this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2025
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I'm actually rather surprised by all of the negative responses to this post. Having lived through part of this period of time (gen-x), I can attest to the accuracy of this. This standard of living or quality of life, or whatever you want to callout absolutely was achievable for most. No, it was not perfect by any means - people did struggle, yes, racial discrimination was worse. Poverty was still there, but none of it was on the scale that we see today. People were NOT beat down and discouraged. Young people got out of high school, found jobs and could rent an apartment on their own. Small towns did not have people sleeping in the woods. Cities had homeless people but it was nowhere near the level we see today. Seriously, not even close. Medical care was much more affordable. If you had insurance, they just paid your doctor's bills without engaging in a protracted fight over copays, out-of-pocket nonsense or other methods of exploiting the fine print of your policy. You just didn't hear about people losing their homes over medical costs.
For a good portion of my childhood, I was raised by a single mom who was able to make rent on a 2 bedroom apartment working a job waiting tables. She was able to later buy a house on a non-union factory job and make payments on a car. One income, one person. We were very much on the lower end of the scale.
I think many of you have been gaslit by the current state of affairs. Everything sucks and seems to actively be getting worse. I really feel bad for the millennial generation and those that followed because the system is rigged, inequality is off the charts and basic living as we knew it is not achievable for a much larger portion of society. It's difficult to overestimate how far we've fallen over the past 40 years.
As an "elder millennial", I too, saw this happen. I grew up in a very middle class home. About the only thing we didn't regularly do from the list in the OP, was modest vacations.
My dad was a teacher.
We didn't have anything overly special, but we had what we needed and we were not struggling. I have two siblings, and the entire family was a family of five. My mother did not have a job throughout my childhood and well after my teenage years, and I'm the youngest.
Now, I can't fathom having a kid. I can barely pay to keep myself alive.
I'm a middle-aged american.
When I was a kid, my high school educated dad worked in a machine shop and I had a stay at home mom. There were 3 of us kids. Back in the late 80s my parents bought the 4-bedroom home with a 2-car garage on 1+ acre of land that they still live in today. The size is still great for hosting holiday gatherings and with the extra bedrooms they can have play rooms for the grand kids and an empty bed for when my brother visits from out of town.
Once I was in high school and could be home alone, I remember my mom getting a job for a few years.
Today, I have a small family and my wife is a stay at home mom and helps at our son's elementary school and stuff. But there are some differences!
My family is smaller, 1 kid vs 3.
My education and field of work are much higher up the percentiles. I have three university degrees from big schools and work in tech. He was a high school educated machinist that eventually worked his way up into management when I was older.
My house is smaller. I own a small single-floor home with no basement or garage, a standard 1/4 acre lot, and I live in a blue collar neighborhood that's sprinkled with elderly folks and young families.
We have two cars and they are both basic non-luxury brands and they are both over 10 years old.
I was intentionally being pretty conservative with my finances, and to be fair we were in a pretty good situation with an emergency fund and no non-mortgage debt and all that. But then in the past several years I've had three different financially cataclysmic events where any one of them would have obliterated the safety buffer. Two of them were thanks to covid.
Today I am in the same house and in much better health and mental state, and I even have a much better job, but our finances are a fucking nightmare.
Looks to have been brigaded by some fasc types with next to no post history tbh
Which is also why there's suddenly a lot of deleted comments, they were patently obvious and the mods deleted that shit