The decreases in price for these consumer goods you mention came largely as a result of globalization and offshoring of production. Our economy went upmarket towards services which were largely meant to facilitate this consumption (eg advertising and mass media). The American public became lazy, conditioned to consume and entitled.

The modern American consumer is only in debt because debt is so easy to obtain, not because his wages are too low to survive.

Visit Latin America or Asia where there throngs of people much happier and healthier on far less. The welfare state makes the familial structure unnecessary in America — I won’t comment on this. But it is a third order effect even more deeply troubling than the economic ones I highlighted earlier.