What you’re saying doesn’t make sense. Wages have scarcely gone up since the 80s. Flying out to go sking in Colorado for a week used to be something a upper middle class family could afford. Now it’s solely for the rich. I could keep Giving examples....
I can cite a personal example.
In the 70s, when I was a kid, my father was able to afford his mortgage, my stay-at-home mom, me, and did I mention we went to Europe every other year to visit relatives in Sweden and Italy? And on those years we didn’t go to Europe, we went to places like Japan, Egypt, etc.
My father was a baker. Yes, a baker.
Purchasing power was obviously higher in the past. How many families could afford to do what I just mentioned on a working-class salary today?
By 2010s standards, I had a childhood of the rich and famous. Yet my parents were solidly working-class.