[neaden]

Let's take these one at at time

1. Households in 1980 spent a large share of their income on food then today, and CPI tracks food expenditure and it's below wage increases. So this one is a victory for today vs the past.

2. Shelter is difficult because we expect much more today than the past, houses have gotten much much larger. One big issue is interest rates, which were about twice as high in the 80s than in recent times. If you want to buy a small house without air conditioning and other amenities that are now standard you can do it cheaper than what you would have paid back then. So another victory for today.

3. Health is once again hard, because a lot of the increased cost is for things that weren't around back then. We can just call this one a draw

4. Education. This is the one that is most clearly an increase above inflation. Some of this is due to decreased funding by governments, some due to admin bloat, but mostly it's just that labor is getting more expensive and education is a very labor focused sector. So victory for the past.

So overall I have to say you are incorrect, the past was more expensive than now and less affordable for a middle class person. I also have to say I find this whole thing kind of odd, I was born in the 80s and remember what it was like, I would not want to switch places with my parents economically.

[readthenotes1]

My great granddaddy spent the summer of 1918 in a shack on the farm, sequestered by his parents to protect him from the Spanish Flu.

No tv, no radio, no electric lights, no HVAC, no Internet.

It cost nothing for him to live there other than the food delivered by someone paid a pittance to leave a plate on the porch.

Comparing to past prices usually ignores current affordances we take for granted.

I myself suffered from owning a 9-in black and white TV until I was 31.

I'm not sure exactly what the cost was, but I'm pretty sure it was in line with a low end 36-in LED nowadays

[0xffff2]

I'm really curious how old you are. The great grand-dad part makes you think you're my age or a bit younger, but then I grew up very middle class and I don't know if I've ever even seen a black-and-white TV.

[no-name-here]

From googling just now, color sales exceeded black and white by the 70s. However, new black and white models were still being introduced even into the 90s in the U.S., particularly in the budget or portable segments, and were still being sold new into the 2000s.

[jltsiren]

If you want to buy a small house, you often can't. The rate of new construction has been low for a couple of decades, typically at or below 1% of the housing stock. Because people's preferences change over time, older homes are more likely in places that are not in demand anymore. New construction is mostly large homes and rental complexes due to political constraints. Condos and starter homes people could reasonably buy in their 20s are not getting built in sufficient numbers.

As for air conditioning and other modern amenities, they are not particularly expensive. Installing them can be, if you live in an area with a shortage of skilled labor.

[neaden]

I mean sure, in some places it might be hard to find a starter home. Do you think that wasn't true in the 80s and 90s as well? I can't find the data going back to the 80s with a quick search, but here is one that shows it's been going down since 2000 https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2025/08/who-is....

The narrative that millennials (of which I am one) are worse off economically than our parents is an attractive one to many people, but the fact is that it's not true, at least in the USA as a whole.

[jltsiren]

I think there is enough evidence that millennials had a slower start than their parents. They were worse off by many important metrics (home ownership in particular) in their 20s, but they've largely caught up by 40. Younger generation X was impacted in the same way, which is why you don't see much change since the 2000s.

The number of homes built by decade was relatively flat from the 1950s to the 2000s. When you adjust for population, it becomes clear that housing construction has slowed down over time. When the supply of new housing becomes scarce, it tends to favor the highest bidders: large single-family homes and financialized schemes such as market-rate rental complexes.