It's not the economy. It's you. A man should be able to take care of a wife and kids. We now have a wife making 75K and a husband making 75K say. The man should be making 150K so she could stay home. I understand if you have no kids or if the kids are grown to have a wife working but with young kids it isn't the ideal way to have a family.
I do understand some the dire circumstances of needing the wife to work. I grew up poor and never knowing we were poor as a kid. I have been working from the 7th grade, high school, college and working in retirement. My wife was a school teacher but when she got pregnant she never had to work again. We have four kids. All successful. Two of them making around 200K. One in studying to be an MD. One not making a lot but slowly rising.
Though I’m not rich, I earn a higher-than-average income and my wife worked very little for the first three years of both of my children’s lives. I aim to earn enough that she doesn’t have to work.
Besides that, why did you make my generalized statement about average middle-class men about me? You do know what average means, and the average man does not earn 150k per year, although you said they “should,” as if all jobs do pay that.
In the past an average-earning man could support a family on one income. Now he can’t.
It seems my point went over your head, but that is typical of boomers, as is “working in retirement” and bragging about children (the ones who cared about their children, as many did not).
Many successful white boomers and Gen X’ers would be unemployed or low-earning incels if they were young today.
Were you the guy who referred to 40-year old men as kids?