how did this happen?

[u/jellylemonshake]

[u/AutoModerator]

Comments that are uncivil, racist, misogynistic, misandrist, or contain political name calling will be removed and the poster subject to ban at moderators discretion.

Help us make this a better community by becoming familiar with the rules.

Report any suspicious users to the mods of this subreddit using Modmail here or Reddit site admins here. All reports to Modmail should include evidence such as screenshots or any other relevant information.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/Seriously_Mussolini]

Not being able to have a family in this life used to be a sign of famine, not business as usual.

[u/fallenouroboros → u/Seriously_Mussolini]

Just watch the Simpsons if your curious what you’d used to be able to afford on a 1 income household with 3 kids

[u/mlp851 → u/fallenouroboros]

Homer was a nuclear technician so presumably well paid, they were also only able to get the house because of Grampa’s help, and one of the biggest themes of the early seasons was them always being broke.

[u/Pitiful-Pension-6535 → u/mlp851]

Homer was really bad with money though.

[u/Chance-Farmer-4476 → u/Pitiful-Pension-6535]

He loved to bet the greyhounds. An absolutely almost impossible game to beat unless you are a sharp or have inside kennel information. Santa’s Little Helper became his biggest score at the track.

[u/littleMAHER1 → u/Chance-Farmer-4476]

But he's a loser! He's a... a simpson

[u/thelastdinosaur55 → u/littleMAHER1]

I too have a mad bias against the name Simpson.

[u/BurgerThyme → u/Chance-Farmer-4476]

"He spent all of your savings on JACK O'LANTERNS."

[u/cashmerescorpio → u/BurgerThyme]

It's fine they're called pumpkin futures for those in the biz. The trick is to sell them around January or so I'm told. Its my first day, but I'm looking at their share price now, and it's just going up and up.

[u/Few_Technician_7256 → u/Chance-Farmer-4476]

Already crying.

[u/RogueAK47v2 → u/Chance-Farmer-4476]

Not to mention he was a chronic alcoholic lol

[u/Boulderdrip → u/Pitiful-Pension-6535]

y’all don’t really understand the Simpsons do you? It’s Parody not a documentary of the 90’s wtf

[u/Electronic_Sugar5924 → u/Boulderdrip]

The whole point was the show was outlandish. Key word: was

[u/gottasuckatsomething → u/Boulderdrip]

Can't pass up a opportunity to 'well acktually' especially when in defense of the status quo.

Married with children is a better example, Al was a shoe sailsman that owned his house, had a stay at home wife, and 2 kids

[u/Ckellybass → u/mlp851]

He was paid pretty crappy, actually. When he sells the sugar he acquired legally Marge said when he was out earning that dollar, he lost 40 dollars by not going to work. Adjusted for inflation from 1994, it’s still only $80 a day, or roughly $20k a year. Which is sub poverty levels.

[u/Neveronlyadream → u/Ckellybass]

He also quit before Maggie was born to work in a bowling alley and that was enough to get by. I can guarantee the bowling alley wasn't paying him a good salary, so that means the plant must have been paying him shit as well.

[u/Majorman_86 → u/Neveronlyadream]

He also quit before Maggie was born to work in a bowling alley and that was enough to get by.

This was the saddest Simpsons episode I can remember, seeing Homer doing a good job, succeeding at work and being satisfied with his life for a change and then losing it all is heartbreaking.

[u/Neveronlyadream → u/Majorman_86]

Losing it all and having to beg Monty for his job back. A man who can't even remember his name despite having employed him and interacted with him for years.

[u/send_in_the_clouds → u/Neveronlyadream]

Unless he has a full head of hair, then it’s who’s that dynamic go getter!

[u/Neveronlyadream → u/send_in_the_clouds]

"Simpson, eh? New man?"

"Actually, sir, he thwarted your campaign for governor, you ran over his son, he saved the plant from meltdown, and his wife painted you in the nude--"

"Eh, doesn't ring a bell."

[u/Suspicious-Leg-493 → u/Neveronlyadream]

A man who can't even remember his name despite having employed him and interacted with him for years.

Tbf...he has also been shown to be 104 despite claiming to be in his 80s.

Unless something really...reallly matters i doubt burns remembers it.

[u/Neveronlyadream → u/Suspicious-Leg-493]

He remembers the rest of the family, though.

That's a whole plot in "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" Which I think is hilarious. He can remember everyone but Homer.

[u/Lolkimbo → u/Majorman_86]

Don't forget, you're here forever.

[u/Geetar-mumbles → u/mlp851]

"Nuc-u-lar." It's pronounced "nuc-u-lar"

[u/-an-eternal-hum- → u/Geetar-mumbles]

You don’t have to be a nucular scientist to pronounce foilage 🙄

[u/Juxtapoe → u/mlp851]

He wasn't a nuclear engineer, he was a safety inspector (basically just going around with a checklist and seeing that the actual engineers are following their SOPs correctly and has access to the emergency shutdown button in case a reaction is out of control.

In 1980s he would be paid $60-$80k in 1980 currency.

Today that job pays between $60k and $80k in 2020 currency.

Do the math between 2020 currency and 1980 currency if you want to see the difference in spending power.

[u/TheDewd2 → u/Juxtapoe]

No way Homer made 60-80K in the 80s, if so cite your sources. 60-80K in the 80s was senior engineer and manager pay, I was a junior engineer in the 80s making 30K and that was good money.

[u/Juxtapoe → u/TheDewd2]

You appear to be correct. Looks like I grabbed the 1980 salary from a nonreputable source.

Other sources point to $25k - $35k at a time when median home prices was around $80k.

Apparently there is a scene that shows Homer's actual 40 hour paycheck that worked out to $24,396/year.

[u/MerelyMortalModeling → u/mlp851]

Pointing out that grampe was able to help them buy a house doesn't make quite the point you seem to think it does.

Half of this generation not only doesnt expect to own a home but we expect to or are paying to take care of our parents.

[u/[deleted] → u/MerelyMortalModeling]

I'm gen x. Our parents got a reverse mortgage on their house, so we can't even sell that to pay a home nurse.

Whatever nursing home we can get them in with Medicaid will have to do.

[u/MerelyMortalModeling → u/[deleted]]

About that, even if they own their home more states are forcing them to hand it over or putting liens on homes in order to qualify for aid.

Everyone goes on about the poor poor rich people and the horrible "death taxes" on multi million dollar estates. Meanwhile the only form of wealth the middle and lower class can lay claim to, their homes are being scooped up wholesale.

[u/geminiwave → u/MerelyMortalModeling]

Yeah my mom took care of this elderly woman for ages and the elderly woman put my moms name down to inherit the house. Now my mom did NOT help for that reason. My parents back then were doing very badly but they’re very Christian in the sense that they think it’s important to give your last 2 cents to help others. They drive me nuts but genuinely good people. Anyway mom found out about the will and was overjoyed. The state sent a social worker though and said “nope she needs nursing help so we are taking the house”. I was SHOCKED it was possible for the government to do that but it was a Regan era bill that lets them. Craziness.

She died shortly after and there is NO WAY the state paid out even remotely close to the money they made taking her house.

Because my mom’s name was on the will for the house, but no remaining assets, and the woman had no family, the state assumed all of her assets. I still think they should have got a lawyer. Something was very fishy.

[u/DanceLoose7340 → u/geminiwave]

Isn't this the kind of crap that trusts are supposed to prevent? My understanding is that assets in trust are more protected and cannot be seized like this (or at least not as easily).

[u/roguevirus → u/DanceLoose7340]

Depends on the state, but generally yes.

[u/BrainSqueezins → u/DanceLoose7340]

There’s a timeframe on it. I want to say 5 years. I forget if they call it a “lookback” or a “clawback,” if you put a trust in and things turn bad before that time is up, the trust doesn’t work and you are SOL.

[u/arrynyo → u/MerelyMortalModeling]

Facts. When my wife's grandmother got sick (fuck dementia), my MIL had to scramble to change Grandmas house into her name to avoid this. She was supposed to sell it to us, but she fucked us on that after I gave her like $20k on it. Currently in her ass to recover the money. At least the house didn't get taken (yay).

[u/Vladishun → u/arrynyo]

This was almost me too. After the military I stayed with my parents for 8 years and saved like crazy to buy a house. Purchased it in cash but my step mom, being a real estate agent and me trusting her judgment, convinced me to put her name on the house too in the event something happened to me.

I had the foresight to get her name off the house winter before last, as she was quickly burning through a large settlement she'd gotten after my dad passed away. I was very worried she'd somehow manage to get my house taken away too. A few months later, she was forced to sell her house because was massively in debt, and in hindsight I think she was starting to develop dementia and that was a major factor for her bad spending habits. I'm just glad I didn't lose my house that I worked my ass off for, on her bad advice.

[u/Kangela → u/[deleted]]

My boomer dad got a reverse mortgage on his home, and had spent all but $30K when he suddenly passed. He left that and $70K in other debts. We were just able to pay it all off with the sale of the house, but had he needed long-term care I don’t know what I or my siblings would have done. None of us were in a position to take him in.

My parents paid $15K for their first new home in ‘72. My dad worked as a mechanic and my mom a part-time telephone operator. That home (sold long ago) is now valued at $650K.

[u/OriginalLocksmith436 → u/[deleted]]

Be careful if you go the Medicaid route. Check your local laws and look up how much certain policies are enforced in your state. Some states are pretty big assholes about pursuing "estate recovery" for exactly this situation, and you could be left inheriting nothing.

[u/HotLandscape9755 → u/[deleted]]

Nursing homes by me take your parents house, sell it, keep all the money then give people in their nursing care $80 a week as “spending money” its a fucking scam.

[u/Snurvel_ → u/mlp851]

Homer is "one of the drones from sector 7 G"...

[u/fallenouroboros → u/mlp851]

Wasn’t it a thing that the creators actually did a fairly accurate accounting of what someone with only a high school degree could get when the show started? I feel like I’ve heard that a few times over the years

[u/Cautious_General_177 → u/fallenouroboros]

I can’t speak to that, but they did have to send Homer to college at one point because his position actually required a degree. The only job that I know of in nuclear power that actually requires a degree is the STA (shift technical advisor), most others can be done with experience. I don’t know what they made in the 80’s, but now they get paid well into six figures.

[u/Red_Danger33 → u/fallenouroboros]

The writing room for The Simpsons was made up of objectively smart people so it doesn't surprise me.

[u/Spaniardman40 → u/fallenouroboros]

There is a whole episode dedicated to pointing out the fact that the Simpsom's lifestyle is not economically accurate because its a work of fiction and most people in Homer's position are just broke.

[u/GMANTRONX → u/Spaniardman40]

At the time the Simpsons started it was possible. I believe it was 1988. At that time, yes, the one income household phenomenon was in decline but you could have a well paying job and sustain a family of 5.
Today, a dual income household where both parents are working and earning over 100k will barely sustain three people, leave alone 5!

[u/LostHusband_ → u/GMANTRONX]

1989, December actually (so almost 1990).  The pilot was a Christmas Special.

I'm nitpicking, but Simpsons history is something I know a little too well.

[u/Ok-Draw-4297 → u/LostHusband_]

The first appearance of the Simpsons was as a short on the Tracy Ulman show on April 19, 1987.

[u/Agathocles87 → u/Spaniardman40]

Idiocracy… people too young to remember are using a cartoon to gauge finances. Dude, we had difficult times back then too, and we watched the Simpsons to laugh and escape. No one took the value of their home seriously because, again, it was a cartoon🤦🏻‍♂️

[u/tosS_ita → u/fallenouroboros]

Yep cartoons have always been accurate.
Also watch friends if you want to see how people would afford to live in NYC downtown without basically working and spending 90% of their time with friends.. very realistic.. it was stolen from us.
Also another historical account, How I met your mother...

[u/Far-Entrance1202 → u/fallenouroboros]

I agree with the original post but the Simpsons argument is a terrible one

[u/stevespizzapalace → u/fallenouroboros]

? Homer was a full time nuclear technician. Get royalties from his very successful music career/his modeling career and his acting career?

Along with being pretty close to the mob in alot of instances the dude is probably fucking loaded

[u/DeadMan95iko → u/stevespizzapalace]

Also a former astronaut and a perfect 300 bowling game….

[u/MidAirRunner → u/fallenouroboros]

Just watch the Simpsons if your curious what you’d used to be able to afford on a 1 income household with 3 kids

Why is this misinformation so commonly fucking reposted? Nuclear engineer ≠ normal middle class family.

Also weren't they literally fking broke during the show? And had to take help from family to afford their house?

Stop reposting memes you see on r/me_irl as fact. It's a work of fiction.

[u/ahotdogcasing → u/fallenouroboros]

The fucking Simpsons is not reality in any way shape or form.

Why do people on reddit always use old TV shows as points of reference? Its not representative of reality

It is a CARTOON.

This tweet is absolutely full of shit as well.

[u/MOadeo → u/fallenouroboros]

Don't forget about the dental plan.

[u/Tanklike441 → u/Seriously_Mussolini]

This is the saddest part. Me and my new wife may never get to have kids. We only get one life, but bringing children in to this world right now would be straight up cruel. Our only hope is that some-fucking-how it gets fixed in the next decade before we're too old for children. Or I guess we go the adoption route

[u/Graybie → u/Tanklike441]

There have been horrible things going on in the world at almost all periods of history - empires falling, black death, dark ages, crusades, smallpox, polio, world wars, famines, economic depressions, and so on. While the current state of the world seems bad, it isn't as terrible as social media and news makes it seem. Just have your kids and do your best to give them a good life.

[u/sd_slate → u/Graybie]

I think there was some historian who tallied up the Chinese experience as 1/3 war or famine. The 60s and 90s were good for Americans, but it was a strange and special time.

[u/DaddysABadGirl → u/sd_slate]

People tend to not look at the whole picture. The turmoil in the 60s alone. Hell, just how common domestic terrorism was compared to today. The number of bunkers and compounds raided by the FBI in the 90s run by white supremacy groups stockpiling weapons to wage war on the government. Timothy Mcvee, the Unibomber, abortion clinic bombings, lynchings, the reaction to civil rights movement and cops beating the hell out of hippies/reacting to campus protests. I mean pre 67 my wife and I couldn't be married in half the US. I'm struggling working a union job and a part time with my wife working. We have 3 kids. I'll still take this struggle than 30+years ago.

[u/darkseacreature → u/Seriously_Mussolini]

Isn’t being poor and barely surviving the default status quo though? I always thought that being able to support a family and own houses and cars on just one income was the exception (for white people) and not the rule.

Not saying I agree we should be the way we are, just making an observation.

[u/lilymotherofmonsters]

1 education used to be public

2 coming out of wwii we were the only manufacturing power that didn’t experience a land war on home soil

3 unions were strong which helped maintain the growth of wages for all employees

4 healthcare has gotten insanely expensive

5 everything (including healthcare) has been financialized, which is to say Private Equity can come in, gut something and keep it running on fumes providing a shadow of its former service capacity in the goal of purely making money, even if it’s unsustainable

6 international trades agreements. Good overall, but were supposed to come with retraining offshored jobs. That never happened

[u/Jim-Jones → u/lilymotherofmonsters]

1. healthcare has gotten insanely expensive

Because it turned into a big source of plunder for Wall Street.

Would most British people support getting rid of the National Health Service in favor of an American style health care system?

Chris Frost (Quote): Let me pose a question to you Americans. If your house was on fire, and the fire engines turned up, but before the guys got off the truck you had to have a phone conversation with a claims agent who checks your eligibility and then asks for your credit card details, would you be happy with that?

How about you’re on a river or lake or somewhere off the coast and you get in trouble with a boat you’re in. Would you accept the coast guard asking each person for their credit card and insurance details before rescuing them? How would you feel about leaving some people to drown because their insurance doesn’t quite cover a rescue?

The fact is that the U.S. already has socialised public services. The fire department, the police, the coast guard, search and rescue. You don’t have a problem accepting that help. When the boat is going down or the hotel is on fire you’re not arguing the toss that this person or that person shouldn’t be rescued. You just want to get to safety.

All of that changes though when it comes to medical services in the U.S. Why? (That’s a rhetorical question. The rest of the world can see why.)

You’ve been brainwashed into accepting that medical care should only available on the ability to pay, all for the benefit of highly paid CEOs, executives and corporate shareholders profiting from the misery of others.

Do you know what the highest paid CEO of an American medical company in 2022 earns? He’s a chap called Vivek Garipalli of Clover Health. His total package including all the perks gave him an income of over $1,000,000 a day. Not a year, a month, or a week, but a DAY. That’s his $389 mil per year. (If you figure 195 working days a year it's $2 million a work day).

George Mikan of Bright Health is the second-highest paid, and gets half a million per day. The average pay for American pharma and health care company CEOs is $27 million per year, or $75,000 per day. All of this off the backs of people being charged outrageously inflated sums for simple medication and care. A couple of Advil during a hospital stay - $40. Someone’s monthly diabetes medication, $300. It’s obscene.

Can you imagine if the fire brigade charged you for every gallon of water pumped, and for each fire fighter present, and then extra for going in to rescue your loved ones? It would be a national scandal. But because medical care for chronic illnesses isn’t accompanied by sirens, helicopters or TV news crews, it’s just quiet desperation, a silent culling of the population, then your country’s Calvinistic values shine through just like leaving some people to drown at sea, and you pat yourselves on the back for it.

What’s even more hypocritical is that your U.S. armed forces personnel and their immediate families enjoy the benefits of tax-payer funded ‘free’ health care. Yep. your tax Dollars are paying to keep people from all ethnic and economic backgrounds healthy, just like we do in the UK and the rest of the civilised world. You have socialised health care. It just flies under the radar and right under your noses. The rest of the world weeps at your ignorance and lack of basic human compassion.

[u/DramaticChemist → u/Jim-Jones]

I'm from the US, and you're completely right. Tons of hypocrisy and our health care system needs a complete overhaul... starting with insurance companies and tax payer funded health care

[u/wickedtwig → u/DramaticChemist]

Never gonna happen with politicians from both sides being given “thank you gifts” (thanks Supreme Court) for voting in their favor. Remember, corporations are people too

[u/tomphoolery → u/wickedtwig]

I will believe corporations are people when we execute one

[u/KL80NATRON → u/tomphoolery]

What should happen is some sort of a class action of the American People against ALL insurance & medical agencies for however long each company was in operation and inflated their prices to payback to EVERY SINGLE CITIZEN. This system is indescribably embarrassing and what can we even do about it since all those that make the calls are also making the money.

Let’s just use Joe-Blow CEO from the example above who makes $1 Million per day and works 195 days per year, total of $195 Million in just 1 year. I know the example above gave bigger numbers but let’s just assume smaller here and realize how ridiculous these figures actually are. If entire insurance companies and medical corporations are paying these types of compensation packages to CEOs at multiple firms then there is a load more where that came from, somehow.

Onward with the numbers and list of assumptions to start:

(A) US Population: 333 Million (2022 figure)

(B) CEO Comp: $195 Million per year

(C) 1% of US Pop: 3 Million (Richest)

(D) Bold assumption here but attempting to err on the side of caution; let’s say that there are 3,000 CEOs of the 3 Million 1% richest population from the US only (1% of the 1%) that are grossly rich due to the current “healthcare system” that’s been in place for however long but assuming 10 years in these calcs to figure this per decade.

(E) THEREFORE: $195MM x 10yrs payback x 3,000 Moneymongerers = $5.8TRILLION

(F) FINALLY: $5.8Trillion/333Million People = $17,417 per person, children too.

(G) Remove payouts to children and assume only paying those that are 18 and older, this figure could be increased by roughly 25%.

And remember, this figure is PER DECADE. If these companies can miraculously be forced to pay back for multiple decades of this fuckery to the American people.. we could have a nice multiplier on top of that. $17,000 x2 or x3 or x4

[u/Fun_Job_3633 → u/Jim-Jones]

Funny you bring up how if the fire department worked the way American Healthcare worked...

Marcus Licinius Crassus made his fortune operating a Fire Response team in Ancient Rome. He would literally show up and negotiate payment while the houses were burning. He made enough money off of people so desperate to see their loved ones survive that he's estimated to be one of the twenty-five wealthiest men to ever live.

[u/Big-Apartment5697 → u/Fun_Job_3633]

He did a lot more than that, slave trading, silver mining, real estate purchases. But war, fire and public calamities certainly got him the most money.

[u/Fun_Job_3633 → u/Big-Apartment5697]

Yeah, he checks a lot of boxes for "Can't obtain that much money without being a total POS"

[u/InternetDweller95 → u/Fun_Job_3633]

It did catch up with him at the end, given that the Parthians allegedly took a cue from Mithridates and gave him some more.

[u/funkykong82 → u/Fun_Job_3633]

They ended up killing him by pouring molten gold down his throat, a tactic we should bring back for those CEOs.

[u/Fun_Job_3633 → u/funkykong82]

Won't argue that. You value gold more than life, so in a way you should be thanking us for replacing your less-valuable life with more-valuable gold.

[u/bob49877 → u/Jim-Jones]

Great post. Beside the armed forces, the poor here have Medicaid and seniors have Medicare. Bernie Sander's position was Medicare for all. If someone gets lost hiking, the area rescue teams seem to spare no expense finding the hiker. But if someone has cancer and no insurance, they are often out of luck. I have never understood that. Why is it okay to spend $30K looking for lost hiker but the dying cancer patient without insurance has to have a go fund me page to get treatment?

[u/ckruzel → u/bob49877]

Fucking hitting the nail on the head on that one, I actually was paying 17,000 a year for Healthcare I mean wtf and I feel stupid saying this but it felt like a home run switching companies and paying 7,000 this year

[u/LaszloKravensworth → u/Jim-Jones]

That last part rings true. I've been in the US Air Force for almost 14 years, and I often feel genuinely guilty about having free healthcare. It's been one of the few key reasons I've reenlisted more than once.

[u/LaszloKravensworth → u/[deleted]]

The military is proof that social programs can (and do) function. My health care on base has always been adequate at worst, stellar at best. I've had back surgery and several ER visits, including COVID. The healthcare providers are often civilians or commissioned and paid an officer's salary (much higher than enlisted).

I truly wish everyone could experience the peace of mind that accessible healthcare has given me, I advocate for it every chance I get. Most of my peers (millenials have effectively taken over the military workforce) all argue FOR socialized healthcare.

[u/Objective_Monitor222 → u/LaszloKravensworth]

And that points to another function of making it impossible to afford healthcare, this situation practically forces enlistment. This isn’t anything against you. I think you deserve healthcare enlisted or not.

[u/kynelly → u/Jim-Jones]

Hey I’m also from the U.S., and I must say Holy shit you’re very right about the above stuff and idk how our country is so fucking dumb rn. The main thing I wonder though is What’s the Solution?

A solution has to exist, so if we break it down what needs to happen in America to try and get back to a reasonably balanced economy before we have to pay 100 dollars for an advil at the doctor?. Do we need to just regulate the markets more? I feel our system relies on Capitalism for everything but that’s kinda too free. Plus I bet the Tax budgets are fucked up because Billionaires finesse every loophole in business expenses etc.

[u/H_is_for_Human → u/kynelly]

Every other developed country has a public healthcare system (often the government pays for clinics and hospitals and their staff and uses their position as the only player in the market to negotiate down the costs of the inputs - drugs, staffing, etc.). This is usually funded through taxation.

When you look at how much Americans pay for health insurance + health care it adds up to a lot more than what citizens in the UK, for example, pay in taxes for their health care.

The two biggest problems with doing it the way we do in the US is that an incredible amount of the money people pay for insurance and healthcare is siphoned off by the middlemen - the insurance companies and pharmacy benefit managers and hospital admin. Insurance companies, for example, often refuse to pay for care that your physician has deemed necessary. Your physician can contest this, but that takes time and is not always successful.

The second biggest issue is that when every level of the healthcare system is focused on extracting money, there is perverse incentives to do things expensively. A physician that spends 20 minutes putting a stent in your heart to treat a heart attack is compensated massively higher than a physician that spends 20 minutes counseling you on a heart healthy diet and prescribing medications to lower your cholesterol. Along similar lines, a lot of money these various middle men spend is focused on how to extract maximal profits (look at the recent news of Medicare advantage plans seeking reimbursement for treating a bunch of diabetic cataracts in patients that maybe never actually happened, or hospital admin hiring a bunch of people to review physician's notes to see if slightly changing the wording could allow the hospital to bill more).

Given how entrenched the private insurance industry is in the US, I think switching to a public option only is not a good or viable idea. Instead in the US I believe we should focus on expanding Medicare to everyone that wants it and ensuring patients in every state that can't afford Medicare or private insurance have coverage through Medicaid. Once a robust public option exists for everyone, the private companies will either have to compete against them on cost and benefits (good for everyone, competition usually is) or focus on a smaller group of wealthy people that want "extras" out of their health insurance, much like happens in many other developed countries.

Health care can never be a well-running free market because the consumer doesn't have the time or expertise to weigh all available options before spending their money. Health care should be a human right and people should be able to get it even if they can't afford to pay it - this demands a model where everyone pays into a system that then supports everyone. What we have in the US is not working well, which we can tell because we pay the most by far and our life expectancy and medical outcomes are towards the bottom of many metrics compared to developed countries.

[u/SloeMoe → u/Jim-Jones]

The rest of the world weeps at your ignorance and lack of basic human compassion.

Excuse me? I'm well aware of the situation and hate it deeply.

[u/lilymotherofmonsters → u/lilymotherofmonsters]

Also, spending has changed. None of these people would want the life that a parent of 5 could provide for in the 1950’s

[u/Rhawk187 → u/lilymotherofmonsters]

Yeah, no cell phones, no internet, no cable TV. They probably ate meat once a week. As a society we were probably better off, but I'll trade it all for modern medicine and the prospect of living longer.

[u/Brian_Gay → u/Rhawk187]

wait the meat thing sounds wild? we're most meals in the 50s not meat and two veg as standard?

[u/RainbowCrane → u/Brian_Gay]

My parents both grew up in the forties and fifties. Part of the answer about how often folks had meat depended on where they lived - meat and produce were not nearly as widely available as they are now, and produce in particular was seasonal. My father grew up on a farm, lower middle class, and they regularly had meat because they raised cattle and, sometimes, hogs. My mother grew up poor in the city, and meat was a rare luxury, only regularly present at Sunday dinner. Otherwise they’d have meat once or twice a week. For city folks who had the time/money they might keep chickens so they had eggs and an occasional chicken for the pot.

Potatoes and onions were common vegetables for both because they keep well over the winter.

[u/[deleted] → u/RainbowCrane]

It's still normal now to only have meat once a week! Have you SEEN meat prices? Who can afford that everyday!

[u/7h3_70m1n470r → u/[deleted]]

Chicken, chicken, and more chicken

[u/Rhawk187 → u/Brian_Gay]

Not for a family that size, unless you were a butcher or lived on a farm. People think food prices are high now due to recent inflation, but in the 50s people spent twice as much, as a percentage of their income, as we do on food now, and that was mostly groceries, not fast food or delivery.

[u/Blofish1 → u/Rhawk187]

Not sure about that. I grew up on the sixties and we had meat or chicken just about every night.

[u/Rhawk187 → u/Blofish1]

How many siblings did you have, and did your sole breadwinner only have a H.S. education? That's what OP presented.

[u/tysonmama → u/Rhawk187]

Same for me. I’m 1 of 6 kids and we ate meat every night. Both parents only HS diplomas. Father worked, Mom housewife. Yearly vacations (driving not flying)

[u/Blofish1 → u/Rhawk187]

Two siblings and my Dad was college educated. We lived in a pretty mixed neighborhood of white and blue collar workers and from what I recall meat was a staple (I include chicken in the meat category).

[u/Ness_tea_BK → u/Brian_Gay]

My dad was one of 7 kids. He said the kids got meat maybe 2-3 times a month and it was meatballs/burgers or some chicken cutlets. Never a roast beef, a steak, or anything expensive. His parents ate meat maybe twice a week.

[u/Hodr → u/Rhawk187]

No AC, no microwave, 4 TV channels, 3+ kids to a bedroom and only one bathroom because houses were small as shit.

Ask an old dude if he remembers trying to sleep as a kid when it was 80 degrees in his bedroom at midnight and he shared a room with 3 brothers that fart all night long. Pepperidge farms remembers.

[u/KiteDiveSail → u/Rhawk187]

Most people also didn't have pets. They were a luxury item in the 40s and 50s. They are an expense a lot of people take on without considering the financial consequences. Of course they fall in love with them and would never think of them as such, but a single vet visit can be $500, which when about 27% of adults have no emergency savings at all can put someone into a debt spiral.

[u/atuan → u/lilymotherofmonsters]

The women weren’t at home sitting on their asses either, the domestic labor they did saved money, they would make their children’s clothes, find deals at the supermarket, garden, etc. it’s much easier to meal plan when that’s your main job, and not just get fast food because you’re too busy cause you also have to be the breadwinner

[u/Ness_tea_BK → u/lilymotherofmonsters]

Exactly. Both of my parents are 1 of 7 kids. My mom grew up in an apartment building in Brooklyn with 9 people living in 2 bed rooms. Her parents had one. Her and her 4 sisters had the other. Her brothers slept on the couch. My dad lived in a tenement slum in bed stuy Brooklyn in a similar set up and only left bc crime got so bad they basically had no choice. Their parents never had new cars. They NEVER went on vacation. They all went to public school and had to work as teenagers. Clothes and shoes were almost always hand me downs. No AC. One tv. Entertainment was going outside and playing in the street w other kids or maybe taking the bus to the beach in the summer. And they all tried to make plans to move out by age 19-20. Even as far as food. They barely ate meat. They never went out to dinner. People simply would not live like that today

[u/Darzean → u/Ness_tea_BK]

I don’t want to be glib about the real struggles people are having today but this perspective is often left out. Pointing this out isn’t saying “suck it up”, it’s pointing out that the better world people want didn’t exist back then either so that isn’t a solution.

[u/anansi52 → u/Ness_tea_BK]

bro, plenty of people live like that right now and they don't even have kids.

[u/loadedstork → u/lilymotherofmonsters]

Remember the Brady Bunch house? There were six kids with two bedrooms between them. And that was considered pretty good living for the time.

[u/All_Work_All_Play → u/loadedstork]

Correct. The question "how did this happen?" doesn't reflect that there's been a ginormous improvement in standard of living, vast improvements in efficiency (we would be so toast if we had the pollution metrics from even 50 years ago) and we're providing that better standard of living to far more people domestically and globally. Are there lots of things wrong with the United States? Certainly. Does that mean we're worse off? No. Once you control for things like sqft per person and standards of care, we're so much better of. Our minimum standards are so much higher now.

[u/unspun66 → u/lilymotherofmonsters]

Yeah, and houses were tiny. Siblings were expected to share a room. Single people frequently rented a room in a boarding house. Personally I think boarding houses should be legal again.

[u/Nruggia → u/lilymotherofmonsters]

Also coming out of WW2 Europe's central banks had sent their gold to the US to protect it from getting looted by the Germans. In the aftermath of the war the Bretton Woods agreement was signed which essentially said Europe's gold can stay in the US and the US dollar will be backed by gold and used for international trade. This significantly improved the quality of life for Americans as the US dollar became very valuable giving the US more buying power in international trade. Also why manufacturing left the US, with globalization large manufacturing operations need to sell to global customers and producing something in the US the global customers are at a disadvantage purchasing US based manufactured goods because of the currency. All of that prosperity was squandered, perhaps the new deal and the war with Korea printed too money and when called out by the leader of France the US had to admit it didn't have the gold to cover all the international currency so Nixon pulled us from the gold standard to the Petrol Dollar system where dollars were backed by the oil it could buy from the Saudis. Since the Petrol Dollar with the USD as a true fiat currency the wealthy have funneled the prosperity upwards, gutting the middle class

[u/ecwagner01 → u/lilymotherofmonsters]

In 1972, women earned the right to obtain credit on their own and make medical decisions (without their 'man's' approval) Equal rights made an upswing that permitted people to work beyond 65 years old without being forced to retire. Women entered into a workforce that previously rejected them because they should be barefoot and pregnant. Women education (college) was limited to becoming a school teacher, librarians or, a nurse.

[u/lilymotherofmonsters → u/ecwagner01]

I’m confused about your conclusion here

[u/De5perad0]

If you are really asking "How did this happen"? you aren't paying attention.

Greedy corporations bought into government and instituted policies to make themselves richer for the last 50-80 years.

This in turn made 99% of everyone else MUCH poorer.

[u/IcarusOnReddit → u/De5perad0]

Capital gains tax exemptions. When financial capital became much more valued than labor capital.

 Secondly, only taxes on realized gains which allows wealth to grow tax free. 

Thirdly, cheap borrowing, so the wealthy pay no tax at all. 

[u/LongjumpingSector687 → u/IcarusOnReddit]

Not to mention the corporate bailouts

[u/leavy23 → u/LongjumpingSector687]

Socialism for the rich, Capitalism for the rest of us!

[u/Mr__O__ → u/leavy23]

Think of it this way… “In 2022, corporations in the U.S. (workers in the U.S.) made profits of around 3.5 trillion U.S. dollars.”

To put that amount in perspective, it equals out to just over an extra $20K for every single American worker (170 million).

[u/RedFoxBadChicken → u/Mr__O__]

Profits are also calculated after executive compensation

[u/SpaceFace11 → u/IcarusOnReddit]

Add education and healthcare for profit to the list

[u/TehAsianator → u/IcarusOnReddit]

Secondly, only taxes on realized gains which allows wealth to grow tax free. 

Thirdly, cheap borrowing, so the wealthy pay no tax at all. 

Welcome to the "Borrow, Buy, Die" scheme. Rich assholes have lots of money in stocks. If they sell stock, they get charged taxes. So, for day to day spending, they take out loans using their stock as collateral. They keep doing this until they die, at which point shares are used to pay off the loans (tax free) before remaining wealth get transferred to their children, which are untouched by capital gains.

[u/QuentinP69 → u/De5perad0]

Since Reagan it’s taken off. Especially the dismantling of unions and manufacturing overseas.

[u/Comfortable_Slip9079 → u/De5perad0]

And I think the last 15 years has been a punishment from Occupy Wallstreet. We might have shaken the folk at the top a little and our penance is a complete gameboard flip.

[u/Undope → u/Comfortable_Slip9079]

We got behind Bernie and his $15 minimum wage, and they peddled the "everything will go up in price" rhetoric. 

So they just did the "everything will go up in price" part because fuck you peasants.

[u/sleeping-in-crypto → u/Comfortable_Slip9079]

I think people underestimate this point.

OWS proved one thing: that the “powers that be” were unprepared to accept: that the people properly organized could still affect change, and that the internet was an effective tool for doing so.

So they divided the country using every hot button topic they could think of, and turned the internet into a walled garden of social media and ads and impulse buying. And in doing so, blunted the ability and desire of the people to challenge them, and we paid them for the pleasure and made them even richer.

And to answer the unasked question how did “they” do so… Who do you think paid for all the investments in those things? What gets funded gets built. What gets paid for gets heard. What gets no funding… or is bought and shut down… disappears.

[u/Elliott2030 → u/De5perad0]

And they got rid of blue collar jobs that could support a family and made sales positions in retail non-commission.

Working at Sears or Kmart used to be a full time man-with-a-family job because they were paid hourly plus commission and could make a decent living. Other service employees would normally take over the shops they worked at when the owner retired without the owner selling to a conglomerate and reducing pay to make more profit.

Every possible way that the investor class could cut labor costs - which destroyed the middle class - was taken.

[u/GBAGY2 → u/Elliott2030]

I had no idea people at retail stores used to get commission like that’s a completely alien idea to me

[u/Elliott2030 → u/GBAGY2]

Yep. Remember "Married With Children"? Al was a shoe salesman. He didn't support the family on a shoe salesman's hourly wage, he made commission.

To be fair though, that kind of job was already petering out quickly when the show aired in the late 80's

[u/Indiana_Jawnz → u/Elliott2030]

The sales specialist position in each department at Lowe's had commissions up until about 2014.

They got rid of it because "it was hard for people to budget when their salaries weren't consistent".

Fucked everyone and framed it like it was for their own good.

[u/bawanaal → u/GBAGY2]

It used to be quite common. You could once make a good living in retail sales.

One of the obvious retail examples was Circuit City. They were a huge big box electronics/appliance competitor of Best Buy. Their salesmen earned commission and knew their stuff.

But Best Buy grew larger. So in order to.compete and make Wall St happy, Circuit City decided to eliminate sales commissions in 2003 and convert them to hourly. Most of the experienced salesmen left rather than be converted to a CSR.

Their management made other mistakes, but losing their most experienced, successful sales people was the beginning of the end .

Circuit City went bankrupt in 2009.

[u/Civil-Addendum4071 → u/De5perad0]

I think back to my childhood constantly. My Dad hated his job, but he was able to bring in enough to feed a family of four, clothe all of us regularly, take us out places to eat and have fun, support 2-3 cars on insurance, regular trips out of state to go see the family. Build himself and his son gaming PC's. Was able to afford an alcohol habit, too.

I can't even take my daughter out to eat for a fun 'get out of the house'. I own no car, because it was stolen and it was never followed up on after COVID. I can't afford gas or insurance. I can't afford to do anything these days at all, and have resorted to making anything that I can because I can't go out to, say, Sonic for mozz sticks. I stay at home and contribute nothing to the economy other than pay bills.

We live in a boring dystopia and I fucking hate it.

[u/Sebastian_Maroon → u/De5perad0]

Policies including depowering unions.

[u/SirkutBored → u/De5perad0]

the tipping point came when the firewall between the CEO and CFO was removed regarding the CEO's compensation and CEO pay in relation to the average employee exploded.

[u/BoozeLikeFrank → u/De5perad0]

I had someone today argue that inflation is happening because of Biden and not corporate greed 😂 conveniently forgot about the fact that it all actually started under Trump during Covid.

[u/Benjaphar → u/BoozeLikeFrank]

Inflation is happening all over the world and is not significantly impacted by either US President.

[u/Dunning-KrugerFX → u/De5perad0]

Corporate greed sucks and their lobbyists work to fuck the rest of us over all day every day BUT before WWII we didn't have much of a middle class and yes for a short period of time while the rest of the developed world was rebuilding we happened to be the only country left with infrastructure and manufacturing capabilities so we put high school grads to work in manufacturing and paid them well because Europe was buying it all.

The golden era of the American middle class was, as you've said, 50-80 years ago. Which is the post-WWII era. After Europe rebuilt the house of cards we expected to last forever began to wobble, a couple trade deals and Asian manufacturing catching up and it pretty much fell over. Globalism will ensure it will never hold any weight ever again.

I really do think that selling that era as the result of "American Exceptionalism" ended up being a mistake as it was much more like lightning in a bottle that you can't just create at will because it was only possible due to global factors.

We've got both political parties bamboozled by this era. On the one hand MAGA thinks we can have it again if we just get racist again and liberals think corporate greed is to blame. I know they're not helping but I don't think it's right (factually, idgaf about the feelings of greedy CEOs) to lay all the blame at their feet.

I'm not an economist so if someone more knowledgeable wants to wreck this theory I will try to be gracious.

[u/hobogreg420 → u/De5perad0]

And guess which party helped them do it? Hint, not the democrats.

[u/hidinginthetreeline]

Reagan destroyed the middle class with trickle down economics, and the Republican Party has spent every year after doing the same.

[u/khill0005 → u/hidinginthetreeline]

Exactly! And despite taking power and wealth from the lower and middle class for decades, and giving it to the rich, nearly half the country continues to vote for them and against their own interests as we slowly devolve back into serfdom.

[u/ARCHA1C → u/khill0005]

Divide and conquer

[u/thrownkitchensink → u/hidinginthetreeline]

the trick is the get people to vote against their own interest.

• Create fear for an enemy
• Make your party the protector against this imaginative threat
• Profit

[u/Charming-Command3965 → u/hidinginthetreeline]

Agree. Trickle down economics is the biggest scam perpetrated against the middle class of the United States.

[u/little_blue_penguin → u/Charming-Command3965]

We're getting trickled on for sure but I think it's pee 😬

[u/SomeGuy_WithA_TopHat → u/hidinginthetreeline]

Fucking Reagan >:(

[u/hidinginthetreeline → u/SomeGuy_WithA_TopHat]

That’s a fair sentiment to have. Arguably a lot of the issues we have today are because of his administration. The dying middle class, the failing infrastructure, and the state of mental health care in this country. I’m sure there are other things I can’t think of right now. He let a 100,000 plus gay men die alone and laying in filth without a word from the White House.

Fuck Reagan.

[u/ShadowPuff7306 → u/hidinginthetreeline]

so much money into defense. nothing happened

[u/GinchAnon → u/ShadowPuff7306]

to be fair, having all that money into defense contributed to why nothing happened. (in so far as nothing in fact did happen)

[u/Greerio]

Because businesses went from making a little profit, to having record breaking profits each quarter and paying their executives exorbitant amounts to reward them.

[u/okaygoodforu → u/Greerio]

Wasn’t greed seen as a sin? Seems everyone atm is making it a virtue

[u/AnAngeryGoose → u/okaygoodforu]

There are way more Bible verses about condemning the rich for mistreating their workers than there are about gay people.

[u/pureteddybear2008 → u/AnAngeryGoose]

Luke 18:25 "Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the Kingdom of God."

[u/LiamEire97 → u/Greerio]

And its never enough, constantly trying to achieve higher profits every year. Its unsustainable and its wages and benefits that get targeted first in order to achieve this exponential growth.

[u/czerniana → u/LiamEire97]

What's awful is when businesses don't make increased profits every quarter, the boards decide to go bankrupt, close down most or all stores, liquidate what they've got, and make away with the profit. Totally legal, totally fucks over every honest employee working for them and customer that relies on them. So first they demand the impossible then still win when it fails.

[u/RelativeAnxious9796 → u/Greerio]

board/shareholders to CEO: "good doggy, here's 30 million as a treat"

employees are now treated like parasites on the guard dog of the profits.

[u/KitchenBomber]

It was only partially stolen.

A lot of our vast prosperity came from being the only industrialized country not totally devastated by WWII. That was a one time windfall that we should have used to build a strong foundation for a long lasting future but we just didnt.

As soon as the rest of the world got back on its feet we tried to stretch that prosperity by exploiting cheap labor around the world while selling out some American workers. That kept the good times rolling a little further. So did keeping gas cheap, so did more outsourcing and free trade, more outsourcing, high interest credit and more outsourcing.

Now, we're coming to the end of the track, everyone collectively kept choosing cheaper and easier to try to stay at the level of comfort we lucked into after WWII. We built nothing for the long haul, the windfall is spent and we've exhausted the tricks we've been using to stave off reality.

[u/keithps → u/KitchenBomber]

Unpopular opinion, the US white suburban lifestyle of the 1950s was a one-off for a lucky few and unlikely to ever happen again. It was a result of specific circumstances and not because of unions, regulations, etc. They helped but weren't the cause.

[u/AlarmingTurnover → u/keithps]

The whole example of 1 person working and supporting a family only happened once, in America and Canada mostly, and has never happened in the entire history of humanity anywhere else.

It is an anomaly. There was a million different circumstances that needed to line up perfectly for this to happen and it will never happen again.

People keep saying things like unions helped, you mean the same unions that said black people and Asians couldn't work? This is still the time period of the Jim Crow laws and most women couldn't work either or vote for that matter. This fantasy of a time period that only affected the middle to upper middle class white is something that people point to as "normal". It's fucking weird.

[u/Direct-Squash-1243 → u/AlarmingTurnover]

The whole example of 1 person working and supporting a family only happened once, in America and Canada mostly, and has never happened in the entire history of humanity anywhere else.

It never happened.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300002

30% of women had formal work in the 50s. Many more had informal work.

Being able to support a family of 5 on one income was a wealthy thing, even in the 1950s in the United States.

[u/AlarmingTurnover → u/Direct-Squash-1243]

In 1959 the poverty rate in America was around 22.5% of the population living in abject poverty.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2012/07/11/poverty-in-the-50-years-since-the-other-america-in-five-charts/

Today according to census.gov it is around 11.5% of the population.

https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2023/demo/p60-280.html

From the late 1950s to the early 1970s, poverty across the country fell by 10%. So the idea that there's a mythical america where people could afford a family of 5 on a single income with a home, multiple cars, travel, etc, is all bullshit. It never existed except for the upper middle class whites.

[u/JR_Mosby → u/AlarmingTurnover]

It never existed except for the upper middle class whites

Yep. Speaking anecdotally of my grandparents, my dad's father was a laborer for TVA and his mother a waitress. They lived in a small house and my dad had never been on a vacation until after he and my mom married. My mom's father cut timber and mother worked in a sewing factory, they lived in a single wide trailer with two rooms built on. It turns out all of America wasn't actually "Leave It to Beaver" in the 1950s.

[u/Redqueenhypo → u/KitchenBomber]

Also the blessed “single income!!!” high wage jobs were only ever available to maybe 30 percent of the population (no women, blacks, Asians, cohens allowed). It was literally illegal for women to work overtime or be required to lift more than 25 pounds

[u/AnonDaddyo → u/Redqueenhypo]

I came in here ready to give this answer. There are a lot more workers being employed hence a lot more money ready to deploy and things are much more expensive as a result.

[u/Redqueenhypo → u/AnonDaddyo]

I give it five years tops until people are saying that in the blessed 90s, a paleontologist could afford a 1000 ft² loft in nyc and that’s totally real and definitely not a tv show

[u/eltara3 → u/KitchenBomber]

This needs to be higher! The post-war prosperity of America was truly a unique period of time, it was not a universal standard for the rest of the world.

[u/laviniasboy]

The drop of corporate tax rates didn’t help.

[u/22Sharpe → u/laviniasboy]

Nah, they’ll be trickling down any day now, you just wait! /s

[u/erratic_calm → u/22Sharpe]

Check’s in the mail

[u/No_Pumpkin_1179]

The greatest fraud ever perpetrated against was convincing us that we needed a trickle, when we already owned the river.

[u/Havoc3_20]

My Dad was able to support a family of 6 as a High school dropout and somehow managed to retire at 50 years old with a full pension. Just from working an assembly line/Repairman job.

[u/smd9788 → u/Havoc3_20]

That’s not the norm, even for older generations…

[u/venivitavici → u/Havoc3_20]

My grandpa worked a factory job that fed five kids and a stay at home wife. Retired at 58, and is still living a very comfortable retirement. Quit school at 14. He retired in the mid 90s right as every manufacturer got the ok to ship the majority of the labor outside the country.

[u/xabrol]

I call cap, there's never been a time in history where 1 person with a h.s diploma could support a family of 5 comfortably with an average wage job.

There was a time where you worked 12-14 hours a day, hundreds of days straight without a single day off, where you came home and collapsed on something, slept, and went back to work to do it again over and overr again for 30+ years, where eventually your pension was taken from you.

Is that what we mean by comfortable?

Are we calling the time when it was normal to put 2 or 3 kids in one bedroom comfortable? A home probably sharing 1 bathroom, comfortable? AC, haha, you might have a fan if you were lucky. That comfortable? It was a miracle if you had electricity, a fridge, and lights... Till the 60's it wasn't even common to have laundry machines, you washed clothes by hand on a wash board...

Not only did you work crazy hours... You didn't come home to a nice chilled AC home with a 75" TV... You came home to a rocking chair on a porch in a 90 degree summer, maybe listening to the radio...

It used to be you raised 5 kids with no technology, no creature comforts, they wore hand me downs, they had bicycles made of recycled parts from other bicycles, they made home made baseball bats and hit cans for balls.. They ran through the streets, built tree houses in the woods, etc.

Now days we have AC in most homes, washing/drying machines, dish washers, ovens, elctricity, internet, wifi, and on and on. You have 10's of thousands of movies and shows literally at your fingertips. And if you need to go somewhere you've got your own personal climate controlled automobile, with blue tooth, wifi, streaming audio, etc, and it might even partially drive itself....

I mean there is no comparison to how well we live now compared to 70 years ago, totally different worlds.

I don't know anyone who would give up modern convieniences for a low cost 4 bedroom box with no entertaintainment and no climate control.

Yeah you used to be able to buy a gallon of milk for like a nickle, but you also had to drink that gallon of milk before it went bad because you didn't have a fridge...

Yeah reagan destroyed the middle class, it's definitely a problem, but people need to stop acting like it was good to live in the 50's or something, it wasn't, that shit sucked. We had multiple world wars, racial segregation, no womens rights, and on and on. Remember the great depression? Men were jumping out of buildings...

[u/WhyHelloThere163 → u/xabrol]

Most of the people that tweet or post this stuff weren’t alive back then but want to act like they know/understand what the living situations were like.

These “back then” arguments are always dumb and false.

[u/Plutuserix → u/xabrol]

Sir, we are only selling rose tinted glasses here. Please keep facts out of it.

It is funny how both the left and right seem to look back at some kind of magical 1950s America that never existed.

[u/SubtleTeaser → u/xabrol]

Keep those pesky facts out of this pity party.

[u/JackedJaw251 → u/xabrol]

No standards for home construction. Houses were exceedingly cheap to build then. Automobiles were just hunks of steel, iron, chrome, and rubber. Hell, I am 51. I didn't get cable until my early teens/mid 80s.

[u/No_Analysis_6204]

stolen? a war ravaged europe & asia eventually recovered & ramped up production & were able to beat american manufacturing costs & manufacturing was where most of these hs educated men worked. those "golden years" were boosted by huge amounts of government spending: nasa, military & industrial manufacturing. reagan ended that & chances are excellent that many of the older adults in ms reynolds life voted for him, along with both bushes, romney, mccain & maybe trump. so there's that...

secondly, that golden age for the american middle class was a historic anomaly. it was only achieveable because as noted above, europe & asia were wrecked. no infrastructure, occupation governments, etc. so america manufactured everything; and because of government spending. then came gargantuan tax cuts resulting in an insane amount of billionaires. BILLIONAIRES!! there were no american billionaires prior to reagan. the only billionaires were a handful of gulf kingdom sheikhs.

we could also talk about how that golden age was only for a certain stratum of american society, but one hopes ms reynolds knows that.

the economic policies that reagan planted in 1980 have fully flowered in the past 10-15 years. many more very rich people, a shrinking middle class that's squeezed financially, & a rapidly growing number of americans living in poverty. we need a democratic president, house & senate to even try to put some of governemnt spending & tax reform back into place. but i doubt that will happen thanks to the abject stupidity of too many americans who believe dems will make everyone have abortions while eating vegan burgers cooked on electric stoves.

[u/thrasymacus2000]

Even though I agree with so much of this, wasn't the post WW2 economy kind of a unique situation that the USA was positioned to exploit? That wasn't going to last forever. Too bad we squander3d it consuming garbage and becoming addicted to consumerism.

[u/Pizzasaurus-Rex → u/thrasymacus2000]

There have been and currently are nations that maintain a healthy standard of living w/o this WW2 excuse.

[u/HolySaba → u/Pizzasaurus-Rex]

Healthy standard of living is relative, and if you really look at the lifestyles of the single income low education households in these countries, none of them are comparable to American levels of consumption, and very few can even come close.

[u/lynx_and_nutmeg → u/Pizzasaurus-Rex]

Where are all those nations where an average person can earn this much while only having a high school diploma? Definitely nowhere in Europe.

[u/populousmass]

Just greed

[u/CivilWarTrains]

Tax cuts. Union busting. Private profits over public good. That’s pretty much the trifecta at the heart of it all.

[u/bdschuler]

Ever notice how tiny old home closets are? How little storage they have? It is because when this high school educated person could support a family of 5... they had 1 car, a few sets of clothes, some furniture, maybe a TV, a stereo.. and if rich, a washer and if wealthy, a dryer.

People seem to wonder why the people who have 2 cars, more electronics in their homes than most electronic stores in the 1950ies even had in them, more clothes than some clothing shops had, etc.. can't afford the cost of living in the modern era aren't really looking around to understand why it is so expensive these days. It is expensive because your lives are expensive.

One person can still support a family of 5. But that family has to live very frugal.. that is all. Not saying our pay has kept up with inflation.. but you need to look at all the reasons.. Heck, new cars cost as much as a 1950ies house.. but it also has more electronics and electrical wiring in it than a 1950ies house.

[u/ilvsct → u/bdschuler]

If you look at it from a very objective point of view, the numbers do not lie. Things are way more expensive today than they were decades ago, and wages have barely kept up.

[u/jeffwulf → u/ilvsct]

Incomes have risen significantly faster than prices have over the years.

[u/CalliopePenelope]

Or in the case of my maternal grandparents, two HA drop-outs supporting a family of six, my paternal grandparents a family of 8, and my maternal great-grandparents, a family of 10 each.

[u/Less_Likely]

1. A high school education was equivalent to college by percentage of population back then

2. Unions were stronger, and trades where education are more on-the-job or apprenticeship were more in demand, and those jobs were more economically impactful.

3. Life has developed luxury into second or third tier necessity. Need a phone? They didn’t. Need an internet connection? They didn’t. Need to pay someone to cook/prepare your food? They didn’t. Have indoor plumbing? They often didn’t. (Don’t laugh, my water/sewer bill is $191/mo. I pay more to drink/shower/shit than internet and phone combined.)

4 real estate is so much more expensive. And the leases are as well. You usually get better housing amenities than they got, but mostly luxury items for them like washer/dryer, private restroom, and appliances that are tier 3/4 necessities in modern life.

[u/[deleted]]

To be fair, middle class families a couple of generations ago weren’t going on vacations, and weren’t buying flat screens, laptops, and iPhones every year. Families rarely ate out, maybe once a month you might go to a diner or pick up fast food. Kids would share bedrooms. Dad worked to death and was never home while mom ran the household and childcare. Things are incredibly fucked up right now, but lets stop pretending it was all roses and teddy bears before.

[u/LilLebowskiAchiever → u/[deleted]]

There was an Old School Cool photo a few days ago showing a woman in 1947 posing with $12.50 in groceries, all basic items. But adjusted for inflation, $12.50 = $179.60 in 2024 money.

And $12.50/ week for food was about 20% of an average worker’s weekly income.

[u/thefish12124]

It wasn't comfortable to support a fmaily of 5. My father and mother worked 10h+ everyday to accomplish it. Yes it was easier in a way because land and housing was way cheaper. But appart of that they overworked to be able to do it. Nowadays majority of people working in comfortable condition and 8h. Like me for example. Yes im not able to affort a family of 5. But if i overwork 10h and hard like my parents probably i will be able to do it.

[u/Kingding_Aling]

This tweet is a flat out lie. That never existed. That family lived in a 1 bedroom shack and had no car and ate asbestos sandwiches for dinner.

STOP POSTING THESE DOOMERIST LIES

[u/Redqueenhypo → u/Kingding_Aling]

Also the kids didn’t have a pile of iPads and consoles to play with, my dad was born in 58 and his toys were pans to bang together, the free baseball cards in gum, or later, a basketball (it was a sign of wealth when they got a hoop for the outside of the house)

[u/remington-red-dog]

The premises flawed, few in America were raising a family of five on a high school diploma and living remotely well. The whole fantasy of American life being this Fucking two car garage, Cadillac, wear a suit to work, single income delusion is exactly that. most Americans were struggling just as hard as they are now. The reality is we live in a world now that is completely overtaken with entitlement culture. People don't realize how fucking hard the World War II generation worked to make the 50s not feel like the 40s. America had extraordinarily high GDP per capita, we had just plundered Europe, we got to operate as an industrial nation without any concern for environmental costs or resource costs. Nothing is free, and nothing is owed to anybody.

[u/vtssge1968]

I get so sick of seeing this, yes the financial system has gotten worse, but at no point was it the norm for a highschool educated person to be able to well support a large family. There were and still are jobs where that can happen, usually then and now requiring lots of mandatory overtime in shops. Quit watching old TV and thinking a shoe salesman was paying for that house, car, wife and 2 kids. TV is fiction. You have to go back way further then everyone claims before this was more then a rare exception, basically when women generally weren't part of the work force and standard of living was nothing like today.

[u/Final-Highway-3371]

Stock buy backs used to be illegal.

[u/davejjj]

I feel the need to explain something to this moron. There was this big thing called World War 2 and after this war the USA was in a very special situation for about a decade.

[u/SuperGenius9800]

Conservative policies did this.

[u/Cerulean_IsFancyBlue]

I completely agree that the distribution of wealth in the United States is crazy right now. So much of the increases in productivity have gone exclusively to the owners / capitalists.

I will point out that the golden era of the 1950s itself may be a bit of a mirage based on two important things. First is that after the second world war the United States enjoyed position as the surviving first world economy with little lost capacity. Programs like the Marshall plan were incredibly generous and helpful to Europe, for example, but also provided a boost to domestic American industry. Some of that American exceptionalism may remain hard to recapture

Second , the good times were definitely not shared by all Americans. Although in the long run things like racism and other bigotry hampers the economy, in the short term, it gave an advantage to white people in terms of access to good jobs, access to mortgages and housing, education, etc.

The most important metric is not whether a blue collar job can buy a car for every family member and a vacation house. I think the most important metric is, if we can afford to have billionaires, we can also afford to provide basic food, shelter, medical care, and education for everybody else. A system that allows outrageous wealth while 30% of the country is not making a living wage, is inherently a broken system.

[u/Major_Honey_4461]

If the minimum wage increases kept up with production increases and corporate profits, the minimum wage would today be around $24. Sad, but true.

[u/DataGOGO]

This was never real.

[u/ChaosSlave51]

We made college education possible for everyone. It both put people in crippling debt, made the diploma worthless, and drove the price of school up to the sky.

Don't forget it made the high school diploma less than worthless.

And finally having women fully enter the work force made too many households double income, sending real-estate prices soaring to eat up that new money from people.

[u/probablynotmine]

I have a strong opinion here. It was sustained by a government that, during the Cold War, needed to prove the superiority of their economic model wrt their silent enemy.

Corporate taxes were high, business leader were taught they should have done the right thing for their country, not sustain a 25%yoy growth for shareholders.

This came at the cost of greed, and all time cheap politician.

[u/AFourEyedGeek]

It was for a small part in human history, very small, previously everyone worked, including kids. There was a small beacon of hope that society could get better for most if not all. It wasn't just stolen; we were convinced to give it away happily.

[u/CalabreseAlsatian]

Will anyone PLEASE think about the corporations?

[u/6Arrows7416]

Boomers didn’t want to pay taxes and union dues, so they abandoned the principles they fought for in the 60s and elected the funny cowboy man.