Why did the economy change that we need 2 full-time breadwinners as opposed to 1 less than a decade ago?

Question

Edit: I meant less than a century ago! My bad! Just a brain fart.

In: 9783

Answer 1

This isn’t the total answer, but another thing to consider is that we buy a lot more than we did in the 50s and 60s. Our houses are far bigger, we eat out a lot, we have gaming systems and internet bills and access to far more consumer products than people did back then.

In my grandmother’s house in the 1950s, they had a single tv, 2 telephones, and a record player – that was basically it in terms of electronics. My house has 4 tvs, my $1200 dollar iPhone, internet, an Xbox, Alexa, etc. They ate out maybe once a month, and it was a special treat. I eat out probably multiple times a week.

Obviously that’s anecdotal, but I think fail to realize that houses today are like twice as large as they were back then and have far more amenities. Materially we have a lot more than people did in 1955 or 1940.