General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Do you think a laborer who makes $150,000 a year with overtime is being overpaid? [View all]hfojvt
(37,573 posts)I grew up in the 1960s and 1970s. In many ways our parents were poorer. We had a family of seven crammed in a very small house. About half the size of the houses of three of my siblings. They carpeted that house one room at a time. Dad finished the basement by himself. We had one beat up old car until dad bought last years model station wagon in 1975. But that new car sat in the garage and was only used for camping trips. Both mom and dad went around town on bicycles (admittedly they were unusual in that regard). Our other car was a used Gremlin, bought in 1978 or so and dad tried to give it to me in 1985 when I started my first job out of college. TV was free, and our phone was a party line. And we were upper middle class.
As for health care, there was no expensive cancer treatment, which is a cost we are now all paying for.
One of the other troubles with American society is that we kids remember what our parents had when we were in our teens, not remembering the struggling years when they scrimped and saved. We get used to that level that we grew up with and expect even more for our lives without having to scrimp and save like our parents did. My parents put four kids through college because they started saving probably even before we were born. It also used to be the case that far fewer kids were going to college. Middle class kids did not goto college, upper middle class and upper class kids did.