In 1966 when I was 18 I moved out of my parents house and got a small apartment. Rent was $18 per week. I could afford it while working at A&W Root Beer. Try that today
The greatest generation enthusiastically voted for the policies that created what we have today.
War Babies were able to vote in 1966 and they are NOT part of "THE GREATEST GENERATION".
The blame, for each generations' supposed "misdeeds" falls heavily on the parents and child rearing advice books, especially Dr. Spock's, had terminally bad advice, which began the downward spiral of many of those belonging to future generations.
A job at A&W, that's awesome! Anyway, in the late 1960's I moved out at that age and rented a garage room from a divorcee woman with kids, for $100. Had the use of the garage for working on my cars. Was working at a sign company, and most of my money went into modifying my cars. Things got easier when a teen friend asked to move in because his drunk mom was beating him, and he then split the rent. In the old days, us kids moved on before our 20's, many getting married (I did at 23). Things are very different now, with kids not willing to grow up.
This is just one of the first stages of reducing the standard of living to levels required by the debt and de-industrialization.
A lot of apartments were small and shabby then, but the standard back when I was college-aged was to share an apartment while in or just out of school—and if you couldn’t afford your own room, then to literally have a (bed) roommate in another bed in the same room. (As were most college dorm arrangements at the time.)
That standard still works for minimum-wage earners today.