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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My family bought a five bedroom house in 1964 in Springfield,VA for under $25,000.  Sold the house ten years later and bought a house in McLean for $37,500.[/quote]

The price of essentials...shelter, education, healthcare and childcare have exploded.

Harvard cost $800/year tuition in 1955 and is $54,000 today.  UC schools were all free in-state until the 1960s (and are still a tremendous deal compared to many other state schools like UVA).  Heck, Sidwell used to cost $4,500 / year back in the 1990s and now is around $52k.

Housing costs have increased far more than overall inflation.  Now, a bunch of that is related to the zero-interest environment we had from 2008 - 2022.  The acceleration really started in the late 1990s.

The average DC daycare cost is now $24,400/year for one year for one kid.

[/quote]

Re: colleges -- they didn't have as much amenities as they do today. Dorms were a lot more basic. So was the dining option. And athletic buildings. State schools generally received higher percentage of their funding costs from the state than today.

And most people didn't go or finish college in 1955.[/quote]

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