[SamAdams76]

I had a different experience in 1975. My father worked 60 hours a week but still my parents didn't have two extra nickels to rub together. One car family. 800 sq ft with three tiny bedrooms and one small bathroom to share. We weren't "poor" but we had nothing extra. My mother used to take me out on trash nights and I'd scavenge whatever we could use. Kitchen appliances, magazines, other things. I remember pulling a decent set of golf clubs out of the trash and my father appreciated that. They were way better than the set of golf clubs he owned.

I remember in summer helping my father put the one air conditioner in the living room window and we'd all congregate there on hot nights. Eventually, he got a window conditioner for my parents bedroom - we thought that was really moving up a level on that socio-economic ladder!

Most people in my neighborhood was the same. They would call us the "working poor" today.

[Sam Gamgee]

Fair enough. If I was to relate personal experience as myself as a kid I was only 4. Now I lived in a small town in Canada then and now live in a bigger city here in Canada now. Wife and I have decent income and 4 kids and can’t get ahead. Again, Canada, which is different. I feel like I did in 1992 visiting Europe. Expensive standard of living. So perhaps Canada is more like Europe these days.

My parents in 1975 had one person working and yes, a small house. And to be fair their parents, my grandparents, helped them mortgage their first home. The 80s were much better.