[jseliger]

Depends on where you are and who you are. Housing costs vary dramatically across the U.S.: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/mac.20170388.

In addition, most zoning regulations reduce the supply of housing and thus raise prices as demand go up. Someone who bought a place in California or New York or Boston 30 years ago may have seven figures in a primary asset and relatively low earnings.

[BizarroLand]

I'm making $120k in Seattle and it seems like I'm no better off than my mom was making $35k as a nurse when I was a kid. Sure, that was 20 something years ago but its absurd how I make nearly 4x the money and it still doesn't go as far as it used to.

Annual vacations, family car, 3 bd house at an affordable price. Sure, we didn't have cable but we would get dvd rentals and broadcast TV worked pretty well. Now you are lucky to get 3 channels that work consistently even with an amplified antenna.

[escapedmoose]

I feel the same way. My SO and I together bring in over 2x the median US household income in a below-average COL area outside a small city, no kids. We have a comfortable life: own our home, one modest vacation per year, and have some money left over each month to spend on hobbies. But damn, this doesn’t feel like “affluence” to me.