[tshaddox]

> I don't know how we got to the point where a no-skills-required job that anyone with a pulse can learn to do in a few hours suddenly became required to support a family of four.

That's an odd way of looking at it. Surely what happened first isn't that the expectations of fast food jobs changed out of the blue. Could it instead be that other jobs which adults worked to support their families went away?

[lazerpants]

The population also exploded from ~280MM in 2000 to an estimated 331MM in 2020... so maybe all of those extra people created a glut of workers.