Because making enough money to support an entire household without a high school diploma is NOT an option for us anymore.

"Appliances lasted a lot longer, too."โ€”u/PurplePanda63

"My mom still has a working upright freezer that she bought back in 1983..."โ€”u/californiahapamama

"My Dad finally retired early at 61 when his school bus company decided to hire people who'd work non-union for only $10/hour and only pay for the hours actually driving (so probably no more than $40/day, $200/week). If things were easier for people without a college degree, that slowly faded throughout the '90s, long before the 2008 recession."โ€”u/Tylerdurden389

"My dad was an over-the-road truck driver back in the late '70s and early '80s. He never graduated from high school and brought home as much then as I do now. I work as a Junior System Administrator with a degree in cybersecurity."โ€”u/twitch90

"$52,000 in 1992 is about $120,000 in 2026."โ€”u/MrMojoFomo

"Now, people are expected to have only one kid per bedroom. If something breaks, there's little choice but to chuck it and get a new one. New clothes don't last, so you have to replace them more often. The 'olden days' were not a golden era; they were just a different era. The social and economic environments we lived in then no longer exist, and they'll never come back. Sorry..... because a lot of it was good."โ€”u/RubySnowfire

"And gave the rich unlimited votes with Citizens United. The disappearance of the middle class is just going to get worse with AIโ€ฆ We're probably going to have some scary class wars as the rich get ungodly wealthy and everyone else falls into poverty. Maybe unions can save us, maybe not."โ€”u/TempusFugit_butsodoi

"No, the issue was trickle-down economics. Nothing trickled down, and the wealthy started hoarding more because it was incentivized for them to do so. Before Reagan, it was smarter for a company owner to lower their tax rate by reinvesting more in salaries and their business. That raised everyone's standard of living."โ€”u/The_B0FH

Note: Some comments have been edited for length/clarity.ย