[wakawaka28]

I think you've overstated housing costs, as crazy as that sounds. The places with really high rent pay more and also see people get with roommates. So the average rent/mortgage is not the same as the average person's housing expenses.

Most people cannot afford to save a lot of money for retirement, especially while paying into Social Security or other government programs. But that has never been possible in the entire world, and it generally still isn't. Even in cases where it was, such as the boomers, it still didn't really happen. To be fair the boomers fully expected that their taxes would go toward Social Security in their old age.