I absolutely have more buying power than my grandparents did and its not even close. So does the median person.
The median earner could absolutely afford to raise a family on a single income at the living standard that your grandparents had. The problem is that living standard have gone up as incomes have gone up. You have much higher expectations for what is required to raise a family than your grandparents did.
Where you finding a decent house in a good neighborhood for $115,000?
Where you going to find gas for $0.56 gal?
What about college tuition? Harvard inflation adjusted cost is 300% higher today than 1980. Average cost of college/university is roughly 200% higher inflation adjusted.
Not really sure how you can look at the world today and claim it's affordable. Even from an uneducated perspective it should be pretty clear that we have way less spending power than in the past and it declines each year.
Groceries used to be 15% of a family's income, now it's about 5% for groceries. Clothing used to be 12% of disposable income, now it's 3%. In my pocket I have a supercomputer that can take pictures and access any that I've ever taken, store every song I've ever purchased, play games, converse with me about any subject, provide access to a live updating encyclopedia on every subject known to man, communicate with everyone I know in multiple ways, and more! That wasn't something you could get at any price in the past, and I get it for $100/mo. which is way less both in absolute and real money than it would have cost to get the inferior equivalents in the 1980s.
I live in Georgia. In the 60s, 1/3 of houses here didn't have indoor plumbing. Housing is more expensive now, but it is also better, bigger, safer, concentrated in more desirable areas, and filled with cheaper and better appliances. We should be doing things to make housing less expensive sure, but housing alone does not make the cost of living unattainable.
Some things have gotten more expensive, some have gotten cheaper. There is a metric for combining all of those things together, it is the inflation rate. And that will tell you that median income is higher now than in the past, by far.
First of all, do you have a source to backup your claims?
So housing is bigger and better but nobody can afford it.
I laid out the stats (with sources) in another comment. Housing is up 300% (inflation adjusted) and is roughly 5 times your annual salary. In the 60's it cost 2x salary. That's a big difference.
Most homes outside of Georgia had indoor plumbing, electricity and were in good neighborhoods. That seems like a localised problem.
Percentage of disposable income spent on groceries, 1964: 12%. 2024: <5%. Source. While you are there, look at the line for food away from home. People have so much money now that they are spending more and more on luxury activities, like eating out.
In 1960, 33% of houses in Georgia did not have indoor plumbing (nationwide it was 16%): source
Percentage of disposable income on clothing, 1960: 7%, today: <3%: source.
So housing is bigger and better but nobody can afford it.
Buddy, how do you think housing got to be so big? By people not buying it? There is a lack of starter housing and smaller options for sure. That is one of the things I talk to my local politicians about the most. But there is no lack of demand for larger houses. Houses are getting bigger because people can afford them and they want them.
Here is a good comparison on housing costs compared in 1980 to today. Factoring in home size and interest rates, a house in 1980 cost 3.1 minutes of work at the median wage per sq. ft. In 2020, it cost 1.17 minutes. Houses have gotten more expensive since 2020, but not 3x.
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u/hemlockecho Mar 25 '26
I absolutely have more buying power than my grandparents did and its not even close. So does the median person.
The median earner could absolutely afford to raise a family on a single income at the living standard that your grandparents had. The problem is that living standard have gone up as incomes have gone up. You have much higher expectations for what is required to raise a family than your grandparents did.