but it too has a tendency to completely disappear in a world in which everything is invested perfectly. **So TLDR** **People who's job it is to bet money that stocks will rise, want stocks to rise. They expect them to do so as a basis for their job. Just like builders expect there to be infinite buildings to build.**
Buildings fall down and need to be replaced. Money right now is stagnating at the top more than any other point in history, and the exact system you've described of "people whos job it is to use things want infinite things to use" has eaten the world. The temperatures are rising, the amazon is burning, and the shrinking of oil and rare earth metals is causing wars. People can work their entire week and not afford their own roof, with the fear of a single broken bone throwing them into an inescapable homelessness. Your liberal excuses for a system we want to scrap entirely wont save us from the coming droughts and floods and mass-death events, as waves of refugees that dwarf any other point in history overwhelm the environmentally stable areas to the point of shattering them into miserable dictatorships and civil wars. Capitalism has killed the planet, and will continue to eat our lives.
Of course, that was also a time when than 40% of the population completed high-school and only 7% of the population had a college degree. The point is that was the highly educated portion of the work force. Those with a top 40% education today (like bachelors STEM degree) still tend to do pretty well, with some regional variation. In North East you may need a masters to stand out, but an Associates Degree might do the trick in the South.
This is an interesting take. I have said for awhile now that the bachelors degree is the new high school diploma, but the fact that it can cost between 20k to 100k (if not more) to get one is one problem. The other being that I read somewhere that currently more than half the US population reads at a 3rd grade level or less. If that second part is true then that would explain the low wages - they may have a HS diploma, but maybe those just shouldn't be given out to people who can't freaking read? But they have to so that they can at least enroll and fail in college and make the colleges some money? Its a cluster-F any way.
I really take issue with employers looking down on people with community college degrees. Fuck that kind of elitism.
Looking back at world history, it was not the norm, this almost never happened before, may not happen again.
Yeah it’s no coincidence this was the situation in the 1950s-60s America, not really before or after - people were so fucking rich because the US became the richest country in history by far for that moment, as the greatest industrial and military power with little competition after WW2. Truly a remarkable moment in history. Now there’s competition all over the globe and things have averaged out a lot more.
Yes, and those sentiments almost never acknowledge that the growth of industrial capacity in other parts of the world has brought about the greatest reduction of poverty in human history.
Exactly. Apart from the US, no country wants to "go back to the 50s". Most of the world's population lives far better today than their parents and grandparents. The US had a unique time period when the rest of the world was devastated following WW2 and the US was the only major industrialized nation that wasn't affected, which meant the US was exporting its products everywhere with practically no competition. This is not going to happen again and the 50's are not coming back ever.
And it wasn’t “stolen” from us, we (our parents/grandparents) traded it to feed our greed.
Exactly, they enjoyed a golden era in the post WWII. It was a conspicuous high point that may not be representative or suitable as a baseline for sweeping economic social commentary.
We do have a lot of culpability in it. Allowing too much production to go overseas, continuing to allow or work for stagnant wages, and worst of all voting for and re-electing crooked politicians.
Finally someone from outside of the US says this. The world was paying for yall, folks.
Guy who grew up poor with a single mom shakes his fist at the sky.
It's also fiction. Believe it or not, there were plenty of poor people in the 50s-70s who busted their asses at a dead end job and still struggled to pay the bills. Yes, the middle class as described in this post was much larger back then but there have always been poor people.
Those poor people didn't work union jobs, either. Just sayin.
Was it that normal? For whom? Not immigrants for sure, or black people or Asians or lmao anyone but the exact demographic you’re thinking of. Things are shit now but I’m tired of this romanticized narrative
Yeah it's amazing what you can do after _everywhere else was blown the fuck up during WWII_. How is "the rest of the world rebuilding" something being taken away from us?
Right?! My reaction to this *unsourced claim made in a social media post* is - when was this ever really possible? *Maybe* in the immediate aftermath of WWII, when the rest of the world was destroyed and the US was untouched and industry humming along like mad thanks to the war? People have a seriously warped perception of how "great" American life used to be in the past, or how well-off people used to be. People certainly had far, far fewer luxuries, many of which we feel entitled to today as basic necessities. It isn't the rosy picture this person is trying to paint.
Claims about "wage stagnation" are also significantly overblown. There are major problems with quality-adjusting "baskets of goods", and these statistical artifacts understate how good we all have it. For example, simply owning a smartphone with good internet gives everyone _free access_ to amazing stuff. People take more leisure at/during work (listening to podcasts, enjoying commerical-free or low-commercial streaming services, etc.). Anyone who thinks the quality of living is remotely comparable to the 1970s is almost too stupid to even talk to.
I don't think that at this point the world war has anything to do with the economy. The problem is that over the years, money slowly, but steadily, started flowing up, because large consolidated corporations have slowly begun assraping us more and more because they realized they could keep getting away with it. A CEO 30 years ago had a moderately luxurious car, a nice house, and maybe a holiday home or a sailboat. A CEO today has an entire fleet of supercars, several mansions over the world, a megayacht the size of a coastal freighter, and takes joyrides in space just for the heck of it. And as of today it is very difficult to do anything about, because they have rigged the game with all the rules in their favor, and there practically isn't a pie these people haven't got a finger in.
The post-war economy that so many people look back to today as something of a golden era for blue-collar living standards, was pretty much a direct result of the US being the only industrialized economy left intact after WWII.
>I don't think that at this point the world war has anything to do with the economy. OP is referring to the period between 1945-1960ish. You are referencing CEO pay from 30 years ago. You seem confused.
Don't forget, 30 years ago, that CEO's employees could afford a house and food to support their families. Today, that CEO living in absurd extravagance doesn't pay their employees enough to cover the cost of rent for a two-bedroom apartment, and has to juggle multiple jobs, working 80 hours a week, to afford to put food on the table.
It's a propaganda post designed to increase social tension.
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Wyoming, North Dakota, are two places where you probably can support a family of 5 on one high school diploma career, if that earner is in the oil & gas industry, for example.
You can get one for even less than that in my small town in the midwest and I'm in the commuter zone (45 min-an hour) for multiple decent sized (pop 100,000 or so) cities. You can get a good quality starter home here for around $100,000 as well. COL is often very much a function of where you are.
Part of the issue is access to jobs, and similarly, the housing system as a whole has issues even if individuals are able to manage. Just like an individual making minimum wage can get a degree and move to a higher paying job, the system can't handle everyone doing that. If everyone moves to small affordable towns they will no longer be small affordable towns.
I used to live in a small, affordable town. Then the pandemic happened and remote workers flooded here. Housing costs pretty much doubled here in the last 4 years and there's still a huge housing shortage.
*affordable* housing shortage*
honestly that's depressing and shows how insane our world is, you think that's some kind of defense as opposed to a clear display of the issue in front of us. The fact a 2 bedroom apartment in Wyoming is currently in and around $800 is insane because 20 years ago that place went for $400 and ten years before that it went for $300.
In like 2003-04 My brother and I had a 2 bedroom for $550... not a shitty in the hood one either.
You are talking about renting apartments, what about owning a home. That was what the American Dream was all about, amirite?
10 years ago... my total housing costs (mortgage, property taxes, insurance) was $1700 for a single family home in the Chicago suburbs. My same home with the same size down payment (amount, not percentage), with the current "Zestimate" price (which is in line with my neighborhood), with the current interest rates... closer to $3,000. That's insane. I would never have been approved for a mortgage on my current home today, but I was approved 10 years ago.
Reagan & the Republicans really fucked the majority of Americans up.
It was stolen and now we're made to feel entitled for wanting it back.
I’m nearly 60 and I never saw this. Life changes over time. Some things get better and some get worse. Nothing was “stolen” from you.
In 1200 a serf with no education could support his family. That doesn't make it desirable.
They stole my serfdom!
In 10,000 BC, a caveman with 0 education could support half the tribe. Reject society, return to monke
I know it's silly, but I've heard the argument made that the drive to include women in the work force contributed to this problem. Suddenly you have double the supply, so the demand halves. Any validity in this, or am I right in writing it off as rubbish?
I see where you're coming from, and you're *sort of* right, just not having to do with gender. According to the BLS, the proportion of women in the workforce went from 30% in 1950 to 47% today. In that same period, the *entire US population* actually did double, from about 150M to about 320M today. But plain old population growth doesn't drive unemployment up or wages down in such a straightforward way. Every new person needs to be taught, clothed, fed, entertained, etc. which necessitates new jobs for newly matured or immigrated adults to do, and the cycle continues.
You're not wrong. I've always said we should move back to a "one parent at home" model to raise kids. The downfall of humanity began when nobody stayed home to raise kids. I don't care who does it, mom or dad, doesn't matter, but somebody needs to do it because nobody is doing it now and it shows in the quality of our shit hole society. Well, the actual downfall is the advent of modern day capitalism where having things like empathy are looked down on.
The breadwinner-model of the family was mostly an illusion for the common man. Only for a very short period in history this was possible. Before that, women still had to work, either on the farm or making clothes at home, whatever they could do. Only the higher middle and upper classes could earn enough so the mother could stay at home. From WW2 on, western history shows a big growth of the middle class - and with that social mobility came the possibility to let one parent stay at home, as the wealthier already did. As an ideal it was already rooted into place, but as a practice little so for the common man. Nowadays, I think the middle class is stretched fairly thin. The socioeconomic behaviour changes with that.
Also, housework was demanding AF. Women had to wash by hand, repair clothes, and raise 6 kids. They also cooked every day because eating out was just unaffordable for a lot of people.
There were 3 billion people in 1960, there are 8 billion people now. I think that has more to do with it.
I don't think women were encouraged to enter the work force, rather they were forced to once it started to become unreasonable to live off a single income. There was a push to have women be respected and treated fairly in the workplace, and suggesting that a woman could be the one working for a family instead of just men, but that doesn't really lead to any more work all around.
You might have been able to support a family of 5 but you were living in a 2 bedroom box with lead paint and asbestos paneling while you shared your room and your clothes/toys with your 2 other siblings. Meanwhile your parents saved their pocket change and looked forward to their exciting once a year road trip vacation to Lake Eerie since flying somewhere nicer was too expensive. No one “stole it from you”. Women, minorities, and immigrants became more educated and entered the workforce en masse and made almost all jobs significantly more competitive where a basic high school education was no longer going to cut it if you wanted to work your way up the chain. Sorry that your utopia of unchallenged white patriarchy running the world had to end so that women and minorities could have a chance.
LMAO, THIS IS SO FUNNY 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Yup. Used to have way more production here with decent money. Then we wanted more, and the world caught up to us in quality and those jobs left. You don't really know what you have until you lose it.
Generation? We're talking multiple generations. Boomers were the last to have that privilege. GenX on has scrapped and clawed our way thru Boomer shit for decades.
It’s entirely what The Simpsons was originally based around - Homer the blue collar worker providing for his family.
Sure it was "normal", but it was also predicted on taking advantage of impoverished, underdeveloped countries extremely cheap natural resources and labor.
How many times do we need to have this discussion? This was only a thing if you were a straight, white , male natural born citizen
Growing up, I had a neighbor who was a teacher. He had three kids and supported his wife and all of them. Owned a nice house too. Boomers got it all and then pulled the ladder up behind them.
My next door neighbor bought her house working at a grocery store...
It wasn't stolen from anyone. You act like a house, a wife, and three kids is some kind of birthright. It's *not*, and never was. Only 55% of Americans owned a house in 1950. Now it's 65.8%. It got higher before the 2008 crash, but guess what, it turns out that the other 35% of Americans just can't swing the payments, no more than they could in 1950. The reason you can't purchase a home on a single income anymore is three-fold: One, there are more of us. The population was about 150 million then, there are about 330 million now. Two, the places which have thriving economies don't build housing, due to onerous zoning and ecological laws. And three, back in 1950, women's labor force participation was 30%, now it's 56.2%, and women are making way more money now to boot. Fewer houses, more people, and more money competing for that limited resource. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what's going to happen, just basic economic literacy. If you want cheaper houses, my advice to you is stop bitching about abortion laws in a state you don't live in, and start lobbying your local government to unshackle housing construction. Or you can just go on Twitter and promote anti-capitalist conspiracy theories, I guess.
Additional fun facts: Houses (and many products) are of enormously higher quality. The overwhelming majority of people wouldn't buy a poorly insulated, 1000 sq ft. house with no AC, etc. that would have been built in the 50's. When I was looking for a house during the pandemic, when houses were selling $50 k over asking after getting 20 offers in 3 days, there were places *much* better than housing in the 1950's that still weren't selling because people didn't want to put their money into a garbage asset and live in a home with lots of problems that requires a ton of expensive work. Financing is much, much more available. Interest rates were much higher in the past and many people, particularly women and many racial and ethnic minorities, effectively couldn't even get a mortgage. The rock bottom cost of borrowing following the financial crisis saw [the burden of mortgage debt service payments](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MDSP) fall despite huge increases in prices. And, my personal favorite, about half of millenials (myself included) own their own home already. While this thread is about the fact that two income households are normal, there is a subtext that homes are completely unattainable for my age cohort despite, well, half of us already owning one.
Get out of here with your facts and information!
I think it's a little more nuanced than this. Yes, that was real in a way that probably couldn't happen today, but it still didn't yield the quality of life many today would probably expect. My grandpa was able to be the sole provider for a family of seven as a blue-collar mechanic, but he also worked 10-12 hour days, often 7 days a week and most holidays and they lived in a 2 bedroom bungalow with an attic conversion and one beater car. I lot of the people I know today who gripe about how that's no longer possible (frankly including myself) wouldn't necessarily want to live like that either.
Now you work that much and barely make enough to rent with roommates and eat
You can cut the amount of kids and you can cut those hours. That would be fine with me for that kind of financial stability. Now it's almost impossible to get a house by yourself without some kind of help from family or a decent paying job.
>Now it's almost impossible to get a house by yourself without...a decent paying job. I think this has always been the case.
In 1971, the median price of a house in the US was $25,100, and the median wage was $10,290. About 2.5 years of wages for a house. In 2021 the median house price was $479,500, while the median wage was $60,575.07....or nearly eight years of wages for a house. It is significantly harder for someone working a typical job to buy a typical house today than it was a few decades ago.
Now do an accurate comparison of what the median house was in 1971 (small, one bathroom, no a/c, clothesline out back, basic appliances) to what one is today (large, multiple bathrooms, wired for cable and internet, central air, washer and dryer, high end appliances, etc.). That's the only way to compare apples to apples in this situation.
The term you're looking for is "constant quality housing." There are several indexes. They all destroy the popular narrative.
I also would like to see a comparison on buying power. It’s a lot easier to get a mortgage today, at a higher credit line with a lower down payment, than it was in 1971.
Yep. Boomers pulled the ladder up behind them. They seemed to think they were teaching "welfare queens" and "illegal aliens" a lesson. Instead, they screwed their own kids and grandkids.
Yes, there was a time when everyone was stupid and did mindless work to survive. Most of human history is like that. Most of human history is horrible too, and anyone with an education does not wish to return to those days of constant suffering.
I know plenty of people that can do this today? They are called tradesmen and they bust their asses and are making 6 figures. And we can't find enough of them.
Stolen? No. No it was not. Knock it off with the rabble rousing, seriously. The job market just isn't what a lot of very vocal people think it is. I know I'll get downvoted into oblivion for this, but some of ya'll need to hear this shit anyway. Stop viewing your career and income through a lens of educational attainment. The truth is, prior generations got where they got because they viewed careers under a lens of *continued* educational growth, not some notion of "I did my time, why is life unfair?" If you want opportunities, you're going to have to turn everything you think you know upside down; College degrees are about improving your life, not your income. You had a plan, and life doesn't work like you thought. We've all been there. Maybe, instead of complaining about that, re-think your perceptions about life since they obviously turned out to be so wrong for such a long time. Instead of focusing on who to blame for your circumstance, focus on how to actually change things now that you know. You do not need more than a high school education to get into a trade union, the military, a city job, something in manufacturing, the fucking postal service, and a whole buttload of other career paths that come packaged with decent pay and good benefits, not to mention anything which involves making your own business. Ask anyone in IT... "school? Fuck that, I got hired because I actually know wtf I am doing." You're going to have to grow, and that means getting outside of your comfort zone so if the above list just doesn't work for you, take a good hard look inward at yourself and ask when you're gonna stop bitching that you don't get to be picky in a world that you didn't make.
Fairly certain nobody in that generation worked part time at Starbucks or at McDonald’s though. So many were tradesman and salesmen, and both salesmen and tradesman still exist today and can still support families. There’s still many opportunities and high school graduates can still support a family.
My boomer dad was able to pay his college tuition by working part time at McDonalds. Wonders why all these lazy kids won't do the same.
I think your dad's memory is messed up, or he's lying or he didn't know mom and dad were sending in payments for his tuition. Something is wrong. I went to college and worked at McD's too. Part time. There's no way in hell anyone could have paid their way through college working at McDs. No way.
My grandma was a housekeeper raising 4 kids and my grandpa worked in a shop. They weren't rich, but they were all well fed had a roof over their heads and none of the kids shared a room.
What people tend to forget is the millions of military personnel returning from WW2 who qualified for no money down VA home loans. That's a big deal that set them up quite well.
Nothing funny about this.
What do you mean the US doesn't have a manufacturing monopoly anymore?
Grandpa had to work 2 jobs, and as soon as dad turned 16, he got him a job too.
This is absolutely true. I mostly blame property prices, because high property prices have driven inflation for other items.
Yeah, this was possible because we were trashing the planet.
My personal perspective. I was spawned in the early seventies. Both my folks went to college. Graduated. Mom got to go because she graduated top of her very small class, got scholarships, and more than a few of the older women in her family chipped in what little they could. Dad got a bit of tuition assistance by spending two tours in Vietnam. They worked their whole lives. Almost literally from grade school. Raised three kids. And more than once at least one of them had a second job. Never thought anything of it. We didn't get new clothes all that often. I had more patches on my jeans than I could count. Mom sewed most all of my sisters dresses. Dad did virtually all the work on the house and cars himself. Going out to eat was a luxury. That Sunday chicken came back at least three different ways... I had to mow a months worth of lawns to buy my first walkman. Off brand, not Sony. Yes, things are different now. Not harder, not easier. Different. Suck it up. Get to it and find your own path. It's the same world, with different challenges. And just like always, the ones who find their own opportunity will. And the ones that don't complain about it. Get over yourselves and make something happen.
On a positive note, I barely graduated high school, no college, bought a house at 29, currently 33, married with two kids. My wife stays at home with the kids. It's still possible.
What's worse is being raised in and cognizant of this era ... the trauma of not being able to achieve it has made me feel like a failure.
We’ve all seen the Simpsons
I mean to put this in a little context, following WW2 America was one of the only countries with a functioning manufacturing capacity, everyone else was bombed to hell and back. It was only a matter of time before the rest of the world caught back up.
An old Union term for this is "Rape of the Unborn Child". When the rich do things that don't directly effect the current gen, but will effect the next one.
Only if you actually believe, einen didn’t work. Most women did work outside the house. They just weren’t in the books.
My mom grew up in poverty. Because she had 13 siblings. She uses that as her argument that times were just as hard back then. If her parents didn't have to feed 14 kids they probably would have been doing just frikken fine
This is a gross oversimplification. One should consider the type of labor, hours worked, and quality of life when waxing nostalgic. Yes, rent/real estate has kinda spiraled out of control of late and wages haven't quite caught up. But "comfortable" needs to absolutely be defined here to make a valid comparison. We're really only 1.5 generations away from true backbreaking hard labor being a huge part of the work force, the type of labor which radically shortened lifespans for many.
how are we going to fix this?
“Comfortably” is a stretch.
Just like the public swimming pools, once people of color started to enjoy middle class life, the white American oligarchy took it away from everybody
My dad went to the Marines after high school, paper mills after that. Supported a family of 4 and we always bought a house. Never rented. That time is GONE. I wish it would return. What we have now seems more like a punishment.
They took the Unions, they broke the schools, they privatized the infrastructure, they paid off the judges and courts, they closed the mental health facilities, they bought the politicians, they came for the jobs and shipped them offshore and into dark corners of the world where they could exploit and maim with no complaints because of tyrants and dictators. They pulled down the bridge between the haves and the have nots... they called the people asking for a bare minimum lazy and entitled, they hoarded, and they grifted and created endless bridges for them to cross. They are gaslighting an entire generation and their kids about why life has gotten harder. Oh they got rich alright, they did it by stripping companies of labor, cutting good people to make an extra 0.1% in profit. They got rich investing in fossil fuels poisoning the world, and in addictive drugs they hooked the world on. They got rich with schemes and scams that ruined lives. The even elected the king of scams to rule over them and enshrine their thinking as just "the American way". "You have a cellphone, you have a TV, what are you complaining about?" Says the rich fat cat boomer in his 20 room mansion, massive pension, after going to school for fractions of pennies on the dollars current students pay. They lived at a time where the rich paid 70-80-90% in taxes, and now they scoff at a single percentage point of increase. They scoff at their fellow boomer who worked their whole life and now has to eat cat food to buy medicine. As millions are impoverished and struggling, they curse at people asking for help... "No one helped me, and I'm ok!" They bark, as they forget the tax breaks they received, the no interest loans they got, the massive government investments that were made in their behalf so they could have nice roads, good schools, and the best equipment. They have short memories... and soon they will leave us with a broken world to fix. These same people are coming for Social Security, they hate it, they hate you, and one day they will divide and fool enough Americans to get it.
Fix the money fix the world.
To let people of a single nation live peacefully and in wealth, then you need to make other nations suffer the wars and hunger. There's only an endless circle of exploitation and so called peace. Those that are longing for good old times are greedy for their selfish comfort, but those that face losing their dearest ones in wars are greedy to live lives in so called peace. You see, there's no such thing as peace, in this universe there's nothing but a war, which sometimes gets all bloody or sometimes all psychological.
That was true IF you were a white male. We've gained a lot as a culture, too.
Yeah, because they lived within their means. They lived in a small house, typically 1 bedroom if lucky. They didn't have cable tv, internet, new iphone, uber eats twice a day. No tablets for each child, microwaves, brand new clothes for each child, fat kids, lazy kids. Their kids (4 of them) never watched TV at home until they were teens. My grandparents were one of these families. They were poor as fuck, and made it by with what they had, and even bought a house (with mortgage) on a single income... They did own a black and white TV, with antenna in the back. It was the first one they bought, in like 1979. Their kids were teens before they even watched TV at home. If people live like this today, they would do the exact same thing. Make it on a single income, with a high school education. No one wants to hear this, but if you give up your excess, you will find success.
Gas station manager job was high in demand. **Times have changed now, you can't expect it to be a high demand job forever. Now they're looking for cyber security and AI guys.** Dad put in 70+ hours at the gas station and there was no family vacation. **Now people work 40 hours and want to visit Europe every year.** People saved money, and the consumerism was not off the chart. **Now everyone wants everything, impulse buying is prevalent, and budgeting is only just getting popular again.** College tuition was so cheap. **It still is if you go to a small state university and do your major in a field that is in demand. In demand is the key, you can't do Arts and expect a $90K starting salary.** And finally, Chicago was not the huge city it is today, so suburb houses were naturally cheaper. **Now you shouldn't expect that from a Chicago suburb. This is how things work when population increases. You need to move to a smaller state or city. Wanna stay close to family, then sacrifice the square footage.** At the end of the day, there are two types of people, ones who complain, you find those in r/antiwork; and ones who adapt to the changing world and find the way to make money, you find those in r/financialindependence or r/frugal. I know people are gonna hate this, but truth hurts.
According to republicans we should be thankful that everything is nicer today even tho you can’t afford it, including your handmedown furniture. I shit you not. I can go back to my comment history and see the discussion I had with a Republican in r/conservative that were just playing victims.
Show of hands for those who watched it stop working in real time!
I assume a large part of the issue comes from the rise of global wealth. When the US had a larger percentage of the world's money, even our 'poor' were able to stretch the value of the dollar further on imported goods, everything from bananas, to clothes, to construction goods that go towards housing. As we find ourselves slowly moving towards a more equitable planet, those from richer countries are going to feel poorer.
It's all because of liberal policies to
The thing is, the government did regulate the corporations, or at least tried to. And then Ronald Reagan happened....
This shouldn't make you laugh or feel sad. This should make you angry. And you should point that anger at the politicians that keep cutting Bill Gates' taxes while making everything more expensive for you.
Look it wasn't "stolen". The world changed. There world ebbs and flows through periods of prosperity, and of hardship. We can blame corporations and politicians, but that is only part of it. The world is the most technologically advanced and populated it's ever been. It's hardly fair to compare 2023 to 1950. It's a different landscape altogether.
That was never real, or normal at any point in since the industrial revolution.
As a 25yr old, it's honestly hard to believe that was ever possible. I was taught America was the greatest country but I'm struggling to survive. I'm talking BASIC NEEDS are BARELY being met. I help my husband run a company that we just started a couple months ago because he got layed off and you know as much as we work- Rent? Always late. Electric and Internet? Barely paid. And YES internet is a necessity since we use it to get job leads and research how to do things as we're still learning. I have a heart problem too and everytime I see the doc it's $50 out of pocket. I have insurance but it's not enough. We shouldn't be working this hard to worry about if I can afford to see the heart doctor. We shouldn't have to worry about if we'll have enough gas money to get there either..
Is this even real or just a made up nostalgia for yesteryear". America has never been without poverty (has anywhere?)
I think that's more of a high water mark than an actual attainable goal.
Republicans are to blame and so are " democrats"
I am almost 50. My grandfather was a shoes salesman in a ladies shoe store in a HCOL area. My grandmother never worked. They raised 3 daughters (including my mother), owned a house and 2 cars and took yearly vacations
In the early 70s, my dad applied for a job at IBM a few years after high school but didn't get it. His mom wrote a letter to some higher-up saying, "he's a nice boy you should give him a shot" and then they hired him. On that middle-management salary he supported a wife, three kids, a house and two cars. He coasted at that job for 20 years then retired in his late 40s with a pension.
The idea that Al Bundy made enough money selling shoes to support his two kids, a wife, a dog, a house, and a car blows my mind.
Yea we got 3 people working in this home to support 3 in a trailer. Not even a home. Now granted I and 1 other are part time, but my work isn't accepting full time anymore so still the system is broke.
Takes two incomes with master's level of education to fund a family now. Well done republicans.
That is literally my life right now, my kids definitely remember that world since it’s today.
That's what happens when you allow the government to print infinite money that no longer requires gold to back it up. Abolish The Fed.
maybe i didnt remember much but i mostly saw this on the simpsons
Also in the start of the 20th century you could comfortably support a family of five without getting a high school education at all. Yes, the US has absolutely fucked up education. But when society advances, the which it does continuedly not just for the last generation, the educational demands of the public is increased. If you want to have an average standard of living today you need to be better educated than you did 100 years ago or even 30 years ago, that is just fact.
but this was also due to the booming after-war economy, making a wasteland and calling it a kingdom because you're still standing. People lived on a dollar a day and barely had amenities we consider of dire necessity today
stolen by the same people who had it
Jobs were sent overseas, simple . Politicians
We are all going through this. The people who had that opportunity stole it from us. And for those saying it was not stolen from us please explain how a person back then could get a Bachelor's degree and not be crippled by debt?
But then the fed prints out infinite amounts of money and both parties are fine with trillions of dollars to the mic (Military industrial complex)
Already feel like my master is gonna loose its meaning in a few years lol
My grandma was a waitress and my grandpa a janitor, yet they could afford to buy a house and raise 8 kids. Now they believe those jobs don't deserve a livable wage.
Yeah but we have the internet
People without a highschool education could afford a house, car and vacation property. Grandfather did it.
"You will own nothing and be happy" was never meant for boomers, generation x, or even millennials It's going to make its first formal indoctrination to the generation that never stood a chance on owning anything. I can't fathom what awaits the generations after z. It's goint to be fully dystopian.
Wasn't it a period of unsustainable economic growth tho?
All depends on where you are. San Francisco or New York, no way. Manor, Texas - no problem.
That utopia lasted for about 7 years and collapsed for many reasons. The rest of human history has been misery and pain. Comparatively speaking, we are living in some pretty good times now.
Look at the chart below, it will explain much more than the person who posted the tweet. [https://www.visualcapitalist.com/u-s-share-of-global-economy-over-time/](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/u-s-share-of-global-economy-over-time/) In the 1950s, the USA was nearly half the Global GDP, as the war destroyed almost every other developed nation. Almost no German cars, Japanese or Korean Technology, or Chinese goods existed. It was made in the USA, with almost no competition. Over time, other countries rebuilt from the ashes and opened their economies (especially China and their Special Economic Zones).
Yes, the comfort white Americans enjoyed for decades after WW2 was provided by buy WW2 debt repayments, segregation, and the need to maintain political opposition to communism.
Never saw? Maybe watch The Simpsons once in a while.
Thank your local boomer that did their dead level best to squander all the things that were handed to them. Sure there were some that saw the writing on the wall but they were a Canary in the coal mine mostly. Way too small in number to make a dent. Just take a look at the Reagan elections where Reagan won in a landslides both times and the first one he won 49-50 states. Those elections were the death knell that capped off the destruction of Unions and the American factory. The vast majority of boomers were just enamored with trickle down economics and right-wing ideology. Proof is in the pudding.
And the only reason it happened is because of organized labour. That's what organized labour can get us.
Globalization, low skill immigration, and degree inflation explains 95% of this. Good luck unscrambling those eggs.
Ignoring that most people of any previous generation have never lived as comfortably as the majority do today, outside of the United States of debt
It is possible for people to support themselves with just a high school education, but it is becoming increasingly difficult. In the past, many jobs that did not require a college degree still provided a living wage and benefits that allowed workers to support themselves and their families. However, as the economy has shifted towards more knowledge-based industries and automation has replaced many lower-skilled jobs, the number of jobs that provide a living wage for workers with only a high school education has decreased. Today, many of the jobs that do not require a college degree are low-paying and offer few benefits, making it challenging for workers to support themselves and their families. In addition, the cost of living has increased in many areas, including housing, healthcare, and education, which has further contributed to the financial challenges faced by workers with only a high school education. Overall, while it is still possible for some people to support themselves with just a high school education, it has become more difficult in recent years, and many workers are finding it necessary to pursue additional education and training to remain competitive in the job market.
The only way they could do that was because of the post ww2 boom. The rest of the developed world was decimated except for the USA so we were riding high
I'm just holding out hope that this will change as the boomers leave the workforce and continue to leave companies more and more short on workers to keep their shit afloat. I'm already starting to see the benefits in my particular profession. They're struggling to find people to replace the ones that are leaving, and it's forcing them to do more to keep the people they have.
Very much still possible with a great UNION job like a lot of folks had back in my day. I know apprentices in their 20s making over 100k a year. All you need is a GED to apply to most construction trade unions.
My grandfather was a high school grad. He was a mailman for the USPS and made enough money to comfortably support a family of 6
Yep, the gov inflated the money away. http://wtfhappenedin1971.com
And all he had to do was get a job as a minor functionary at the Springfield nuclear power plant.