I agree. I remember those days. At 50, I've been in IT now for 3 decades. The pay in IT has decreased as well. My dad pulled a family of four along on his salary and we were comfortable, but not rich. I lacked nothing. However... when I turned 10, I came home one day from school and there was a brand new mower sitting in the driveway with a gas can and a rope. My dad said, "Son, canvas the neighborhood and charge $5-10 (size) a lawn. That money is yours. Save a dollar for every 10 for gasoline." I was making about $250 a month.

This taught me to get off my own butt and make it on my own, which I have. I paid my own way through college (impossible now), bought my own car, married a woman who did the same. We are largely debt free (mortgage), but will be free soon. Except for property tax, we owe no man anything, and this is the way it should be. Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. Big daddy government is not the answer and technically owes you nothing. As Gerald Ford once said, "A government big enough to give you everything is big enough to take it all away."

Sadly, this young generation has embraced the notion of entitlement. No one is owed anything except human dignity. Americans have lost the sense of doing it on their own. Te military is a great choice for kids who cannot afford college. I'm not babying my kids. They will need to make it on their own. My dad did it, I did it, my wife did. None of us were rich, and by today's standards, we would have been considered poor.