. The wage at Westinghouse was the best in my town. It was ~$60 a week for a 48 hr. work week mandated in 1943.
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My father was a carpenter, he made $60.00 a week for a forty hour week here in low-wage South Carolina in the mid-fifties. He supported my mother and four sons, we owned our property free and clear, our only vehicle was the 1951 Ford pickup that he drove to work but it was bought new for cash, no payments, we were DEBT FREE. By the way, my mother stayed home, she did not have a paying job, what she did at home was worth far more in imputed income than she could have earned at any job that was available to her.
We certainly didn't have all the luxuries people have now but we had the luxury of our own forty acres plus thousands of acres of our neighbors property on which young boys could roam at will and play all sorts of games, we had home grown pork, chicken, beef, eggs, vegetables etc. that tasted far better than what is sold in the stores and I learned things at a very young age that most young people never learn now. By the time I was a teenager I was doing things that would have the child protection agencies in an uproar now and I am glad I did all those things, they taught me to be self-reliant.
I grew up in Hampton SC. I drove to Allendale SC to get my drivers license in my own car the day I turned 14. It was 60 cents and supposed to be good for a lifetime. People were a whole lot more reliant then and could do on a lot less. Most seemed of a better nature than today.