Comment by shawn_w

4 months ago

Back then a couple could buy a house and raise a few kids on the paycheck that factory job of the husband's earned. These days even someone with a 6 figure tech job has trouble with that goal, but I think a lot of people think they can go back to the good old days.

14 comments

shawn_w

Reply
nebula8804  4 months ago

Homer Simpson exemplifies this. Heres a guy that never went to college being the lead safety inspector for a nuclear power plant. He owns his home with three kids a stay at home wife and two cars and two pets(with the occasional elephant that comes and goes). A lot has changed since the writing of these characters and the world now.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fp2Ey0H7OUE

  • nikanj  4 months ago

    My go-to example is Al Bundy. He was a loser, but most zoomers can only dream of having a house, a few kids, a car project in the garage et cetera

    • culll_kuprey  4 months ago

      That guy did retail shoe sales too. I’ve known some people to survive off those type of jobs, but they sure as hell weren’t living with a sitcom family in the burbs.

    • nebula8804  4 months ago

      Yes absolutely! I was never too much into Married with Children as a kid hence I jumped straight to the simpsons but the idea of a shoe salesman having all of that today? Not possible.

knowaveragejoe  4 months ago

What's missed in that nostalgia: the house was crap; the appliances, if any, were crap; the car(if you had one, and only one), was crap. On and on.

  • F35Machinist  4 months ago

    That crap house hasn't been updated and is worth 200x currently in California. Houses that sold for 10k in the mid 70s are selling for 2 million or more in 2025. Cars, appliances and everything else is just a rounding error by comparison.

hombre_fatal  4 months ago

They don't realize that making good money in a factory was due to a particular tech/economic environment and the US' position inside it.

People thinking they can go back to making good money in a widget factory is like thinking because you had an ascendant economy in 1836 exporting wood before global electrification, then that lucrative job is always waiting for you even in 2025.