Many things have impacted our lives, as a society, as a culture, and as a nation. Many were planned, but many were unintended. Perhaps when the 16th Amendment to the US Constitution was passed in 1913, they knew all along that a hundred years later, Federal Income Taxes would be many wage-earners’ largest annual expense (rather than the 1% of income that it began). Maybe the inventors of television had the foresight to see that just a few decades after networks were established, the TV could have such a dramatic impact upon family life. Some things and events on our country have been obvious—air conditioning, the Walkman portable stereos, home gaming consoles, the Internet. But I want to focus on a societal change that completely changed the purchasing habits and exploded the average cost of living from that point forward, forever: the advent of the two-income household.
It was not planned. It did not happen on a specific date. It was not even intentional. But somewhere in the mid-1960s, the financial lives of families in the US took a dramatic turn: women, formerly ‘just’ housewives (yes, that is an insane understatement), entered the workplace in large numbers. The root of this upheaval actually happened via necessity 20 years earlier. World War II was raging, and the overwhelming majority of able-bodied men (and boys) were absent from homes, fighting. While gone, their wives and girlfriends (and assorted unattached women) were ‘drafted’ to work in the factories. While this was a short-term event, only a few years, it blasted away a few myths that were considered bedrock before then: women CAN do all kinds of work outside the home, without physically self-destructing; women can handle splitting their days between maintaining their homes and working; women found out having their own income was pretty neat; and they found out that men’s work was not as ridiculously difficult and stressful as they had been led to believe. Prior to this, women were not absent from the workforce entirely. Many women dominated several industries, including teaching, nursing, and secretarial. But most of those women (not all) were single. They were the sole source of income in their households. That all changed, possibly just via societal inertia, in the mid-1960s. At some point in that general time frame, married women entering the work environment became ‘normal’, even routine, as opposed to rare. Families with two incomes became commonplace, and that impact changed consumer spending and pricing forever.
Consider the typical family in this transition. The male was usually the sole income earner, so all purchasing was within that constraint. Back then, credit cards were in their infancy, mostly limited to a single store, so folks lived within their means much more than today. This author thinks that is a GOOD thing, but a topic for another writing. The point being, a single income was all there was to spend—and house, auto, food, and clothing prices reflected that dynamic. Incomes did not change much in this time frame, certainly not enough to influence those prices. Median income in 1960 was $4,800; in 1970, it rose to $6,670. According to the United States Census Bureau, the average price of a house in the United States in 1960 was $11,900 in 1960 dollars. Compare that to just 10 years later: in 1970, the median house price jumped to $27,000 in 1960 dollars! The average price of a car (a nebulous measure, with such variety of styles) in 1960 was $2,600. By 1970, it was $3,900. Both are easy to explain: the available funds due to a second income in the average household meant that it was no longer a choice between either a nice home or a nice car—they could now afford both. When Demand for higher-priced, nicer homes expands, the price of those homes also rises. In fact, due to increased purchasing power, builders took note and reacted predictably, by building larger homes with more features. Average home sizes went from under 1,300 sf in 1960 to about 1,500 sf in 1970. Attached garages became a thing. With the Baby Boom birth explosion of post-WWII, more room was needed, and the average family could now afford that needed room with the second income. This trend continues to this day. Housing and auto prices have increased MUCH higher than other prices during this time frame. Median current income is around $50,000, but median home prices are now over $200,000! And the days of new car prices under $20,000 are nearly over. The net effect of all of this: the typical single wage-earner has been priced out of many housing and auto options.
The societal impacts? With prices of housing and transportation increasing so dramatically over time, the formerly optional two-income households are now nearly mandatory. There are still some single wage families, with stay-at-home moms (or dads), but they are becoming the exception, rather than the rule. The child-care industry, along with after-school programs, have sprung up to meet these needs—at a cost. In fact, for many households, the second income is nearly entirely consumed by day care expenses. Sociologists will be studying the effects of day care raised children, and children that self-raise (with no parents at home during the day) for decades.
