But it's easy to feel their pain. Look at three generations. My parents raised three kids with a single income of an upholsterer (recovering furniture) a skill my dad learned on the GI Bill. No college education.. We had a car, we owned our home and we took vacations. I never felt rich, but were were certainly not poor.

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To accomplish the same thing both my wife and I went to college and had professional careers. We had no college debt and we could pay off our home before 30 years.

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My kids struggle to do the same plus maybe a side-hustle in addition to both working full time. It's very difficult to buy a home, they are deeper in debt from college loans and it harder to make ends meet.

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Today a single income earned by a person with only a high school diploma requires lots of public assistance just to survive. Is that progress?