You have probably seen the meme: a smiling, attractive family from the 1950s, paired with a caption lamenting that once upon a time, a single income could buy a home, a car, and a college education for the kids. Today, the meme suggests that life is gone.
The implicit claim is not just nostalgia. It is the widespread belief that, in modern America, a married couple with children cannot live a stable, comfortable life unless both adults work full time—unless, of course, they are wealthy, famous, or fortunate enough to have influencer-level income. For ordinary middle-class families, the one-income household increasingly feels like a fantasy.
Michael Green captured this anxiety in a recent Free Press essay titled “The Valley of Death: Why $100,000 Is the New Poverty.” Green argues that, in the 1950s and 1960s, a family-first lifestyle was economically feasible because the basic costs of life were much lower. Housing was affordable, healthcare was largely employer-provided and inexpensive, cars were cheap, and college tuition could often be covered with a summer job. A second income was optional.
Today, Green argues, that has changed. Housing, healthcare, transportation, and education costs have risen so dramatically that a second income is no longer a luxury—it is a requirement to maintain what used to be a middle-class standard of living.
This argument has met stiff resistance from economists and commentators such as Tyler Cowen and Matthew Yglesias. They point out that Americans are materially richer than ever. Homes are larger, food is more abundant, entertainment is ubiquitous, and nearly everyone carries a $1,000 supercomputer in their pocket. By almost any objective measure of consumption, today’s Americans live better than their mid-century counterparts.
Yglesias, in particular, argues that the problem is not economic reality but expectations. A one-income “tradlife,” he says, is still perfectly achievable—if families are willing to accept 1960s material conditions. Fewer vacations, less dining out, smaller homes, and fewer amenities. The issue is not feasibility, but preference. Living that way today feels like being poor, and most people do not want to accept that tradeoff.
There is truth in this critique. We are undeniably wealthier as a society. But focusing solely on consumption misses three deeper realities that shape how families actually experience the modern economy.
First, one-earner families have fallen behind—relative to everyone else.
While absolute living standards have risen, the relative economic position of one-income families has deteriorated sharply. In 1960, young married one-earner couples were more likely to own homes than two-earner couples. By 1980, they were roughly equal. Today, one-earner couples are significantly less likely to own homes than their two-earner peers.
Income disparities tell the same story. In 1960 and 1980, two-earner households earned about 20 percent more than one-earner households. Today, the gap is over 40 percent. As women’s labor force participation rose—a development with many benefits—the unintended consequence was that households organized around a single income fell dramatically behind in relative terms, regardless of which spouse earns that income.
Relative position matters because families do not live in isolation. They compete for housing, schools, neighborhoods, and opportunities in markets increasingly shaped by dual-income norms.
Second, family-first living now carries a real status penalty.
Economic pressure is only part of the story. There has also been a profound shift in social status. In mid-century America, marriage, motherhood, and homemaking were culturally affirmed. Today, especially among elite and professional classes, they are often regarded as low-status choices.
As legal scholar Erica Bachiochi has observed, women who prioritize marriage and child-rearing—particularly those who step away from paid work—frequently experience a loss of prestige. Standards of living and standards of parenting are increasingly set by households with two high-powered incomes. Families that opt out of this model face not only tighter budgets but diminished social standing.
Status matters because it shapes aspiration. People are far more willing to make sacrifices for ways of life that are respected, admired, and seen as meaningful.
Third, the families most penalized are the ones sustaining the future.
The irony is that one-earner and “one-and-a-half-earner” families are doing the most to sustain society itself. The only American households consistently having children at or above replacement levels are married families where a parent works part time or not at all while raising children.
These families bear a real economic cost by foregoing market income to produce the next generation—the future workers, caregivers, and taxpayers on whom the entire system depends. Yet they receive relatively little financial or cultural support for doing so.
Importantly, the data show that families do not need to choose between total workforce exit and full-time employment. A model that combines one full-time earner with flexible, part-time, or remote work for the other parent preserves both economic resilience and healthy fertility rates. Most married mothers say this is their preferred arrangement.
What policy—and culture—could do differently
If we care about making family life more achievable, public policy should reflect the real costs of raising children and the sacrifices involved. Expanding the Child Tax Credit, extending childcare credits to single-earner households, providing Social Security caregiving credits, and reducing housing costs through zoning reform would all materially improve the feasibility of family-first living.
But policy alone is not enough. Culture matters just as much. We tend to support what we admire, and we admire what we support. When marriage, parenthood, and caregiving are portrayed as admirable, meaningful, and aspirational, more people will choose them.
As Arthur Brooks has noted, children become who they see. The same is true of adults. A society that visibly honors family life—rather than treating it as a luxury or a personal eccentricity—is far more likely to sustain itself over time.
The happiest women in America are married mothers. And the healthiest societies in the world are those that recognize family life not as a private indulgence, but as a public good worth protecting.