You can earn more than your parents ever did and still struggle to afford the house, children, savings, and breathing room they seemed to manage with less money. That does not automatically mean your generation forgot how to budget. Comparing salaries across decades without comparing the costs attached to those salaries misses a huge part of the story. Housing, child care, insurance, borrowing costs, and other large expenses can consume today’s paycheck long before discretionary spending enters the picture.
The more useful comparison is not the size of the paycheck. It is what that paycheck can actually buy.
