I agree with that. I just feel it’s harder and harder to get ahead these days. You have to put off having kids longer. At some point you just have to have kids for physiologic reasons if you wish to have a family, which makes it even harder to get ahead. As a result we have a quest as consumers to get everything for cheaper and cheaper. That leads to a quest by those manufactures to cut costs (labor) to maintain profits and deliver those products at a cheaper price. Eventually those that make the products and even those that manage those that make the products, cannot afford the products.

So the question is: a generation or two ago were consumer goods much more expensive on an inflation adjusted scale? How were middle class households commonly able to raise a family of four on one income and secure a solid retirement? What has changed? Imo it looks like the compensation in the form of wages and retirement funding has become lower. I don’t think the price of goods has gotten higher? It’s gotten lower. So it should be easier to provide that traditional middle class life, but it’s not. It’s harder. Why?

In addition, the system is setup to accommodate all expenses via loan, gone are the days where you just borrowed say tuition expense and worked your way thru school part time, maybe starting at a local community college for a couple of years. So kids borrow many $$$$ more than they need cause hey, "they" offered!

Well, I would argue that 20-30 years ago that all four family members didn’t need $1k iPhones, flatscreens in each room, 1 car per person and on and on....most of it financed.

And people weren’t trying to live like their parents who had spent decades accumulating their wealth immediately upon graduating college. That was kicking off though.

I can completley see that raising 2 kids on $50k is hard these days. But again. Life choices. Say you have kids at 30. You’ve got 8 years to get your house in order and your finances set up after college. That’s actually pretty reasonable so long as you don’t start living the high life at age 23 making minimum payments on everything.

Mama wants to stay home with the kids? Wonderful. She’s not getting the $56k mini van with all the bells and whistles. Dad’s not getting his $23k Harley to sit next to his $48k truck. You’re not eating out 4 nights a week.

People have to slow down, live simpler and let their payment free income do the amazing things it can do. Normal is broke.

My wife and I combined to make $17k working 3 jobs during our first two years of marriage. It sucked. But we didn’t load up on more debt. We had our student loans/cars paid for within 3 years of both of us landing real professional employment. And let me tell you, I wasn’t making a whole lot more than our original combined income back then.

We intentionally didn’t have kids for a while, haven’t had a car payment or any payment for that matter since short of a reasonable mortgage, and we’re now able to pay that off once we make some decisions on where we want to live. Just simple smart fiscal decisions.

Goods and services weren’t and aren’t the problem. Our spending habits are.

Not to mention the predatory CC companies handing out free pizzas and shirts if kids at college just sign up for their product. Then they’ve got you on the hook, and they know that loyalty to the original card pays off for them in the long run.

You may be right. I look at my neighbors and don’t see what you describe though. Granted it’s a small micro section of the American population.

What consumer goods? Are you asking about the cost of a 1,000 channel, wifi enabled, flat-screen TV in 1965? Didn't exist.

I would argue that if we were satisfied with 1960's tech consumer goods, those could be had for much cheaper today than modern goods. Modern tech is vastly more complex, and therefore requires a deeper, broader industrial system to produce.

Although there are some cost savings associated with modern tech, more efficient use of materials, automated manufacturing processes, and less collateral damage to the environment.

We may well be paying more, but we're getting a lot more. When I was a kid we had one TV and one radio. A rough count in my household is about 10 audio/video/computer devices... and my kids aren't allowed to have any.

Maybe. But again that lifestyle was to a much lower technological standard.

Airline and automotive safety standards were at least a couple orders of magnitude worse.

The daily living environment was probably more toxic on many levels.

Healthcare is a biggy as far as the REAL cost of living goes. It was much more limited 50 years. Cancer was a death sentence, they could buy you a little time. Many other maladies you had to live with (worn out hip, knee, etc). Since they were limited in what they could do for you (compared to now), the cost was limited as well.

People howl about the rising cost of healthcare, but it's mostly not because of profiteering or mismanagement, it's because the word "healthcare" encompasses a MUCH broader range and depth of services, and anyone who has "healthcare" expects ALL of that to be fully available to them.

200 years ago, the country doc would show up at your house with a leather bag full of tools and a bottle of whiskey. He would do what he could for you, and you'd give him a chicken. Labor cost of one man for an hour or two.

Today you can show up in the ER, and spend 15 hours in surgery with two teams of 3-4 people, using equipment that costs tens of millions, designed by expensive engineers, built by high-end technicians, in an expensive building with lots of staff. Labor cost of a small army, and many of them highly educated and compensated. Worst case, a minimum-wage person can rack up more health care costs in a week than that person could ever pay for in a lifetime.


Again, I think you could get ultra-minimalist, low-tech goods for pretty cheap today, with all of the functionality you would have expected in 1965. There's just no demand to produce such things.

Also the transition from single income/mom-stayed-home to dual income has changed the labor environment. Some of that is simply more productivity, but some of it is simply sharing the productivity with more people. There are a lot more "knowledge" workers today, and some of that is rather parasitic and doesn't really translate to higher productivity.

One TV and one radio in 1965 was probably the tech equivalent of several flat HDTVs today. I’m not saying people should buy things that cannot afford. They shouldn’t. All I’m saying is that the expectation that we can support a family on one income the same way people could a generation or two ago isn’t valid. How we got here is up for debate I guess.

At least those can be discharged in BK, the CC'd companies must be making more on those who do pay to cover those who won't/don't.

Healthcare costs are out of control mostly due to cost shifting. Since we don't have universal healthcare, the poor and illegals are forced to wait until they can visit the emergency room for care. With this group making some 50 million+ visits to the ER per year, with the average cost per visit of $5000, it's easy to see why this country is sinking under medical debt. If we could get this group a proper healthcare system, they would be able to visit a low cost health center for preventative care. This would save us trillions of dollars over just a few years.

The average undocumented immigrant in the US makes five trips to the ER every year?