[chongli]

You used to be able to buy a nice house in the suburbs with car in the garage and a white picket fence, support a stay-at-home wife with three kids, put them all through college, and take annual vacations to Disneyland or the Caribbean, and cover the healthcare needs of the whole family, all on the salary of a high school educated factory worker. Now all that sounds impossible. You’d have to pay factory workers well into six figures for a lifestyle like that.

What happened? Cost disease [1]. All of the big ticket things in that lifestyle (except for the car) skyrocketed in price relative to inflation.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect

[nradov]

That was never the reality for most factory workers. Usually the car was cramped with a single bathroom, the wife picked up some part-time work, most vacations were road trips to go camping, and not all the kids went to college. Inflation and growing income inequality are legitimate problems but let's not paint an unrealistic picture of "the good old days".

[selimthegrim]

Not a sprinter van clearly if it was cramped with a single bathroom.

[nradov]

Whoops too late to edit I meant house.

[ponector]

Obviously it was only for white people. And for sure not a regular factory worker who is doing simple tasks. Maybe floor manager...