But this has come about largely because of the increased tax burden since WWII. In real purchasing power, the income of a one-breadwinner family in 1950 is about what it is now for a dual-income family.
I wasn't placing blame, certainly the tax burden plays a big role. But it's also not a zero-sum game. The expansion of the labor market also increases productivity and efficiency, which also increases purchasing power. If every woman today were to quit her job, salaries for men would not double, either in dollars or in purchasing power.
In the beginning, those housewives and Mothers, joined their husbands in the work force, to earn the money to help the family afford those little extras that one wage earner could not afford for the family. My Mother did that.
It worked well at the get go, as two wage earner families began to really prosper and mom could enter or leave the work force as was benefical to the family needs. Until the various levels of government began to lust after the extra income of two earner families, while totally ignoring the personal sacrifices those families were making, and jacked up the income tax until it took two to afford the standard of living that one wage earner provided earlier.
The greedy government is our problem-it's members are our employees. We must start choosing the tunes, and if they can't dance to them, they are free to carry their tone deaf ears home on their two left feet and stop embarrassing us.
Look at:
Square footage of housing. They lived in cracker boxes back then.
Appliances owned
Vehicles owned and annual mileage
Clothing owned
Extras like gym memberships
Eating out
I think you'd find we could all squirrel away fortunes if we lived as spartan a lifestyle as they lived then.