That was when we were a manufacturing economy. Unions chased those jobs overseas. We don't build anything anymore. You want a good job? Bring manufacturing back to this country.

My dad—local 598 at the GM Truck and Bus Factory! He died of lung cancer at 62. But he put in 31 years and was able to retire at 51 years old. His pension and union made our family middle class and gave him the opportunity to “tinker in the garage” and go up north for a decade before his terrible 2 years of suffering. I’ll never vote against that! Ever.

It wasn’t “stolen” you dipshit liberal. This is the inevitable outcome of capitalism. It’s called the centralization of capital. Something you’d know about if your government education you recived in the US wasn’t just bullshit propagana. what happens is that eventually all the capital is in the hands of a few who also basically control the government the media the education system and everything else.

I feel like people don't consider how much the population has grown and how quickly.

I'm sympathetic to the fact that people feel like they can't succeed in the economy today. That needs to change. The fact is that the world changes and we need to adapt with it both as individuals and as a society. There were times most people couldn't read and could support a family of five. I don't want to go back to those times because they were much darker times. I'd rather us focus on, "How can we support the folks who need help while we also grow as a society?" IMHO, UBI could help here.

That was about 15 or 20 years post WW2 when the US was the only major economy not destroyed and constituted 90% of the world GDP. An unusual blip in time.

Yeah and it was like 80 years ago.

The world is a more complicated place now. The standard of living has gone up. When somebody with a high school degree supported a family of 5 they were eating beans and rice for $8 for the full month. No cell phones, no internet, no cable, no subscriptions, no fast food, no shopping, homemade clothes, etc etc etc. life got more complicated, more conveniences became standards, and now it's more expensive. There are very real wage problems here, but it's never as simple as portrayed

It was stolen from us by the previous generations that didn’t properly handle the economy… <shrugz>