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> It's wild that, not too long ago, you could afford a house and a car on a single income as a mailman. That is unthinkable today.

to be fair it was unthinkable the day before yesterday too. in the history of human civilisation, that kind of setup has only been possible in a handful of countries, for a few skin colours, for a couple of decades. fueled by burning cheap fossil fuels taken from poorer countries

In the history of human civilization, before that kind of setup most people didn't worry about having a house, because they lived in villages, so they lived next to their extended family, and either stayed together under one roof or eventually moved couple hundred meters to the side and built their own.

Expectations for quality of life were lower, sure, but the problem of not being able to find a place to live anywhere near your family or job, that is relatively new and getting worse.

> in a handful of countries, for a few skin colours, for a couple of decades. fueled by burning cheap fossil fuels taken from poorer countries

Also: I know it's trendy to make everything about skin colours these days, but that's a distinct USA-ian bias. The rest of the world doesn't work that way.

I won't argue against exploitation of poorer countries as that, indeed, was a big theme in the last century or two. However, note that whatever many hard problems people in those poorer countries have, affordable housing isn't one of them.

> Also: I know it's trendy to make everything about skin colours these days, but that's a distinct USA-ian bias. The rest of the world doesn't work that way.

Europe's industrialized genocidal tribalism of 20th century, the modern islamic experience as an immigrant in Europe, 21st century genocide in Africa and the Middle East, Japan's war crimes in east asia during WW2. Where is this rest of the world you speak of?

You are proving my point here, by conflating together total war for world domination, anti-immigration sentiments (in case of Islamic immigrants, with a healthy dose of Islamopobia thanks to two decades of US anti-Islamic propaganda), civil wars, ethnic conflicts, regional conflicts, plain old war between nation states, and war crimes against POWs of the same racial group.

The rest of the world is where we can distinguish these different reasons, motivations and patterns, instead of lumping them together with racial discrimination and calling everything "racism".

I was perhaps broadening "skin colour" to include "ethnic" or "national" or "racial" distinctions, but I think that's a distinction without a difference.

If we want to say "The US has been bad", I'm on board and wholeheartedly agree. But using "The Rest of the World" as the counterexample, I'm not sure that will hold up.

I imagine we broadly agree and would love to have a cup of coffee with you some day!

In 1950 you could afford a car and house on one income - but that house as much smaller than the typical house today. You also had one car not two, your wife (this was sexist times - men worked, women stayed home) probably didn't even have a drivers license. If she did she couldn't drive anywhere when you were at work unless she drove you to work. (thus door to door salesmen: sell things those housewives need but cannot easily get because their husband is at work. Send both partners to work and suddenly houses get larger and you have two cars.

Note that despite the above, in 1950 women did often have jobs. It wasn't the "ideal" and it was less common (and even less common if you had kids), but plenty of women had jobs.

In the 1950s the world had gone through two (2) gigantic world wars, one recently, which completely collapsed multiple global empires, killed millions -- especially the young, fit men who are the backbone of the economy -- and devastated multiple countries, many of which were big developed economies.

the US, and certain parts of Europe, were mostly spared this, and as a result could make crazy money because they were the only source of advanced labor around.

it wasn't like that in the Guilded Age or Roaring 20s or Great Depression -- there was a reason all of those labor movements and riots happened then; wouldn't have happened if a one-income mailman could buy a house.

that was a one-off, a time when half the world blew up a few years before.

> In 1950 you could afford a car and house on one income - but that house as much smaller than the typical house today.

"Typical" is doing some really heavy lifting there given the kind of housing stock available in, say, East Coast urban areas. Most of those remotely-affordable houses are a hundred years old in the Boston area, for example.

I would love to see historical rates in urban vs rural/suburban areas for this, alongside migration/growth rates - does something like that exist?

My son (in college) probably won’t be able to afford much of a house in the Bay Area, austin, etc. but originally he was going to become an electrician in Watertown, NY. You can get a house for $120k there, which seems doable on a 50k income.

I've seen it but don't have it on hand. Urban prices certainly seem to have disconnected quite hard from suburban/rural ones, but even suburban/rural might not capture it. I grew up in a not-all-that-wealthy town in Maine about the same size as Watertown, NY--a little smaller actually; an empty half-acre lot there costs more than $120K. (I'd love to move back there, but a house the size of my Boston-area house costs the same as my Boston-area house...)

> but that house as much smaller than the typical house today.

I can't remember the last time I saw a dining room in a new house, anecdotally.

The formal dining room has now become the home office.

My grandparents raised 5 kids in a 900 sq foot home. They weren't poor. That was the typical home being built in the working class suburbs of Detroit in the early 1950s. Average new home being built today is twice that size for a smaller household.

"your wife (this was sexist times - men worked, women stayed home) probably didn't even have a drivers license"

According to a internet search it seems about half of women had driver's licenses. So this is not accurate. Anecdotal, but I just skimmed The Donna Reed show episode descriptions and a 1961 episode has her fighting a parking ticket, another 1961 episode has her daughter learning to drive.

1961 is 11 years after 1950. Things were changing fast then.

There doesn't appear to be easily obtainable information on the internet showing how many married women had driver's licenses in 1950 [and just 1950] compared to married men (the federal government did not collect this information), however an article states "In the 1950s many suburban housewives obtained their licenses in order to fulfil their domestic responsibilities." it also states "Perhaps a quarter of women drove before the second world war and more learned to drive during the war."

https://ojs.library.carleton.ca/index.php/pcharm/article/vie...

> It's wild that, not too long ago, you could afford a house and a car on a single income as a mailman.

You can do that today in some parts of the US.

Was there a time when you could do that in NYC? Or San Francisco? Maybe. When the city was down in the dumps and housing prices dropped. Or if you were willing to buy in crappy neighborhoods or on the edge of the city.

It makes me think of my great grandparents. They have a beautiful house in a central location in a major Canadian city worth North of $2.0M. And they did it on the single income of a teacher! I weep for those times.

But oh yeah, when they actually bought the house, it was on the edge of the city where nobody wanted to live. Oh and my grandfather picked up extra jobs to make sure his family of 5 had everything they needed.

There was never a time when it came easy. When people say they can't afford a home what they mean is "I can't afford a house in this specific city that checks all my boxes".

>mailman

Is a bad counterexample, as that's still a good, high-paying (union!!!) job. But aside from that tiny gripe you're not wrong about the rest.

Ddg reckons average mailman salary is about 50k. That’s 1/8th the average house price.

In 1990 it was about 25k with prices about 150k

House prices are about 100k too high, they should be 300k not 400k

One reason for this is more people rely on two incomes to pay for housing, so more money is available for housing, so money transfers from future debt of millenials to existing assets of boomers and gen x.

But on top of that it means two incomes means harder to have kids due to child care.

> But on top of that it means two incomes means harder to have kids due to child care.

Maybe we're also stuck in something of a vicious cycle.

More people not having kids leads to more double incomes. More double incomes means more money to pay higher prices. The market seems to be bearing the higher prices just fine, so they continue to climb...

It’s a cultural change, one that has benefits (I for one don’t want to be a full time homemaker), but also drawbacks

It’s not something an individual can change though. It’s a societal level problem.