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

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[quote=Anonymous]One significant difference between the 1950s - 1970s and now is that there were very few corporate leaders and foreign businesses that were purchasing real estate in the US.  The real estate boom where wealthy investors (both domestic and foreign) purchased real estate and either flipped or rented to profit did not happen until the 1990's-2000's.  So, housing prices had not skyrocketed like they have in the last 20-30 years.

Looking at fiction, Willy Loman (Death of a Saleman) is the classic middle-class American of the 1950's and one of the tragedies is that he killed himself just as Linda was about to make the last house payment.  As she says, they were "free and clear" of the bank.  In Happy Days, Howard Cunningham owns a hardware store and his own house.  Archie Bunker was a blue-collar worker and owned his house.  Note that none of these character's wives worked outside of the house.

in real life, I grew up in Pittsburgh in the 1970s and 1980s.  Although we were UMC instead of middle class, I had many friends and classmates who fit the OPs description.  One of my closest friends, father owned a printing shop (printing flyers, posters, leaflets, pamphlets, etc), another friend's father was a plumber.  I knew a kid whose father was a professional office assistant, like an office manager, but he didn't make that much as he never went to college.  One classmate's dad was the mechanic at a local gas station.  Another was a high school teacher (who I had for a class).  All of these professions were standard middle class; all of their mothers stayed at home; and all of them owned their homes.

Like the PP who posted a meme, the key was that most of these friends grew up in homes that were essentially 3 BR, about 1100-1400 sf and small.  Many were the standard post-WWII standard houses.  One story homes with LR, DR, kitchen and three BR and 1 ba down the hall and a basement.  Or small first floor with LR, DR, kitchen and powder room, upstairs three BR and one full BA, sometimes with, sometimes without a basement.  Many, many of these types of tiny houses.  But the families owned them (usually with assistance from the bank).

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