quote:
I think this has some merit. Again though, the cost of things that we had in the 50’s and 60’s is out of control. Housing prices are outpacing inflation, same goes for cars.

A couple of graphs for context:

Percentage of Dual-Income Households

Median Home Price / Median Household Income

There are a whole lot of different ways you can interpret this stuff so I’m certainly not stating any of this as absolute fact, but here are some of my thoughts:

First off, I’m going to focus on the period from 1960-1995. Why? Because the 2008 bubble/sub-prime fiasco throws a massive wrench in the gears. The percentage of dual-income households hasn’t really changed since the mid-80’s, so surely 1995 should give us an idea of how the trend impacted our overall livelihoods.

The percentage of dual-income households increased from ~25% in 1960 to ~60% by the mid-90’s. So in theory that means the average household has gone from 1.25 earners to 1.60 earners - a 28% increase.

Meanwhile, the ratio of home price to household income dropped from 4.84 in 1960 to 4.27 in 1995. So relative to household income, homes were more expensive in 1960 than in 1995.

Another way to interpret this would be that if the average individual makes $50,000 (in constant, inflation-adjusted dollars) then that would mean:
1960 - $62,500 median household income, $302,500 median home price
1995 - $80,000 median household income (+28%), $341,600 median home price (+13%).

Since I’m already over-analyzing the data, I might conclude two things:
1. Home prices per earner (as a percentage of individual income) did indeed increase from 1960-1995.
2. Home prices per household (as a percentage of combined income) decreased from 1960-1995.

In other words, a lot of that secondary income went to paying for housing. But not all of it. So then the question becomes: how much of that extra income should be spent on housing?

I think it’s an interesting question. If we take the historical element out of the equation and focus on income vs. home price at a fixed moment in time, it’s pretty obvious that people with more money buy more expensive houses. So I would argue that some increase in the price/income ratio is inevitable whenever household earnings increase. There’s no right answer for how much it should increase relative to number of earners, IMO, except that the additional spend on housing should be less than the additional income.

So then the next question is whether we are actually getting more out of that second income, or simply paying more for the same thing. And again I would argue that houses are indeed bigger (although lot size is probably a different story). Further, the amenities people have come to expect when buying a house - central air/heat with high energy efficiency, double-pane low-E glass, stainless steel appliances, fancier kitchens & bathrooms, etc. - have increased as well.

And I think this is the larger point. You can look at it as “things we had in the 60’s” but nobody wants to live in a 1960’s house that hasn’t been modernized. Vehicles are larger, more luxurious, and run way longer with way less maintenance than they did in the 60’s. 1960’s cars might be collectors items today but if we retooled all of the assembly lines to build exact replicas of those vehicles, it would 100% be a downgrade (and they would be cheaper as a result).

Cell phones might be necessary in the 2022 economy, but we spend way more than we “need” on phones and data plans. Same goes for internet, TV, streaming services, etc.

So I guess the TL;DR is this:

While wages have certainly stagnated relative to inflation, the second income is still a net boost to households. I think you can probably live to 1960’s standards on one income today but nobody wants to do that because we like having more/better shite.