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How much wealth? Not really that much if you move to the middle of the country. You're thinking of San Francisco (well, Daly City) of the 2020's, which San Francisco absolutely was not in 1963. Nice place, sure, but still heavily working class, blue-collar and union. You could have 5 kids and a few apartments on a reliable, but not spectacular, income today in many cities (and suburbs of such) in the US.

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That doesn't really pass the smell test for me.

How do you get this "reliable, but not spectacular" income in one of these places? What are these places?

Go become a plumber or union carpenter in Lansing, Michigan or Birmingham, Alabama or Utica, NY. Median home prices well below $300,000. You must be supremely arrogant to not know cities like these and jobs like these exist.

You can buy a 5 bed 4 bath house in Tulsa, OK for under $400K

OP mentioned 5 properties and 5 children. Taking your suggested budget as reference today we’re talking close to $1.5-2m just in properties alone. That’s 10-20 times the median wealth per adult in the US while supporting a very large family by today’s standards.

I know many software engineers with similar assets, most done have 5 children but they don’t want them either.

Software engineers now are paid much better than printers were then

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