[retrac]

The real cost of food has steadily decreased for the last 200 years. (Much of the decrease was before 1980, though.) Here in Canada, one hour of labour at minimum wage, will buy you a 10 kilogram bag of flour, or 4 litres of cooking oil. That's enough calories for days. That is insane buying power compared to the historical norm, right into the 20th century.

This is the cost of food as % of household income in the USA over the last century: https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/foodnew.jpg

My grandfather was born in western Europe, in what is today one of the wealthiest countries in the world. He was one of 14 children (of whom 8 survived), born to an illiterate peasant on a rural farm. This was pretty normal. You may have a retroactively gentrified image of what America was like in the 1940s - nearly half of homes didn't have an indoor toilet or electricity at the start of that decade.

[lm28469]

Ok but again, housing is the exact opposite:

https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_pr...

and worker productivity vs income:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Tobias-Arbogast/publica...

I'm 200% positive that both my grandparents and great grandparents had it better in pretty much every aspect (job security, housing, future perspectives) than we currently do. We have unlimited bread and circuses but scratch the surface and we're worse in every other aspects: I couldn't afford 14 kids even if 10 died instantly.

[nojvek]

Housing is insanely expensive. in US, healthcare costs are through the roof as well.

The only way I see long term housing becoming affordable is heavy taxes on single family homes as investment properties. Also open up zoning and allow builders to build.

Also naturally less kids, means less humans, means less demand.

[kortilla]

Unless your great grandparents were born after world war 2, they had it worse in every aspect. People starved in the Great Depression. The only people who starve today are those who refuse to ask for help.

Infant mortality back then was atrocious, my grandpa had two (out of 13) siblings die at birth. He grew up working on the small family farm that was the family’s primary food source with the little excess produced sold to buy supplies for it. A bad harvest meant the whole family starving for months. Healthcare was essentially non-existent.

Step into the 50s during the baby boom and the huge economic boon that came from the post war rebuild and things started to look up, but they were still crap compared to today.

The houses they could so easily afford looked quaint but were absolutely trash quality on average. The ones left today are the nicest from that era. The average ones were gone by the 70s. That’s available today too, go get a manufactured home and it will be roughly the same quality but with better insulation, plumbing and electrical.

>I couldn't afford 14 kids even if 10 died instantly.

You absolutely could if you fed, housed, treated, and schooled them the way they were back when this was common.

Job security was also terrible back then. There was a reason unions were more popular.

You’re really getting a rose colored view of the past and I’m not sure where it’s from.

[BehindBlueEyes]

There are people starving now in my community in Canada and it's not a problem of pride or asking for help... It is due to multiple issues interacting and compounding. Limited pools of volunteers for the food bank to be open, lack of funding for non profits that help with food security, increased costs of food due to remoteness, lack of appropriate housing and transport esp. for elders who end up isolated, kids bullying each other when accepting free meals at school (that was solved by making meals free for all at least) etc. I myself only started scratching the surface of the problem really.

[BehindBlueEyes]

Sure, but what quality of food? It's not affordable if you pay for it later with health issues.