This will happen 100% guarentee. It started when the gov’t took us off the gold standard. Prior to that prices pretty much remained constant for goods and services. Then we switched to what is known as a ‘fiat currency’ (basically the money is backed by nothing). So paper money kept being produced en mass, making every dollar in existance worth less and less and less as the government continued to, and continues to, print money out of thin air.
Actually it’s much worse than that. The Federal Reserve Banks are PRIVATE banks, owned by individuals, they are not government banks owned by the citizens. These banks print money and then lend that money to the government with an interest rate attached. Pretty nice scam perpetrated on the citizens for the owners of the banks, huh?
And IMO it’s very important to keep in mind that back in the 50’s it was extremely common for a household/a family to be supported by one adult working while the other stayede home to raise their children. A man could work as a bagger in a grocery store and support his family. They may have been poor, but it was possible. Now this same job (and all similar jobs) can not even support one individual adult, let alone an entire family. So the ‘standard of living’ and the ‘middle class’ I think it’s very important to realize has shifted from the expectation that one parent could work while the other stayed at home to raise children, to the expectation (more and more) that both parents will have to work to support their family.
So any talk about standard of living IMO should be looked at with the consideration of how many man hours of work were required to be completed by a family in order for it to support itself. So in addition to the standard of living dropping for most americans over the past decades, the requirement of both parents working has become fairly standard whereas in the first half of the century it clearly was not required for a family to support itself, even if the one adult working held a meanial labor job. Now both parents can work menial labor jobs and still be struggling and definitely be in the ‘working poor’ class and not the middle class.
God Bless,
Bill
It’s true that the “middle class” has shrunk. But it’s because a significant number have joined the “upper class” in terms of wealth. That’s, to some extent, due to the aging of the population because elders have more in terms of “wealth” than younger people, having accumulated it over a lifetime.
But median income has also shrunk. To some extent, that’s due to shrinkage of the “middle class” as abovementioned, which “skimmed off” some of the high earners, but also due to lower income from fewer full time jobs being available. Also, of course, to the extent employers are trying to figure out the costs of Obamacare, they are being cautious about giving raises.
I will agree that it now seems to take two incomes to do what one income did years ago. But one also has to realize that changes in technology and consumer goods have also made it difficult for a one-earner household.
When I was a kid, the typical new house had from 1,000 to 1500 square feet. Bedrooms were quite small, and so were kitchens. Now, both are much larger and the average new house is larger and more ornate. Cars in the 1950s were so simple almost anyone could diagnose and repair them. Now, almost nobody can because they are so complex. All of that complexity costs money. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the average family had one record player and one radio. Now look at the gadgets! Who, in 1955 would have imagined having even an electric can opener, let alone a pasta maker and a bread maker and all kinds of specialized utensils. People once had ovens. Now they have double ovens and a microwave and perhaps a specialized one-item cooker. People once had one telephone in the home, period. Now, every member of the family has an I-phone and perhaps there is a land line as well.
When I was a kid, it was typical for boys to get two pair of jeans/year and two pairs of shoes; one for “good” and one for school. Today, kids’ closets are packed with clothing that is a lot more expensive, item by item.
When i was a kid, the state colleges in my state did not charge tuition if one was a state resident. A college student could earn enough in the summer to pay his room and board. But state colleges were pretty spare; perhaps one administration building that looked really good. The rest were almost barracks-like. They didn’t have the campus palaces they have now.
I recall reading, too, that if the child tax credit was, today, what it was in Truman’s day, it would be $20,000 per child. As a result, not too many people paid much in taxes. Oh, that 90% tax rate for the “rich”? Well, it was actually more like 40% for the top .01%. Nobody actually paid that 90%. How could that be? Well, government was a lot smaller then. In addition, most people had their annual contribution to social security paid up by late spring every year.
So, thinking it through, back when one family member could support the whole family, that family probably paid almost nothing in taxes and there weren’t nearly as many things to buy. “Keeping up with the Joneses” didn’t really apply to children. Now, children are into the latest fashions and gadgets.
If people today lived like people did in 1950, I don’t much doubt most could do with one income only.
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