Real pay has been stagnant for at least the past 4 decades, while expenses (particularly housing, healthcare, childcare, and education) have skyrocketed. That's the reason the average family can't survive on one income now like it could in the 50s. Some possible solutions to these problems would include: Universal healthcare, universal childcare, and elimination of restrictions on building more housing (i.e. kill low density residential zoning entirely). Make those changes and it should again become possible to support a household on a single income.