Was there ever a time when your average nine to fiver could afford the American Dream?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My parents were greatest generation. My dad graduated high school, was a Marine in WWII, came home and did a few semesters of college. He was a salesman, then a cost accountant. My folks bought a 3/2 ranch home, and added a pool. This is on a the salaries of my dad and my mom, who worked in a department stores sales clerk.

The also put me through college on that salary.

The 1 percenters have wrecked the economy. Not the immigrants. America is built on Immersive. It is the grifters like Trump and Musk who are bankrupting the US.

It's called globalization.

It's erroneous to keep comparing America's golden years post-WW2 to the modern economy. There's simply much more competition now that the world has rebuilt from WW2. The golden era was just a blip on the radar and an anomaly that will never happen again.

nope, sorry, the changes occurred before "globalization" and blaming "the immigrants" is woefully misplaced. There have been immigrants in the US ... forever. This is a more recent, last 40 years, phenomenon that has more to do with the concentration of wealth in the 1% and the reduction of real wages for the working classes.

[Anonymous]

One reason I think income inequality is worse today is because of caregiving professions like nursing, teaching, and childcare. These are all professions in great need due to our aging population, households needing 2 full time parents, and more people attending college. Yet, the pay for these professions has not kept up with other sectors. Tons of articles explaining why the cost of things like college and childcare have gone up despite wages for those workers still being low compared to the level of education required.

[Anonymous]

Dad was a plumber and mom didn't work. They built a home in what has since become a small new england city in a NYC burb by purchasing farmland. Yes, small sq footage. 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, a living room and kitchen.

DHs parents were a car factory worker and a school office worker who only worked part time sometimes.No college. They purchased a home in NJ. Yes, also small, similar size to my own until converted the garage to more finished Sq footage. Sent two kids to college, albeit with loans. They are now retired with a paid off house and travel several times per year.

DH and I live in slightly larger home now, both of us work full time. It was never worth it for me to quit for childcare, like we would have lost money though I was only earning 50k back then. We will retire years later than DHs parents.

[Anonymous]

Yes, but not in this area. My sister and her family live in suburban Hartford and they can do it there. My nephew just graduated and has a great job (mechanical engineering) and will be able to afford a house on his salary - easily.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One reason I think income inequality is worse today is because of caregiving professions like nursing, teaching, and childcare. These are all professions in great need due to our aging population, households needing 2 full time parents, and more people attending college. Yet, the pay for these professions has not kept up with other sectors. Tons of articles explaining why the cost of things like college and childcare have gone up despite wages for those workers still being low compared to the level of education required.

But in the meantime, OP thinks that women working is an even tradeoff for the cost of childcare. Even at a 50k salary, it wasn't worth the cost of childcare for me to stay home, it was not better to quit or an even exchange even at a 50k salary. We had to space our kids out by 5 years just to afford childcare because we would have bankrupt ourselves to have two in daycare simultaneously

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My parents were greatest generation. My dad graduated high school, was a Marine in WWII, came home and did a few semesters of college. He was a salesman, then a cost accountant. My folks bought a 3/2 ranch home, and added a pool. This is on a the salaries of my dad and my mom, who worked in a department stores sales clerk.

The also put me through college on that salary.

The 1 percenters have wrecked the economy. Not the immigrants. America is built on Immersive. It is the grifters like Trump and Musk who are bankrupting the US.

Musk founded a major multi-billion dollar company that employs thousands of people and makes one of the first new cars on the road since the Big-3 domination. That sounds like very aspirational American to me! You're just angry with his politics, or rather, he destroyed the progressive left stranglehold over the national dialogue through twitter and censorship.

The irony is that going by all polls, the demographics people are talking about on here, including your parents, the modest lower middle class/upper working class, are the demographics flocking to Trump and may give him the victory. They are very angry with the progressive left, particularly the establishment classes, for pretending to care about them when in reality they do nothing. Which is the Democratic party.

The latest poll from ABC/Ipsos was intriguing as it showed 43% saying they were not as well off under Biden as before (presumably under T). While 41% said "about the same" and only 13% said "better off," the 43% is stark because it's the highest % ever - by a substantial amount - saying not well off going back to when the question was first asked in 1986. Very bad numbers for a Democrat who is supposed to care about people, eh?

https://www.langerresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/1231a2IntotheElection-.pdf

[Anonymous]

The BIG differences from the ‘70’s are the cost of college and less access to consumerism/marketing (fewer options and access). Back then, people just had fewer options to buy stuff - no easy access to goods and services. Even to get actual cash you had to go to the bank (no atms). Imagine coming home and having NO media funneling marketing at you - no phone, few TV ads, nothing but one worn monthly fashion magazine filled with goods you had no way of accessing because those items weren’t sold anywhere near you. It was fine.

My Dad worked 5.5 (half day Saturdays ) days a week, left for work before I got up and “ maybe” made it home by dinner. My mom stayed home and cooked from scratch, shopped deals, and cleaned our home. I’m not sure everyone would want this now. Even back then people worked very hard. It’s not all like TV and Dick Van Dyke unless umc territory

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My parents were greatest generation. My dad graduated high school, was a Marine in WWII, came home and did a few semesters of college. He was a salesman, then a cost accountant. My folks bought a 3/2 ranch home, and added a pool. This is on a the salaries of my dad and my mom, who worked in a department stores sales clerk.

The also put me through college on that salary.

The 1 percenters have wrecked the economy. Not the immigrants. America is built on Immersive. It is the grifters like Trump and Musk who are bankrupting the US.

Musk founded a major multi-billion dollar company that employs thousands of people and makes one of the first new cars on the road since the Big-3 domination. That sounds like very aspirational American to me! You're just angry with his politics, or rather, he destroyed the progressive left stranglehold over the national dialogue through twitter and censorship.

The irony is that going by all polls, the demographics people are talking about on here, including your parents, the modest lower middle class/upper working class, are the demographics flocking to Trump and may give him the victory. They are very angry with the progressive left, particularly the establishment classes, for pretending to care about them when in reality they do nothing. Which is the Democratic party.

The latest poll from ABC/Ipsos was intriguing as it showed 43% saying they were not as well off under Biden as before (presumably under T). While 41% said "about the same" and only 13% said "better off," the 43% is stark because it's the highest % ever - by a substantial amount - saying not well off going back to when the question was first asked in 1986. Very bad numbers for a Democrat who is supposed to care about people, eh?

https://www.langerresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/1231a2IntotheElection-.pdf

Musk inherited a lot of money and invested in a company where other people were the inventers. Then he wrecked the brand because he us a nutball. Then he moved on to Twitter and wrecked that.

Such a stellar example!

[Anonymous]

I half-jokingly say that America Was Great Before between about 1952 - 1955. Everything before that was mythical, and everything started falling apart after that.

But, really, I think a lot of economic graphs show you that worker income became detached from the gains of the economy pretty much once the Reagan Revolution hit the country in 1980.

Full disclosure - I loved Reagan as a kid and volunteered with the Bush/Quayle campaign when I was old enough to vote - so, I wasn't reflexively anti-Reagan, but upon reflection, I think the conservative movement had a negative impact on the median worker.

Also, comparing the ability of a person to buy and maintain property in an area that subsequently experienced an economic boom isn't really apples-to-apples. The counterexample would be being able to buy certain property in Detroit more cheaply now than you could in the past -- you just wouldn't want to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The BIG differences from the ‘70’s are the cost of college and less access to consumerism/marketing (fewer options and access). Back then, people just had fewer options to buy stuff - no easy access to goods and services. Even to get actual cash you had to go to the bank (no atms). Imagine coming home and having NO media funneling marketing at you - no phone, few TV ads, nothing but one worn monthly fashion magazine filled with goods you had no way of accessing because those items weren’t sold anywhere near you. It was fine.

My Dad worked 5.5 (half day Saturdays ) days a week, left for work before I got up and “ maybe” made it home by dinner. My mom stayed home and cooked from scratch, shopped deals, and cleaned our home. I’m not sure everyone would want this now. Even back then people worked very hard. It’s not all like TV and Dick Van Dyke unless umc territory

Just throwing this into the mix - but parents, especially fathers, spend a lot more time parenting than they did in the 70s. I think that probably involves some economic trade-offs.

[Anonymous]

It’s the barriers to entry to the middle class which have gotten more expensive, which makes the middle class poorer.

My parents had associates degrees and had paid off their house on a lake on more than an acre in a NYC suburb before I went to high school. They vacationed and had expensive hobbies (skiing etc). They paid full tuition for both their children and have very ample retirements.

The total cost of their combined education was less than $5,000, which adjusted for inflation is still $40,000– but there are very, very few professional-level jobs in which you reach that level of financial success for only $20,000 in education. The sorts of jobs they have now require minimum BA and in my mom’s case often MA.

So now what cost $20,000 costs around $100,000 just to get into the middle-class door. And then you can start on the second “pillar” which is homeownership. Adjusting for inflation my parents home (which they had built on land they purchased) cost about $300,000 which includes the interest they paid on their mortgage.

If you can find a new custom build for $300,000 and an acre+ of land in an exceptional school district in the suburbs of NYC (or even less expensive big cities like DC) in 2023 I would be shocked.

[Anonymous]

The general problem with America over the last 75 years is that all the things people “need” have gotten very expensive and the costs have significantly outpaced inflation.

Healthcare, education, childcare and elder care
Costs all significantly exceed inflation and wages have not adapted.

In the meantime, airfares, electronics, and various “wants” have gotten much cheaper. It is actually cheaper in today’s dollars to fly most places compared to the 1970s. Not inflation-adjusted…straight out cheaper.

This has all happened under both political parties. Not sure how anyone can stridently argue one party is more responsible….both are complicit.

Even now, neither party puts forth any real plan to address significant cost of life issues. I mean healthcare costs and outcomes are just awful. Most workers even with health insurance have terrible insurance that leaves them with high premiums, high co-pays and huge bills for serious events.

So, yes it was possible to do OK on one income, although I think folks are being Pollyanna that life was so grand. I agree with others…life was simpler.

I mean it was fairly common back in the day that parents did not save much for college and the kids were expected to pay themselves. Again, as somebody else pointed out, you could work a summer and pay a year’s tuition for even Harvard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course this was possible, OP. My dad was a fed. gov't. employee and my mom was a SAHM. They bought a home in Great Falls in the late 70s. The house cost $100,000 and was paid off by the mid-80s when my sibling and I started high school.

That would never happen today. I'm so worried for my own kids' futures.

I believe you but I'm also curious how many sq ft the house was, how many bedrooms & baths?

I grew up in a nice neighborhood on my dad's teacher salary in the 1970s, feeling middle class, but it was a 2 bedroom house and I shared a bedroom with 2 siblings and a bathroom with siblings and parents, so 5 of us using 1 bathroom.

So while I absolutely agree people have to spend more of their salary on housing today, I also think expectations of the type of home people want have greatly increased. How many middle class families in the DMV would be fine living in a house where 5 people shared one bathroom and 3 kids shared 1 bedroom?

I don't know the sq. footage of the house, but it was a traditional colonial - four bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, almost two acres. Nothing fancy, but very solidly comfortable. That would never happen today.

True. But I bet your family couldn’t have afforded that much house in NYC during those same years on your dad’s salary, could they? DMV has become more desirable in the ensuing years. Not quite NYC desirable. But any time an area becomes a place lots of people want to live then it becomes more expensive. Population has risen tremendously in this area since the late 70s.

My parents came to this country in the ‘50s with 8th grade educations. They managed to buy a house in the NYC suburbs in a very good school district. Mom stayed home once we were born, and dad worked as a bus driver. They sent money home to their families regularly.

NYC suburbs are not the same thing as Manhattan price wise.

[Anonymous]

A few things:
In the 1950s ...

1. there were less "colored" people and women in the workforce
2. there was less corporate greed
3. taxes were higher
4. The US was the only country left with an intact economy

If you want to go back to the 1950s American Dream, women would need to leave the workforce; most jobs would not go to "colored" people; CEOs would need to make less (totally agree with this part); taxes would need to rise; and the world would need to have had a catastrophic event where only the US economy was left unscathed.

You can't look at the American Dream in the 1950s in a vacuum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I half-jokingly say that America Was Great Before between about 1952 - 1955. Everything before that was mythical, and everything started falling apart after that.

But, really, I think a lot of economic graphs show you that worker income became detached from the gains of the economy pretty much once the Reagan Revolution hit the country in 1980.

Full disclosure - I loved Reagan as a kid and volunteered with the Bush/Quayle campaign when I was old enough to vote - so, I wasn't reflexively anti-Reagan, but upon reflection, I think the conservative movement had a negative impact on the median worker.

Also, comparing the ability of a person to buy and maintain property in an area that subsequently experienced an economic boom isn't really apples-to-apples. The counterexample would be being able to buy certain property in Detroit more cheaply now than you could in the past -- you just wouldn't want to.

+1

another former R, Bush voter, Reagan supporter, whose parents worked blue collar jobs.