General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Over all - was life better 50 years go today - or was it worse? [View all]Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)If you're not white, male, heterosexual, and Christian, the answer is pretty obviously "worse".
Economically? The median household income in 1963 was $6200 ($46K in inflation-adjusted dollars); today it's $44K. Which represents a significant decline in earning ability and purchasing power, relatively speaking, since that 1963 income came from a single-earner family and not one where both spouses worked (as is more common today). But then it's unrealistic to look at the income levels of the time and presume they're anything like "normal", anyway; the economic climate of the 1945-1965 era was something that won't happen again. The USA was the only major industrial power left standing after WWII and the USA was the world's leading producer of oil. Since then the US has declined relative to the rest of the world with the recovery of Europe and the rise of first Japan and now China; and the rest of the world has gained; this is overall a good thing, in many ways. (Good certainly for the rest of the world, where 95% of people aren't Americans.)