this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2024
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I worked the factories in the late eighties, most had spouses that worked, most rented or bought a single wide, we all barely scraped by and were just a disaster away from being broke broke.
Sure you had a few, and I emphasize a few, guys who made decent bank, but they were specialists and most people were clamoring to be their right hand person to take over when they retired or quit.
That wasn't the bulk of us.
We didn't own that comparable sized house.
We didn't take vacations, we visited family in another state.
We didn't drive a nice or a lot of times even decent cars.
We on the line didn't support a family of five comfortably, we all fucking struggled to make ends meet but we could keep modest for on the table and a roof over our heads.
That family of five on a high schoolers education was always a bit of a myth but I will say it was certainly better back then than today, at least there was abundant factory work that paid better than the minimum.
I dont think they’re talking about the late 80s.
Even back then, the average laborer wasn't living in a 2,500 sqft house with two cars in the garage
I don't think anyone promised 2500 square feet and 2 cars in the garage?
That said my parents were both government employees their entire career. Made it up into the gs 11-13 area which isn't too hard to do. 2,500 square foot house, 2 cars, 2 kids playing travel sports, and a deck that was probably another 200 square feet. That was the early 90's in Maryland, where all the civil servants live. Not some remote area of Montana. They've also said there's no way they could buy that house with the gs pay charts and housing prices from about 2005 on.
So even your exaggerated example was not out of reach.
That's because the meme references a time earlier than the 1980s. 1950-1970 or so would be the bubble of time where this was still possible. Union declines up to 1980 aided Reagonomics in thoroughly fucking everyone from middle incomes down.
Yeah, things have always been tough on the working class no matter how you slice it.
It used to be when a man's wife had a baby, all he got was a free beer after work with the boys before he went to see his wife in the hospital.
We've come a long way, but we've got much farther to go. The 50s-70s aren't some kind of magical economic utopia. Backwards is not forwards.