> The things that dominate middle class budgets: food [...] have become increasingly unaffordable in recent decades
I tried finding some number to corroborate your claims.
The proportion of food in the American budget has decreased from ~17% to ~13% between the 60's and now. In fact, it has decreased a lot for "at home food" and increased slightly for "dining out food"[1]. Food seems cheaper than ever - on average. The current price of a calorie sufficient diet is now roughly $0.44/day in the US [2] that sounds very low. Between the 60's and today; the average daily supply of calories per person has increased from ~3000 kcal to ~3800 kcal [3]. People eat more than ever - on average.
[1] https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/chart-d... [2] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cost-calorie-sufficient-d... [3] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-per-capita-caloric-...
I really wanna believe you, but aren't you just looking at the past with rose tainted glasses. And if you are young; aren't you making up a past that doesn't even exist ?
Over the period since the 1960s, look at education, medicine, housing, not food.
For food prices, look at the most recent 5-year timescale, where price increases are reported to be on the order of 30% for American consumers. [1]
[1] https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/finance/price-of-food
Yes, that's how proportion works; if thighs like food take a smaller portion of spending, some other things will take a bigger share.
GP comment is cited food as the first item; and decades (not 5 year) as the reference timeframe, so I focused on that. I am sure that by cherry picking both items and timeframe (look at food but only over 5 year; education but only since the 60's; telecommunication but only since the price hike of last week) you can paint a different story, but that's not the point here.
The average inflation-adjusted annual tuition for a 4-year degree has gone from $2843 to $10,892 between 1969 and 2023 in 2023-dollars. [1]
Healthcare spending per capita has gone from $2,151 to $14,570 in the same period in 2023-dollars. [2]
The inflation-adjusted home price index has more than doubled over that period. [3]
Real wages have remained fairly stagnant over these same decades. [4]
[1] https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-college-by-year
[2] https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/u-s-spe...
[3] https://cdn-0.inflationdata.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/...
[4] https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/