I sometimes tell the story of my father who was born in 1942 and bought a three bedroom house for his growing family out of the proceeds of his steel mill salary. My mother did not have a paying job.

That house cost my family less than my dad’s annual wage. And while we weren’t rich, we went on summer vacations and got by just as well as all the other working-class families in our neighborhood, which is to say pretty well.

You almost never see that anymore. There’s no way working-class people can afford that kind of lifestyle on a double income, let alone a single one.

I’ve lived long enough to see what’s happening, despite boiling frog syndrome. I’m not surprised younger people don’t see it, but I wish more people could work to get the word out.

The American lifestyle has declined precipitously because the effective purchasing power of wages has plummeted.