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Jobs that in the 50's could support a family with one-wage earner

The solution for this is simple. Build a time machine and go back to 1950.

Economies evolve. Way earlier in the thread I mentioned that if we double the wages of fruit pickers we double the wages of software developers. Note that in 1950 there were no software developers - or at least very few - so you could have higher wages in lower skilled jobs because the economy supported it. It no longer supports that because the demands of the labor market have changed. Cheap computers means a broader market for software and a demand for more software developers relative to fruit-pickers.

We simply can't compare the 50s to today without adjusting for other factors - e.g. women in the workplace, Jim Crow, etc.

I've lived in Mexico and I don't like the way they divide their classes and keep the wages so low for the majority of people ---I don't think it's a good direction for the US to go but it seems that's what we're doing. Only the college educated ---and probably only some of them --because many have little employable skills ---will make it to the elite upper class, the rest will barely scrape by. For a while the welfare programs will make things appear to be better but only while there's still a middle class left to support them. When the middle class is gone ---we're like Mexico.

We simply can't compare the 50s to today without adjusting for other factors - e.g. women in the workplace, Jim Crow, etc.

Regarding women in the workplace, this phenomenon is largely driven by ever-higher taxation. Back in the 50s while marginal federal tax rates were higher, most families had a much lower overall tax burden than is present. Hence as the aggregate level of taxes rose over the decades the two income family unit began to materialize. This trend has gone a long way towards damaging the social fabric of our country. Kids that grow up hardly seeing their parents, particularly their mother has been yet another factor that has spurred a growing under class of people with dimmer prospects of prosperity than their parents had. It’s not supposed to work this way in America.