Carter: Today's Middle Class Looks Like Poor From His Presidency Due to Income Gap

[Spitfire of ATJ]

22. Some people worked their way through college delivering pizza....

The average income was about $15,000 but the average new home was $30,000 and a new car was about $3,500. The only people who rented were people who didn't want to settle down because it cost a LOT more to rent than to buy. Credit cards were for the rich back then but gas cards were common but they were used for things like tires and service because gas was about 50¢ a gallon.

They used to measure the health of the economy by how much people had in savings and banks used to compete to attract customers. I had a passbook savings account that earned 12.5% on a little over a thousand dollars.

The big thing back then was LIFE insurance and the joke was how high pressure but BORING the salesmen were and how crooked the companies were because widows had to fight with them to get them to pay off on the policy. They always tried to claim the death didn't qualify for sometimes ridiculous reasons and with a reputation like that handling our death we somehow gave them the power to handle our health. And then we're shocked when those companies found there's more to be made by letting the more expensive patients die.