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."—u/PurplePanda63

"My mom still has a working upright freezer that she bought back in 1983..."—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."—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."—u/twitch90

"$52,000 in 1992 is about $120,000 in 2026."—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."—u/RubySnowfire

"And gave the rich unlimited votes with Citizens United. The disappearance of the middle class is just going to get worse with AI… 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."—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."—u/The_B0FH

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