This isn't true. Since about 1960 productivity has gone up but (middle class) incomes have gone down. The fraction of a family's expenditures have become dominated by the basics, not by the amenities you cite.
Again, not if you're willing to live in a typical 1930 house (with one bathroom for the whole family, a small kitchen, no family room, one bedroom for the parents, one bedroom for ALL the kids, no air conditioning, no garage, no laundry room).
The average price of a house is so much more today in large part because people want a lot more square footage.
> Health insurance.
Today's standards for health coverage are much higher than they were in 1930. Life expectancy for American men was 58 years back then. Blue Cross didn't exist. Jimmy Carter was the first US President born in a hospital (in 1924).
If you're willing to lower your standards dramatically, and accept medical treatment that's as sucky as it was in 1930, it's a lot cheaper than what we would today consider to be acceptable.
> Second cars (because women now need to work).
They don't, though. If you're willing to live the low quality of life that was prevalent in 1930, you can do it with a single-earner household.
In fact, why does your household even need one car? In 1930, most American households got by with zero.
Maybe 1930 but certainly not 1970. Typical middle class families are worse off than 1970 as that video illustrates.
But even the reduction in work to live the 1930s lifestyle you describe is no where near commensurate with per capita GDP growth over the same period. I think that is the real thesis statement: Most people have captured only a small fraction of increases in productivity.
