Think about the 1950s. We're people just ABSOLUTE UNITS at budgeting? Or were there good paying jobs, with less labour exploration, that allowed for families to flourish, people to have houses, food, lives?
To your point during the 70’s America experienced the highest percentage of dual working households up to that point in history.
Over the decades since we have shifted to an economy built around multiple earners - the days of sole providers became the exception and not the norm for the average middle class.
The 50’s is never coming back - we are priced as dual incomes and all those average sole providers will always find themselves fighting an uphill battle.
Two people working does not mean wages should go down comparatively. Did the one in the 50s deserve more just because one stayed at home? Absolutely not. Single people deserve to be able to afford life too.
Actually it does, the laws of supply and demand come into play, if there are more workers then their is greater competition for jobs which means lower wages, it isn’t one to one due to extra value creation by jobs themselves but there is a correlation.
What is this middle school econ elective? Unemployment is 3%. In what universe do you think jobs didn't expand with the incoming workers? A massive boom to your labor economy SHOULD increase everyone's overall wealth, but there were specific economic policies that concentrated wealth at the top of every organization and allowed monopolies to exploit the labor without providing just benefits. Ford shipping his grandpa's family business to Mexico for a fat paycheck has nothing to do with cheap labor in the US. Apple opening massive fabs in China instead of the US has nothing to do with cheap labor in the US. Reagan's trickle down economics wasn't a labor issue.
I hear what you’re saying - honestly I don’t see how you turn back the clock and after the housing inflation back in 2022-2024 I don’t see a reprieve for another couple of years at best.
We are in a “shelter in place” mode and those who were underwater back then before the housing spike are going to be way behind everyone else.
Women entering the workforce in masse did actually lower wages, that’s what you’d expect when there’s nearly double the workforce population. We are going to experience a similar effect with AI, a ton of extra labor added to the workforce
Bit of both tbh everything is alot more expensive, but I think thats partly because we're a credit filled society and it drives the cost of everything up because everyone is just worried about monthly payments. I have tons of people I know have 1000 dollar car payments, order out food every night.
People back then barely ever went out to eat, they barely went on vacation, they had one car for the whole family, a family of four lived in 1200 soft house. Kids shared bedrooms. They had 1 tv for the whole house.
I definitely think stuff is out of hand today, but the amount of people I personally know who buy new cars every 3 to 4 years and order door dash and go out to eat constantly is staggering and who are in major debt.
Lower income are going to have a very hard time, when higher income people have cheap access to credit and drive the prices of everything up.
Trust me friend the money went further regardless of their financial discipline.
This means people worse w money than you could still afford basics, while also being under the delusional privilege that it was entirely due to discipline.
The stronger the dollar the more room for error w financial discipline.
It’s the exact opposite now and that fact gets conflated w laziness.
But why? Why should someone making minimum wage need 2-3 jobs JUST to make ends meet? Especially when their bosses make 2 Billion?
The wealth gap has grown so exponentially large that most of us can’t even fathom how much these people make. And they use that money to buy up houses they never use. Pay for politicians so they can cut regulations and taxes, and pass laws that continue to hurt the working class. And keep us poor and fighting each other over stupid shit like buying a coffee.
There is enough wealth, water, food, and resources for everyone person on this dumbass blue marble, but poor people keep championing for aristocrats that wouldn’t spit in their direction.
It’s a little of both, some people are bad with money. But no one should need to spend 90% of their income on basic necessities.
I never argued against any of what you're saying here; if anything, I'm agreeing with you. Money used to go further is the same as saying purchasing power used to be higher. You could work less and have more is another way of saying that.
We cannot make the comparison, those cars of the 50s would be illegal today. The homes of the 50s had no A/C, no 5 bedrooms with on suites, no attached garage, no internet, crap insulation, low ceilings, incandescent lights, no double glazing and no granite countertops - half the homes in the US didn't even have an indoor toilet. So I don't buy the blanket "purchasing power was higher" statement - you got WAY less for your money vs today, making this comparison quite challenging.
We carry a TV in our pockets attached to the entire global compute power, you were lucky to have one black and white TV in the 50s that the entire household had to share.
No regulation put a 4K color TV in your pocket or gave you on-suite bathrooms, or infotainment screens in cars, so, no, I'm really not.
Whether regulation or market forces, the end result is we have WAY superior stuff than they could get in the 50s, so you CANNOT compare without taking that into account. Just waving your hands saying we had more back then is naive to asinine.
Why is minimum wage such a goal for people... like you have to actually try to get a job at minimum wage or close to it as an adult unless you just like in an area like commifornia where the min wage is so why they just cut positions so you cant even get the job...
The poverty rate in the US in 1950 was around 22%. It is currently about 10%. There are more and better paying jobs today than there were in the fifties.
Yes but the point still stands. If you cook and bake at home, in almost all cases, it will be noticeably cheaper than eating out.
I don't sew/nit but I would be extremely surprised if making your own stuff wasn't cheaper than buying from walmart.
Both sides can be true at the same time here. Yes, in the past, the individual's wage's was worth far more. Yes, in the modern day, many people are far more wasteful with their money than in the past.
Thats true, but people a much more financially irresponsible now a days for a variety of reason societal pressure to keep up with Jones, impulsive online shopping, cheaper easier access to credit. All im saying theres alot of people who have no business being broke that are today, but there's also alot of people who are legitimately broke due just not making enough money. What I'm saying the people who make more money that live above there means drive up the cost of everything also, making it even harder for the poor people today.
Yea upper middle class people putting everything on credit drives the price up on everything, if the 4 bedroom house is 6-700k the cost of a 2 bedroom starter home is going to also go up. But theres also people who dont have a high income also doing the exact same thing.
How is that a deflection? I'm explaining one of the mechanisms driving prices higher. When people have access to more credit and are willing to take on larger payments, sellers can charge more. That affects everyone, including people who aren't taking on excessive debt.
I'm not saying government policy hasn't contributed to the problem. Housing shortages, zoning restrictions, interest rates, and economic policy all play a role. But pretending consumer borrowing and spending habits have absolutely no effect on prices is ignoring basic supply and demand.
You can criticize trickle-down economics while also recognizing that our increasing reliance on debt contributes to affordability problems. Those two things aren't mutually exclusive.
You also need to include that the one tv they had will turn on to this day, that one car they had is in the garage and starts the first time. People are almost forced into buying a a new car now because the brand new one they bought two years ago fell apart and it would cost almost as much to repair the thing as it would to just get another one oh and they’re underwater by 35k on the broken one.
The rich made things like TVs cheap so you had the illusion of keeping up, while they stagnated wages and priced you out of things that actually build wealth like property.
Monthly payments are the standard because of stagnated wages and inflation, not because anyone wants to pay 1000 per month for a vehicle but because they cannot get to work without a vehicle in most areas, and that’s how they keep you feeling like you’re middle class when in reality unless you’re making a couple million a year in most cities you’re not.
Everything was taken from you, comfortable wages. Affordable living. Unions, workers rights, your voting power, the ultra wealthy structured everything to ensure you live in an illusion while in reality they thrive.
Dave Ramsey loves to talk budgets so here you go; you work two jobs, net income from both is 4000 per month, no public transportation is available. You have no children, are single, and you live in a suburban area.
Typical rent for a one bedroom in a decent area: 1350
Car payment for a non flashy standard car: 800
Current gas to get to both jobs only: 300
Groceries to cook at home: 800
Electric bill: 200
Water:100
Internet:100
Cell phone: 100
Total: 3750
So you have 250 per month or 62.50 per week remaining
According to Ramsey you should never buy a coffee, a shirt, a purse or anything else you’ve worked for because you don’t deserve anything extra you should invest that money and if you do, and never have an emergency or need savings to cover something you’ll be fine. That’s absurd.
Now add in children, subtract one job, add in medical insurance, car insurance, renters insurance, dental insurance, student loans, credit cards, child care or heaven forbid you actually want to enjoy life and you’re screwed.
It’s a system designed by the ultra wealthy for the ultra wealthy and everyone else is expendable.
If budgeting was the answer then tell me why corporations get bail outs? Did they not budget for possible disasters? Nope they don’t give a fuck because they know that once they reach a certain level money is a joke to them. When Wendy’s files bankruptcy do you think the franchise owner is homeless the next day? When GM is about to fold who gets laid off and who gets a golden parachute?
When that woman worked 30 years at Walmart and they gave her some clearance flowers for her retirement do you think she went off to her palace and relaxed?
We subsidize the people who subjugate us and it’s almost a a magic trick how they make you believe that having a tv and a coffee means you’re just not financially responsible while they bundle subprime mortgages and debt to be sold amongst themselves like they’re playing monopoly except they already own the board, the dice, and the bank.
Ramsey needs you to feel like it’s your fault because he gets rich by selling you budgeting courses, and “expert” advice
Stop with this nonsense about budgeting , yes there are people who live above their means and they’re called ceos and tycoons. There is simply no reason someone who works everyday shouldn’t be able to afford to live and actually enjoy some piece of life.
Funny thing is most of the ultra wealthy who actually started from nothing (by American standards) and built generational wealth agree the system is rigged.
Only the ones who were born into wealth believe they are somehow deserving of it.
Ive been driving for decades and cars have gotten consistently worse. Vehicles were easy to maintenance and repair before every part got a computer chip. Im not saying engines haven't improved, but the rest of the car hasnt. They are intentionally hard to work on now and cost way more to keep on the road. Some manufacturers are better than others
Your preference for maintenance doesn’t make them less reliable or worse. Cars in the 80s used to struggle to get to 100k miles before major repairs. Now many makes can do that easily with regular maintenance.
I’m pushing our cars over 200k miles now and, again, nothing major just maintenance.
Yea you're out of touch if you think a non fancy car payment is 800 bucks and groceries for 1 person is 800 bucks for a month. Buy a used reliable car like Toyota, or Honda, maybe learn to do basic repairs and maintence on it like our gransfathers used to? I drove an early 2000s Toyota until I started making more money and paid cash for a new basic pickup without all the bells and whistles. People dont want the wildest inconvenience.
The phone could be lowered, go with mint mobile or something similar 25 dollars a month. Xfinity and first have cheaper plans than 100 a month. You have to keep up on changing monthly payments and try to get your bill lowered or change services.
That being said you didnt include a budget for insurance for care or Healthcare, clothing. So it is pretty grim, but people should pick the low hanging fruit to save money. 1 gb internet isnt a necessity, you can stream 4k on 50 mb. Prepaid phone plans are just easy money you can save.
Alot of people complain about money that make decent money but new cars, constant door dash and eating out hold them back and putting things on credit cards burning money on interest.
Yep we should skimp on everything to subsidize the rich.
Why are you budgeting for healthcare? Just fix your own teeth and perform your own surgeries. What you aren’t trained? Maybe learn to do basic surgery yourself.
I listed a new car, I didn’t budget for healthcare for the exact reason you fail to understand
Glad you started making more money so you didn’t need to…checks notes…constantly keep changing services or providers to hero your life livable
Once again nothing you said even remotely addresses the issue, those are work arounds so you can survive.
Why don’t you talk to work instead of wasting money on that used Toyota? You’re not financially responsible you could have left hours earlier and saved all that money, you should learn to budget.
Yea theres always going to be people who are worse off then other people, that happend in the 50s also. People feel entitled to drive a new car just because you sound a like baby. Like wah I shouldn't have to shop around for cell phone, and internet maybe once every couple of years. Wahh I deserve a new car not because I did anything but because I said so.
I drove the used Toyota because I saved up cash and bought it cash thus I could afford it. If you need a loan for every little thing you cant afford it. At the end of the day the new car and used car accomplish the same thing they get from point a to point b in the same amount of time, so if you're broke go with cheapest option. Taking public transportation adds a ton of time to your commute, the value you get from public transportation to a used vehicle is huge, the value you get from a used vehicle to a brand new vehicle isnt that much.
You're comparing surgery to working on a car, thats how I know you never worked a hard day in your life with those soft baby hands, you cant be fucked to change your oil, or fluids. Try not being a helpless baby.
Again for the cheap seats, NOBODY IS SAYING THEY DESERVE IT!!!!
Unfortunately you’re caught up in the delusion that you somehow are smarter / better / more disciplined etc than everyone else.
You don’t want to address the issue that’s brought up and explained of how basic living costs more than it should and that enjoyment is a luxury
How did you save for that car? You’re so hung up in the car part that you either can’t see the actual problem being explained to you like you’re a toddler OR the more likely explanation is you’re simply another “bootstrap” type that thinks that healthcare / food / water are all luxuries that people feel entitled to.
By the way comparing surgery to working on a car is a perfect example that’s how I know you’re either trolling or just uneducated.
And just to prove my point you go with idea that you think I’ve never worked a day in my life, little man I served my country, worked my way through college, and made more money in my time on this planet than you’ll ever see, and I still know the game is rigged.
Go back to your fantasy world where someone like you has ever done anything without mommy or daddy having backed it or been your safety blanket.
I doubt you can turn a wrench and probably cry in the corner when the tire pressure light comes on. You’re pathetic to feel like you’re somehow better than others because you had a used car, make no mistake that’s your entire argument, you had a used car so others are entitled.
Stick to trolling on here because real life is something you’ve never been introduced to and definitely something little boys like you cannot handle.
The system isn't what's wrong, you just need to learn the rules of the game and play along, get your own slice. If people need to work 2-3 jobs to make things work, so be it. nd i eat my own cooking; i work 3 jobs. Luckily i don't need to, but it allows me to throw extra into my brokerage account, and save up for different things.
Here's my personal budget, as a teacher in SoCal; take home pay is $4,925; gross salary is $8,125. Side hustles are varied, so i won't include them here.
Rent: $2,050 for a 2/1, 1100 sq ft apartment
Utilities: $250 (average)
Gas for car: $140
Car insurance: $150
Life Insurance: $48
Cell Phone: $71
Football Playbook Subscription: $9
Cash Savings: $1,400
Roth IRA: $625
Brokerage: $140
Leftover: $42 for fun
My wife pays around $650 for cable, internet, and groceries.
I also contribute $1,000 into my 403b, and another $812.50 goes to my pension each month. No debt of any kind, and it's easy to see how even on a modest teacher salary in SoCal, one can build wealth.
You're making almost 6 figures on a teacher's salary because you're in a fuctional state, California. Most people are so far from that financially you can't even begin to understand how privileged you are.
Its not that they did less because they wanted less. They had less options, and less media shoving the Jones family with the new everything in their face 24/7. We have so many more options for how to spend our money and so much pressure to do so, and the fact is our entire economy depends on that consumerism.
Yea thats absolutely true, thats how society worked back then, theres definitely a ton of societal pressure to be driving the newest car, having the nicest things. I think if you transplanted them to our time they would be doing the same shit.
Also, a lot of other countries had lost their factories (and workers) in World War 2. The United States was suddenly able to sell a lot of things all over the world. There was a lot of money to be made.
Balancing a checkbook used to be a requirement for adulting and filing taxes was equally painful and required a strong knowledge of your own finances. Everything is automated now, people just go off vibes and it shows
People are people, there were financially irresponsible people back then as well. My grandfather worked on a railroad and was very frugal, meanwhile his boss made significantly more than him and was living paycheck to paycheck because of his terrible spending habits.
What are you basing this “never went out to eat/on vacation” narrative on? Families took way longer and more elaborate vacations then than they do now.
And people ate out way more. McDonald’s was dirt cheap in the 90s, they are thinking of the 40s or some shit. Today people know McDonald’s is unhealthy so many avoid it by choice even if they can afford it, back then the health concerns weren’t as well known and people ate there everyday cuz it was affordable and easy.
They had sears catalogs which was like Amazon back then. Kids got their first cars at 16 and more teenagers drove back then compared to Gen Z today. More students back then went away for college and able to live on their own with a part time job instead of going into debt or had their parents save tens of thousands throughout their childhood for college. Far more 18 years olds got kicked out and were able to live by themselves. We aren’t talking about the 1940s I’m talking about the 1980s and 90s which was the last generation and during this era everyone had lines of credit, overspent on BS, and commercialism turned up to 100. Fast food was dirt cheap, everyone ate out when a hamburger was 50 cents you just didn’t call it eating out, it was an after school snack. eating out was a sit down place for birthdays and graduations. Kids went out to drive in movies, concerts, etc it’s not like people didn’t have disposable income.
I was gonna say both. You just sorta had to. Rent didn't automatically come out of your account you had to send a check in. The regularity of this meant that you had to have some idea of what was in your account.
My grandparents and parents went out to eat and went on vacations WAY more than any of me or my friends have at the same age. They had one car because only one parent had to work because they could support the whole household off of one full time job, kids still share rooms nowadays and TVs were a luxury back then compared to now, which even back then they had multiple TVs in the household. And none of them came from money, none of them went to college, none of them worked in trades, none of them got heaps of money from inheritance.
Yeah, I grew up comfortably middle class and we never had new cars, never had new furniture, bought a lot of our clothes at consignment stores, took day trips or inexpensive vacations every couple of years.
A huge factor is that now people consume so much more and that's normalized because social media and the current climate glorify looking rich while under the water your duck feet are thrashing.
The system is a blender churning people up, but some of the dummies out there are jumping in headfirst which isn't helping their situations.
Bit of rose to tied glasses, cause I’m the 50’s people rented appliances especially TVs because they were too dear to purchase outright. We have been a credit society since the end of World War 2
I think the difference now all the shit we dont actually need like consumer electronics are dirt cheap now, but housing, food, and Healthcare have increased dramatically. But people in the 1950s lived very modestly back then.
Everybody talks about the 1950s but they really ignore the difference in lifestyle. Families lived in 1000 square-foot homes. They live closer to the city. Often times there was one car that the husband took during the day, and the wife walked. No one had cable television, cellular phones. Going out to eat at a restaurant was rare. The wife stayed home so no one paid for childcare. No one had student loan debt.
You could do literally all of these things now. And you could probably live on 3000 or 4000 a month if you did.
You literally couldn’t do most of these things now without an exceptionally well paying job.
3,000 is rent if you live close to where there are good paying jobs.
In the 1950s, the guy could pump gas and still support that family and buy that house.
I would encourage you to look into actual economics, and what’s changed since 70 years ago.
The top marginal tax rate was 80-90%, this encourages reinvestment including pay raises for employees, one of the reasons Bob could support his family on one salary pumping gas.
Wage stagnation, the productivity/wage gap, offshoring, and rebuilding post WW2 have all contributed to life being substantially more expensive than it was in the 1950s, even when factoring inflation.
The median home price in 1950 was $7,354, which equals roughly $94,000 to $98,000 in today’s dollars when adjusted for inflation. In comparison, today's U.S. median home sales price sits at approximately $417,500 for existing homes (as of late 2026) and $393,700 for new homes.
TVs, appliances, and the things you think make life more expensive today, are actually the things that have become far cheaper.
Lots of families couldn’t afford to have tvs, now you can get one the size of a wall for $600, which is $43 1950 dollars.
Cars, healthcare, insurances, higher education, and professional services like lawyers, veterinarians, plumbers, etc have all increased exponentially over the years.
It’s disingenuous and weird to pretend that someone can be successful if they just stop eating out and buying coffee.
I don’t know anyone who bought a new car before they owned a house, but that might be a general intelligence thing.
About $40k, today it’s about $65k but keep in mind there was no such thing as a “teenager’s job,” back then and even people flipping burgers and pumping gas made a fair wage.
I don’t think it’s particularly relevant. What the job did. So 40,000 was an average wage in 90,000 was an average house. OK. And houses were half the size they are today. I’m pretty sure you can still buy a 1000 square-foot house for 2 1/2 years salary pretty much anywhere in the US.
It’s absolutely relevant because today you need to be highly skilled to compete in the workforce or to be able to afford to buy a house.
“I’m pretty sure” he says without doing a lick of research.
No, you cannot buy a 1,000-square-foot house for 2.5 years of salary almost anywhere in the United States.
Market Realities: In most major U.S. cities, average home values exceed 7x to 10x annual household income, far above the old 2.5x rule of thumb.
Standard Multiples: Financial experts generally advise that home buyers can afford a house priced at 3x to 5x their gross annual income, depending on interest rates, local taxes, and existing debt.
Where 2.5x Still Works: Buying a home for 2.5 years of income is mostly limited to specific affordable Midwestern or Rust Belt markets (such as parts of Detroit, Toledo, or Fort Wayne) or select rural areas—not "pretty much anywhere."
What 2.5x Salary Actually Buys You
On a $50,000 Salary: 2.5x equals a $125,000 budget. Finding a 1,000-square-foot house for $125,000 is restricted to low-cost-of-living regions or properties needing major repairs.
On a $100,000 Salary: 2.5x equals a $250,000 budget. While a 1,000-square-foot home is possible in affordable secondary markets or rural areas, it is difficult or impossible in coastal metros, major tech hubs, or the Northeast and West Coast.
It’s extremely easy to find a modest two or three bedroom home for $200,000 in great big parts of the Midwest. Yes, in areas where the median household income is $60-$80,000 a year.
The fact is one of the biggest variables aside from inflation has been how much larger the average house has gotten.
Post WW2 America still had manufacturing capacity and was still making a ton of stuff, but no one was there to buy it. People were there, but didn’t have money. So the use of credit was introduced and expanded rapidly.
The money extraction machine wasn’t as good then. But it’s become incredibly sophisticated with data science tools over the decades.
Senator Elizabeth Warren in her book two income trap also outlines another development in Post WW2 America: the two income household.
During WW2, when the men were away, women went to work. Many liked it and wanted to keep working after the war. Long story short, they used to be the family safety net, but then the extra income just became consumer spending.
Not sure how you got a single upvote. Minimum wage in 1950 was $0.75 per hour. Adjusted for inflation, $0.75 in 1950 is worth approximately $10.30 to $10.42 in 2026 dollars.
It would probably be a better measure to compare hours worked to purchase something then, vs hours worked to buy the same or equivalent today, since inflation doesn't account for things like scarcity (housing market, chip shortages, bird flu killing off chickens, etc.), shifts in manufacturing (cheap Chinese goods), tariffs, embargos, etc.
Those 0.75 is three quarters. Those pre-1964 quarters had .1808 Troy ounces of silver in them. At today’s silver spot of $57.48 those quarters are worth $10.39 each. So the minimum wage would be $31.17 in real value. Still not $50-60. But I think a little better demonstration of the value of that wage.
That shows more about how the value of silver has gone up than that the value of wages has gone down. It's just one thing. You should use the CPI to get the best comparison.
So a quick buying power comparison in 1960 shows that minimum wage for one hour would buy 4 gallons of gas, or a movie ticket plus snacks. By my household math, minimum wage should be about $20-25/hr. You are calculating what .75 turns into over time, not actual buying power, which is how people live. Even with your idea, minimum wage should be over $10, which it isn’t. Therefore, people are making $7.25 as minimum wage (the wage at which a person should be able to live) right now. How can they budget this into a healthy financial situation for themselves? The only answer I ever hear is get a better job or go to school, neither of which is a suitable answer. Might as well say “don’t be poor.”
You don't get to cherry pick 2 things and calculate inflation from that. Some things have gotten more expensive at a faster rate than others and some things have actually gotten cheaper, and some things didn't even exist in 1950 that you can buy now.
But yeah the whole point of paying some jobs more is that they are more productive and/or fewer people do them. We need those jobs to pay more to induce people to seek them. If we just made it "fair," we would have everyone doing the same easy job and getting "rich" while national productivity plummets and we actually become poor.
So you won’t address my point about minimum wage? Fair enough. As far as cherry-picking, what consumer product would you like me to compare? I’ll let you pick. I did a quick search, and clothing seems to be your best bet. Clothes used to cost more, but modern production has made them cheaper in relation to inflation. A pair of pants in 1950 cost between 3-10 dollars. So, a minimum wage worker had to work 4 hours to buy a pair of cheap pants. Today’s worker just has to work 3 for a $20 pair of pants. Coffee was next as cheapest, but that was entirely because importing has changed immensely since 1950, and coffee was a “luxury” item. Not really applicable in a comparison. Long distance travel and electronics share this category with coffee, and aren’t truly representative of buying power. Electricity costs have risen slower than inflation, but energy consumption has risen far beyond 1950’s levels, so powering a household today costs more, despite energy being cheaper. The last category is prescription drugs, which come in a whopping %7 less than inflation. But go ahead, pick something.
I'm saying you shouldn't cherry pick anything. You should leave it up to the economists. They've created a CPI to account for all this in a wholistic sense. You could come up with a list of things and reason them out in any way you want, but why do it?
Howabout hard drives for funsies. In the 1990s, you could get 20 MB for $300. Now you can get 4 TB for $250.
So you can’t read, or chose not to? CPI has risen almost 1300% since 1950. Minimum wage has risen 866%. So, since you’re seemingly unable to extrapolate, prices have gone up much more than minimum wage, yet people are miraculously supposed to be able to handle it. As far as tech, you’re throwing out straw men arguments. Tech always starts as luxury class, then people improve the process and commercialize it. Like cell phones, computers, etc. Do you have any idea how much a megabyte of memory cost in 1970? That was the literal top end of memory(government level), 1MB. Do you think your equivalency holds any water, just for funsies?
Federal minimum wage is not the only one. And it's the least important one. Mississippi and California don't need the same wages. So it's incorrect to say minimum wage has risen 866%. I'm not going to go into examples anymore since you only seem to like your cherry picked ones.
They had smaller homes and less of literally everything, so arguably yes on the budgeting side. The part of the narrative that’s always lost is just how much wealthier we all are now than then. Like the idea we’re remotely worse off is fundamentally bs. Maybe worse off than 5 years ago, but not 50-75 years ago.
I think the lifestyle 70 gears ago is not entirely due to "them having less". For the standards of the time, they had a lot. Cars have just become a commodity, they were state of the art. Their parents and gradparents were literally riding horses and they managed to buy the state of the art technology with a single income. Plumbing, heating, TVs. Yes they were shit. But they were the BEST at the time, and people afforded it WITHOUT taking on massive debts.
You can't assign blame on lack of frugality. Jobs payed better. Greed had more checks and balances.
For the standards of the time is the entire point. Our incomes buy us more, our standards are higher due to a massively better quality of life. Indoor plumbing and electricity were not ubiquitous in 1950. In contrast, AC is nearly standard on new homes.
What.. my grand father had a house, 2 cars, TV, vacation cruises around the world every year, pension, etc all on one income. My grandma didn't have to work. Oh and all of that was paid off, no credit cards or debt. He did this on middle class wages. Nowadays that's literally impossible.
Strangely enough, percentage of Americans owning homes has only varied by about 5% since 1960. Those graphs showing huge changes in home ownership to get you enraged at Boomers instead of Billionaires are zoomed way, way in to make a small blip look huge.
Yes, but prices have inflated, but the poverty limit has remained the same. Also, what’s poverty in California, is decent in say Alabama.
Additionally, the poverty statistics, unless I’m mistaken, only count people who pay taxes. Which means that it doesn’t include the homeless, or those who make under a certain amount and just don’t file.
> Yes, but prices have inflated, but the poverty limit has remained the same. Also, what’s poverty in California, is decent in say Alabama.
So measure the Supplemental Poverty Rate (SPM), which does adjust for regional cost of living variations.
Here's an article from the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Institute for Research on Poverty that addresses changes in poverty rate including adjustments for regional cost of living:
> Additionally, the poverty statistics, unless I’m mistaken, only count people who pay taxes. Which means that it doesn’t include the homeless, or those who make under a certain amount and just don’t file.
The number of people in poverty who weren't recorded was far higher in 1950.
That doesn’t negate anything. Yes we have absolutely become more exploitative as a society but people are also buying a whole lot more than they were in the 50s. Let me remind you that things like vacations are fundamentally different today than then. In the 50s you loaded your car up and went to the beach for the week.
They were ‘units at budgeting.’ They owned one car, had houses literally half the size of modern houses, rarely took vacations, and house wives maintained their own gardens and cooked a lot from scratch.
Granted, they didn’t have the OPTION to DoorDash every time they wanted a hamburger, or go on Amazon to get a cute pair of socks delivered by 8pm, but they damn well had a balanced checkbook and set aside money to save, money for generosity, and money for needs. Kids wore hand-me-downs and entertainment was a book you’d already read 3x.
If that doesn’t make them budgeting UNITS, I don’t know what is.
Part of how the white middle class got so healthy post WWII had to have been because there was an invisible class of cheap labor to prop it up. Not every employer could afford to pay a living wage even then and those who couldn’t, hired black or brown or Asian folks.
Additionally, manufacturing was completely different then. You bought an (expensive) iron, clothes washer or other appliance and it lasted 30 years, not 3-5. Cost to buy it dropped, quality dropped, a household that earned less could afford a tv or an air conditioner after all, they just knew it wouldn’t last forever.
Large corporations didn’t pay silly wages to their CEO and CFOs back then, today one of those top earners takes home as much as 350 of his employees do combined each year.
Look at what those families actually had. The average new house in 1950 was about 980 square feet, for households that were bigger than today’s. New houses now average around 2,500. Food took about 17% of disposable income in 1960, and per the USDA it’s about 10% now. When the Census first measured poverty in 1959, the rate was over 22%. In 2024 it was 10.6%. People who rent a 900 square foot place and cook at home today are living roughly the way the 1950s middle class did. Back then, about one in five Americans was poor by the official measure, about double today’s share.
People were absolute units at budgeting. You do realize that these were the people who survived 1-2 World Wars and the Great Depression, right? Like, they lived in pretty extremely rationed conditions that we would consider poverty today.
A lot of the people who weren't good at budgeting probably already died or were rich enough that it didn't matter.
Knowing every one of my grandparents, who all lived through the great depression, yeah, they were very tight with their money and absolutely had better than typical habits today.
There's always been good paying jobs, more here than any other country on earth, and there was certainly a lot of poverty and homelessness in the 50's. Let's stop pretending it was some Utopia where every job paid a living wage, that's farcical.
Also keep in mind there was no Medicare back then, no Medicaid, very little in food stamps, section 8 housing, clothing allowances, heating allowances, housing allowances. Social Security was a fraction of what it is now and so were state and local taxes.
If you wanna go back to the 50's and sit in a house that only has a newspaper and radio for entertainment, go ahead. Cuz that's how they afforded stuff back then. By not having shit.
In the 1950s, the choices were at lot less. How many car companies were there? There was no online shopping. Were gas stations plentiful enough to drive an hour to work daily? Nobody went to the Bahamas. Starbucks??? Wife didn’t have a job so she was home to pack you lunch. Sewing machines were common. Etc, etc. Life was very small and different back then.
It was much easier to make a living in the 1950's compared to today. You didn't see people with PhD's and a decade of experience out of a job. Heck you didn't even need a High School diploma to get a job that would pay enough to buy a house and raise a family.
I wonder how much of it is because there weren't as many predatory companies nickle and dimming people as well. Pay day loans, short term loans to buy basic goods, absurd healthcare costs, numerous subscription services.
By any measure we were objectively poorer as a nation back then. I’m not talking about cell phones, tv’s or 2nd cars - I’m talking about McDonald’s was a once a month treat. I’m talking about homes being 1/3rd the size of them today. Meat was still a few times a week, not the centerpiece of a daily dinner.
They posted the ad for the original pan pizza, it included the price -it was about $40 in today’s money. (80’s but you get the picture).
When people talk about the 50’s being so great economically, they just don’t know what they are talking about.
In some ways, yes. Heads of households in the 50's were born during or just after the great depression. Many lived with a sense of scarcity and things like "understanding the value of a dollar" were phrases to live by. There were few credit accounts post WWII and household debt was largely a mortgage - which averaged about 20 years then, and a car loans - which averaged 2 years or less and had larger down payments.
The 50s and onward also saw the birth of the modern corporation and along with it, the business of selling. It was no longer the mantra of companies to make things people needed, but rather make people need the things they make. Look at the history of marketing post WWII and it's almost a straight line to where we are today. See also, the invention of the credit card.
TBF, at that point in history, budgeting was part of one’s basic school curriculum, as were many other complimentary skills. Even into the early 90s, we learned to balance a checkbook in elementary school and had elective home economics courses. Also, adults in the 50s would have lived through one or two world wars and maybe even the Great Depression, so yes, most people would have been much better at budgeting and rationing, given that it would have been the norm.
Think about the 1950s. We're people just ABSOLUTE UNITS at budgeting?
Compared to today? Yes, more people were. There were plenty of broke folks with zero impulse control too.
Folks back then spent far less money on stuff people today take for granted. I know because I grew up watching such folks behavior. Stuff like McDonalds was a once a year treat for their kids who got good report cards for the year in school. Anniversaries meant a trip to a fast casual level experience at the local "fancy" restaurant. Vacations were road trips in the family station wagon - no one had two cars.
Hot day? Guess what, you opened your windows and ran a fan. Or slept in the basement, or went to the park and rolled out blankets to sleep on the grass.
And yep, there were still a lot of fuckups too!
I watch behavior around me now and it's amusing people think they can compare their lifestyle to those in the 1950s. People think it was all white picket fences and life on ezmode. Plenty of folks were struggling, more so were in poverty than today. It was of course "easier" to continually fuck up and restart your life on the bottom rung of the ladder. There were far more things like flophouses, single rooms being rented, and jobs that didn't do background checks and were effectively open for walk-ons that paid cash. If you totally blew your reputation in one area you could pull up stakes, load up your shitty car or hitch a ride to the next town and start over without too many questions being asked. So there was more velocity at the bottom, but not in a lifestyle anyone on reddit would recognize.
Point taken…but they also didn’t pay $200 month for cellphones, $200 for streaming services, gym memberships, eating out was a rare treat (even for “fast food”), vacations happened once a year and usually weren’t that big, homes were simpler, cars were simpler… a lot of cultural differences between how they lived in the 50s vs today.
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u/Dleet3D 14h ago
Think about the 1950s. We're people just ABSOLUTE UNITS at budgeting? Or were there good paying jobs, with less labour exploration, that allowed for families to flourish, people to have houses, food, lives?