How much did family necessities (food, shelter, energy) cost in 1979 vs. today? Weekly average full-time earnings (hourly & salaried) have only gone from $335./week in 1979 to $365./week now. And that is using the govt. manipulated CPI, it is actually worse than that. Since going off the gold standard government monetary malfeasance has mandated “2-income families” thereby dropping the birth rate. I don’t see a way to recover at this point...hope I am wrong.