John, It's pretty easy to figure. A family with one adult working lived better in the fifties than a family with two adults working lives today.
Only because you forgot to count the other adult who worked in the home as working, the one who didn't get a salary. I can remember my mother sewing all our clothes, baking bread every other day, making pies, growing vegetables then canning them, making ice cream, hanging wash out on the line after running it through a wringer, mending socks (does anyone mend socks these days in the age of disposable clothing?), and of course teaching us to do all these things. She and my older sisters spent hours every single day just ironing because there was no such thing as permapress anything. Ever use a wringer wash machine? Remember living in a house with 6 people using one bathroom? In the mid-sixties there was a drive to make sure that the millions of Americans living in rural areas could get electric power, phone service and indoor plumbing!
Now most of the things my mother spent all day every day doing can be bought cheaply with a fraction of what the average wife makes who works outside the home. Leaving her plenty of money to spend on that second car, that third TV, that forth cell phone, ridiculous cable TV with 180 channels, robotic vacuum cleaners and self cleaning swimming pools, etc. |
