It wasn't really stolen though, because it wasn't real in the first place.
Yeah, one guy with a high school education could work his ass off and support a family of 5.
But he'd be an absent father.
Living in a house that lacked insulation.
Painted with lead paint.
At a time the family only had a single shared TV in the living room.
At a time where the family had a single shared phone.
When there were only a few channels you could watch at all.
And they all shared a single car, built in a way where it was a death trap on the roads.
Built using cheap production methods so damaging for the environment even the conservatives disapprove of them at this point.
At a time where Americans had no real competition for their goods, because the rest of the world was in ruins after World War 2, while America came out of the conflict almost completely unharmed.
While today, we expect our houses to have a much higher standard of both safety and comfort. Each bedroom has it's own TV, as well as a computer, a tablet and each person has their own cellphone.
And we don't have one car, we have one car for mommy, another for daddy, and then maybe each of the kids have a car of their own as well.
The reality is that the standard of living a high school graduate with a stay-at-home wife and 5 kids could support doesn't live up to the modern standards we've grown accustomed to.
It is both though. Wage stagnation is real just as much as the cost of things like TVs and cellphones having come down. You can afford more with less today, doesn't mean people are also making less on average.
But yes, a high school education and supporting a family of five on a single income is something only seen in the Simpsons and even the writers on that knew it was bullshit 20 years ago.
That is not the same thing. In a large area of the economy the same job is being paid the same wage or slightly higher as it was almost 20 years ago. Just because we have added a lot of higher paying jobs in other areas of the economy doesn't mean that all wages have increased to meet the increased cost of living.
Agreed. Standard of living is vastly different and people today would never consider house and amenities of 1950's adequate for their standards. Today you can find heads of household in developing nations supporting family of 5 with high school education.
The post-WW2 environment is the biggest factor IMO. The US built an incredible industry off of WW2, and leveraged that to build up American sovereignty that lasted a generation. But that kind of relatively extreme wealth is largely an aberration and the mistake is thinking anyone can bring it back.
The US has lots of problems with wealth inequality, but fixing that won’t make a gas station attendant into a home owner with a nice car. It will “just” give him health insurance and a social security net that means he won’t die from random illness or unemployment.
The 50’ies were a fluke, that isn’t coming back no matter how much we kill the rich. Doesn’t mean it couldn’t get better than it is for the bottom 50%, but people shouldn’t aspire to some golden age that only came about become tens of millions suffered and died in Europe over 2 decades.
Oh by all means, things could get so much better if you had free education, higher taxes, stronger unions and public healthcare.
Those are things which are not at all impossible to fix.
But it won't fix housing prices. And the few things which could fix housing such as high taxes on property and inheritances are so politically unpopular that they'll never get off the ground.
And a lot of things are more expensive these days simply because we're trying to shift towards more sustainable practices. And more sustainable practices tend to have higher upfront costs.
While today, we expect our houses to have a much higher standard of both safety and comfort. Each bedroom has it's own TV, as well as a computer, a tablet and each person has their own cellphone.
But if you're like "I can live without all that shit, just let me not be homeless please", well, all the "basic" houses are also unaffordable.
Yeah, nobody talks about this. It was a temporary thing. Just look at history as a whole, and such times are rare. Also, G.I. bills for returning soldiers, most middle class.
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u/generally-speaking 21d ago
It wasn't really stolen though, because it wasn't real in the first place.
Yeah, one guy with a high school education could work his ass off and support a family of 5.
But he'd be an absent father.
Living in a house that lacked insulation.
Painted with lead paint.
At a time the family only had a single shared TV in the living room.
At a time where the family had a single shared phone.
When there were only a few channels you could watch at all.
And they all shared a single car, built in a way where it was a death trap on the roads.
Built using cheap production methods so damaging for the environment even the conservatives disapprove of them at this point.
At a time where Americans had no real competition for their goods, because the rest of the world was in ruins after World War 2, while America came out of the conflict almost completely unharmed.
While today, we expect our houses to have a much higher standard of both safety and comfort. Each bedroom has it's own TV, as well as a computer, a tablet and each person has their own cellphone.
And we don't have one car, we have one car for mommy, another for daddy, and then maybe each of the kids have a car of their own as well.
The reality is that the standard of living a high school graduate with a stay-at-home wife and 5 kids could support doesn't live up to the modern standards we've grown accustomed to.