Up or Down: The Middle Class, Then and Now

Megan McArdle writes, at Cato Unbound (instead of her normal place), about the worries concerning “the fading grandeur of America’s middle class” and that “today’s children are the first generation in our nation’s history that cannot expect to be better off than their parents.”  In an effort to bring some balance to the discussion, Ms. McArdle compares the situation of her young grandparents starting out 75 years ago or so, with life today.  She makes some excellent comparisons between life then and now, most of which can be summarized in her comment that “[w]e should never pooh-pooh economic progress.” 

Let me add a couple of thoughts to hers.  However, instead of going back to my grandparents, or even parents (who would be about contemporaries with her grandparents), let me just go back until I was married and, in a couple of cases, a little before.  (Warning:  Those of you below a certain age may want to stop reading now since this may sound like a lot of stories about how I had to walk to school eight miles each day, in the rain, snow and hot sun, uphill both ways, etc., etc.)

First, vegetables.  We were able to get frozen vegetables when we got married, instead of just in cans, but the point is they were frozen.  Now they are fresh, and we get a little upset if there’s price hike because of bad weather in Chile.  When we were in Berlin in December of 2010, the little neighborhood store near where we were staying was selling fresh white asparagus – from Peru. 

Also on cooking, I was looking through some of my mother’s recipes recently, recipes that she was making when I got married.  A key ingredient: shortening.  People don’t use shortening anymore.  First it was vegetable oil, then corn oil.  Now it’s canola oil or whatever is the healthiest this week.

TV.  Instead of three stations (or four in places where you could get an independent station like WGN), you have more choices than you can shake a stick, or a remote, at.  But back then, remote control meant telling your kid to get up and change the channel.

I don’t know which way this cuts, but another TV point.  When your “picture tube” went, you would call up a repairman (yes, a repair man) who would come to your house and put in a new one.  Now, the idea of “repairing” anything like that is just about beyond anybody’s comprehension (though sometimes I think about it before realizing it makes no economic sense).

In the mid-70s, when I was at work and couldn’t listen to the Cubs games on radio (they were playing during the day, of course), I would call Sportsphone, a 976-number, every ten or 15 minutes to get Les Grobstein’s updates.  Now, you just have GameCast minimized on your computer screen.

Remember Don Adams on “Get Smart” with his shoe phone?  That gag wouldn’t be understood today by anybody who can’t withdraw money from their IRA without a penalty.

Instead of math apps on a smartphone, we had slide rules.  Computers were adding machines, I guess, except at really big companies where a single computer filled a whole room and used something called tab cards.

We didn’t have laser printers for less than $100 or ink jets for under $30.  Instead, we had typewriters (some of them manual), stencils, and mimeograph machines.  (If you’re not sure, Google it.)

I will, however, say one good thing about the black-and-white pictures we took.  They haven’t faded like color prints do.  Also, back when camera weren’t digital, you had to actually have the film developed and the pictures printed.  Which means you actually have prints, as opposed to losing them when your cellphone dies before you ever get around to uploading them to Snapfish.