As you guys know, I'm not american, but I feel what this lady wrote can be said for almost any country in the world.
I'm 30, and when I was a kid, my family rented an apartment without it's own bathroom, it was a collective bathroom for 5-6 families. What a mess! It was disgusting, but it was what my parents could pay. We had an old 14" screen TV and of course, no cable, just one channel. My dad had a motorbike once but he had to sell it since he couldn't afford it.
Both of my parents had a college degree by the time I was born, our country was just that poor.
When crisis hit in the late 90's, my parents went months without getting paid, and I found out what starving felt like. Vegetables suddenly tasted so good.
Oh, and the stories my dad has told me... He had it much worse: starving was the norm, 2-3 of his siblings dead because of no vaccination, his dad almost died because he couldn't get antibiotics, walking to school everyday 2 hours in the breezing cold with no shoes.
Life is so, so much better now, for all of us. And I don't mean just my family, I mean everyone (GDP per capita PPP has increased 40% the last 25 years in this country).
I see a lot of people complaining about how the poor are poorer by the day... I just don't see it. Our standards are different, we normalize luxuries. A huge ass smart TV? "Not a big deal, eveyone has one, that doesn't make me rich"
houses are beautiful, food is cheap (it's the first time in history where obesity is a bigger problem than famines).
Ok, enough about me, please read this link.
https://www.quora.com/Why-is-American-life-so-much-harder-than-it-was-in-the-50s-and-60s/answer/Denise-M-Peters