When the men came home, after WW II, they either married, or resumed family life. After having lived through the GREAT DEPRESSION and war, they were ready to and in all cases HAD TO buy a lot of stuff. That is what engendered that "BOOM"; not government policies.
One government policy, which raised many boats, so to speak, was the G.I. Bill. A vast number of men went to college, who never would have been able to do so, before. Also, because of the G.I. Bill, people, who otherwise would NEVER have been able to get a mortgage, were able to get one at lower rates.
People, who could see and take advantage of all of these things, built cheap housing, cheap furniture, made things that babies and children needed, and got rich.
Because companies needed workers and lots of them, to geerup for peacetime, the unions had them over a barrel and squeezed them. Strikes, really crippling strikes were something that happened on a pretty regular basis. So did recessions.
Could a family live on one salary back then? Yes, they could. They still can today. The difference, today, is that even the poorest of the poor, believe that they should have the latest thing, lots of luxury items, and goodness only knows what all else.
Right after WW II, America was just about the ONLY nation untouched ( discounting Pearl Harbor ), by the war; as we had been untouched ( on our soil ), by WW I. With almost all of the rest of the world struggling to regain ground, it is hardly surprising that American supremacy was the rule of the day. Heck, we were even selling spaghetti to Italy in 1950!
Times change. At the turn pf the 20th century, most people didn't have indoor toilets; not even in New York City; they had outhouses! By 1916, the average working man's pay, in N.Y. was $15.00...what my grandmother's wedding shoes cost that year. By the 1950s, having more than one T.V. was pretty rare and having a color set, was rare indeed and most people didn't have more than one bathroom,either!
Because times change, because world events change things for everyone, and because what people can have and want changes, it is difficult to compare and contrast eras, in any true way.
You know what, I left a lot unsaid to try to leave this thread. You had made statements that didn't address what I had stated. You extrapolated rediculous meanings from what I had stated and tried to shoot those false impressions down. It's not worth my time to play that game.