Single income retail workers used to be able to support their family. What has changed?
Barcodes. It used to require skill to be a retailer, you had to know your stock, know your customer. Now you could train a chimp to do most of the retail work, especially at the discount retailers. Somebody that’s good at it can still move on to better companies and make good money. But the majority of retail work now is completely skill-less, they’re basically fastfood jobs without the grease, and turn over and pay have changed accordingly.
There wasn't as much "stuff" to buy back then. Basically food, clothes and shelter, and food you made from scratch, so it cost much less to feed a family than it does now.
“Single income retail workers used to be able to support their family.”
Are you kidding me?
In my over half a decade on this planet I have never known anyone who could support a family as a “retail worker”.