In 1970 minimum wage was $1.60/hour, equating to about $3.3k a year. A typical mortgage was about $126/month. Car payment, around $100. You weren't raising a family and saving on minimum. Median income was about 3x that for a family, so you could definitely raise a family and save at the median. Note, these come from querying AI, but they match my recollections as a child a few years later.

Today, family income is up about 10x, but costs have risen much more than that.

In my opinion the two greatest factors on the reason, in the US at least, for the changes, and not having children were - birth control became widely available in the US in the early 70s, and women entered the workforce in great numbers. This greatly increased the amount of family income, but costs quickly rose to basically eat up all the extra income.

The 1970s had a whole different level of poverty than we have in 2026. As in, the normal poverty of the 1970s largely doesn't even exist today in the US. The poor today would have been middle class back then, ignoring differences in technology. The standard of living is not comparable.

A single minimum wage was definitely a poverty wage in the 1970s even at the 1970s standard of living. I have no idea where you would get the idea you could raise a family on that.

as professional with a professional salary, wages are not enough. we need abundant housing. Imagine taking a year or two dedicate to helping your mate through pregnancy and early childcare? Or, taking a year or two get your dating life in order. This second one might be important in city with bad traffic or for demanding jobs. This is not possible right now for 99% of people because housing is too expensive.

> In 1970, a single minimum wage income can raise a family and save up for extra

Absolutely not true. Minimum wage has never been sufficient to raise a family. It is (was) sufficient to keep one person out of poverty.

> In 1970, a single minimum wage income can raise a family and save up for extra.

My memory seems to think that wasn't true.

However, there were a ton of manufacturing and manual labor jobs that were capable of supporting a small family and they didn't need a college degree.

So, you had most young people earning positive money for four years at a very biologically fertile age rather than going into soul crushing debt at that age.

  Then I got Mary pregnant
  And, man, that was all she wrote
  And for my nineteenth birthday I got a union card and a wedding coat

Not really.

My parents married in 1972 at age 18. Rust belt. Both worked. While comfortable, we were always worried about money and layoffs.

Friends whose parents didn't do as well as mine or who were single income households fared far worse. Definitely didn't end up with saved "extra" money.