Interesting perspective: a poor family didn't have access to credit cards and didn't have access to huge student loans, which means they didn't have the ability to tsart out life deep in debt.  In previous generations, people rented apartments, owned one car, adn had maybe 1 TV set.  Today, there are many consumer pressures to have 'services' which add nothing to a family's net worth: $500 monthly bills for phone/TV/Internet, air conditioning (which we all consider mandatory now, but didn't even exist 75 years ago), etc.  Going out to eat used to be a family treat, not a normal behavior.