I am pretty old & my mom and dad both worked at jobs. My grandmas did not BUT their moms did, so I think the one income nuclear family thing was a blip in history. Mostly people lived in larger family groups, more than one person was working even if someone was at home.

I would suck at being a housewife, don't mind working but yeah it should mean we are raking in cash, not just surviving.

This was "middle class" and not everybody. The goalposts moved and middle class is now in the mid 500ks take home. Wages never kept up, so the classes shrank by default. It was and is all planned by those at the top to syphon off more and more so they can elevate themselves from us common plebs. Almost like cycles in nature? We fight and gain concessions, they slowly roll them back until we start again...

I was making 15 an hour when Clinton was President, no degree. I had to have roommates, it really wasn't that much money where I lived.

There are something like 40 MILLION workers making less than 17 an hour now.

And for the "but most are teens" crowd, number one they are not mostly teens, and number two teens need to be able to afford housing, transportation, food, and the doctor, like everybody else, and their family needs the money too because minimum wage is freaking seven bucks an hour.

Sorry kids, we need a new ballroom and you would not believe how much gold paint.

The idea that it was common because that's what was depicted on TV ain't really so. Think about how many shows right now, and over the last 30 years, have had people living in NYC, in huge, modern apartments, while working as a cab driver. Or a waitress.

The truth is that our standard of living has increased; real purchasing power has gone up. But we also expect to do more, and have more. And the cost of essentials has increased faster than the cost of non-essentials, which makes the gains feel like they're being chewed up and spat out.

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/finance/comparing-the-costs-of-generations.html

All of this was only true of white families.

You can blame Reagan for a large part of this, among many other issues.

Roseanne was a show in the 80s about a hard-working blue-collar family that was often struggling to get by.

They had a house with a detached garage and 3 kids.

Which people lived this life? Is how we are organised today incompatible with the way they viewed the world?

Yeah I mean where do you think all these billionaires got their money from?

Ah yes, the art of "Enshittification" i.e., profit over product. And obviously you are the product for the billionaires and vertainly not other way around. https://www.themurrowproject.org/p/the-enshitification-of-everything

Not to mention how much other stuff was stolen from young people, like how awesome the internet was in the mid-2000's before it got absolutely destroyed by corporations - game consoles that didn't require 35 accounts to play a game ONLINE ONLY and a subscription to EVERYTHING in your life. Sure, it's always been bad (because capitalism) but not THIS bad. And it'll only get worse as the population becomes less tech literate.

Kids just go with it now, and it's really sad, they don't know anything different.

And to make that happen:

1. The gilded age made some robber barons insanely rich (though not as rich as the current American oligarchs)
2. There was a huge economic crash, called the Great Depression, during which the excesses of the rich were incredibly unpopular and the rich felt in real danger
3. To get out of the Great Depression, the US Government created all kinds of "socialist" programs to help people get back on their feet, strengthen unions, regulate business, make massive investments in US infrastructure, etc.
4. Right as the Great Depression was ending, WWII began
5. For a while the US was "neutral", and was manufacturing war materiel for the various countries at war, though mostly for the Allied side. This involved huge amounts of government spending.
6. Then, a few years after WWII began, the US entered the war, and spending ramped up even more.
7. Virtually every other modern economy in the world had its infrastructure destroyed during the war. Britain was bombed relentlessly, Germany was flattened, Japan was nuked, France was turned into Rubble, the USSR's factories were destroyed as Germany advanced and partially rebuilt in the middle of nowhere.
8. The war ended and while every other country was rebuilding their shattered infrastructure, the US infrastructure was running hot and able to supply the world's needs
9. American workers were massively in demand because it was almost the only remaining industrialized country with intact factories
10. American workers still retained the massive worker benefits and union membership that was the result of the New Deal economy

So, take that sequence, and for a brief moment a white, male worker in the US could support a family on a blue-collar salary in a way they hadn't ever done before that. Once other countries rebuilt their infrastructure, the US lost that edge. Once American businesses pushed for the roll-back of worker protections, blue-collar workers lost that benefit. Bit, by bit, the world returned to the way it has normally been, where the lowest class barely survives and both parents work hard, while the rich benefit.

I'm only in my 30s. My dad supported our family on a high school education. I don't have a college education but I did two different certification programs to work in my field. I'm single with no kids and live alone and I'm still struggling. I don't know how anyone has a family right now. I can't even afford me. I'm so mad that my dad raised an entire family and bought and paid off a house and I can barely pay my damn rent and buy groceries with a better education and job than what he had.

Don't worry. It'll get worse.

It wasn't even that long ago either. It was still relatively common to have single income households in the 80's when I was born.

My mum wasn't working at all when my older siblings were born, and she only started working when I started preschool.

Also, her minimum wage income boosted my parents savings so much they were able to buy an investment property and drop money into other things.

Those same people also had pensions for life once they retired in their 50s. They also didn't have to pay for health insurance.

My folks got married in the 60s. They bought their first house in the early 70s for 32k. 3 bed / 1 bath house with a big backyard in a decent neighborhood (albeit on a busy street). My mom and dad both worked, but my mom stopped when I was born (early 70s). House was tiny, about 800sq ft. They upgraded in the mid eighties for 120k. Bigger place on a quieter street. Mom was back to working again but we were able to take multiple vacations a year. Camping, Disney, etc. Today, I'm not sure they could do it. Sure they would be making more but the first house? 640k. Thats a 1900% increase. Thats about 6% increase year on year compounded. How has the salary growth been for the same period? 1% - 1.5% compounded yoy (inflation adjusted). Fucking gross.

When I was a whipper snapper you could go to the two screen movie theater that got the movies once they left the new theater and watch a double feature matinee for a dollar. But not if you had an onion in your belt.

For white people in the imperial core

Keep downvoting, sorry the truth hurts that your parents only had those privileges from raping the rest of the world