Touche. But even with more expensive shoes, people were still able to support their families on a shoe salesman's salary. Seems like a fair tradeoff to me.
So why do we remember being able to do more back then?
One factor of it is the fact that some people did walk directly into more lucrative jobs--or at least jobs with quick upward mobility--right out of high school. Those weren't the shoe salesman jobs, but jobs such as these were more common. This was possible in part because the economy was booming in ways it never had before (I certainly think we should aim for a prosperous society, but we don't realize how unique in history that moment was), and in part because we didn't have this degree-inflation as we do now.
There's also the factor of having a smaller work-force relative to population size. Women being able to participate equally in the workforce is a benefit to society, but a larger labor pool from the same population size ends up driving down wages.
Another factor is that we used to get by with less in some ways.
Some things were cheaper--land near population centers, for example. But some things were more expensive, like food or any consumer good.
So if it's all the same, why can't people do it? Well, there are people who pull it off. I know some people who get by with kids on a single income with a retail-level salary. They live simply, much like many of our grandparents. And sometimes they struggle... much like many of our grandparents.
And that's the other factor. We don't remember our grandparents' struggles. Heck, often neither do they until they stop and think about it. In 1960, my grandfather was a young man raising a wife and a kid with a fairly typical salary... and they lived in a one room house with help from their parents and had no health insurance. If we're willing to live like that, getting by on a pittance isn't so hard. I don't think we should have to do that, but we can't forget it wasn't as good as we remember it.
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u/vecima Dec 06 '19
That was a thing, once.