I grew up in a single-invome household. My dad was blue-collar, but able to afford a family home, food, and a few luxuries nonetheless. My mother homeschooled me, so I saw her process of budgeting finances, clipping coupons, and stretching our funds as far as possible. In a way, it was a full-time job, but while it generated no income, it supported the family and us kids in other ways. No daycare expense. Healthy home-cooked dinners. A varied experience with field trips to museums and wildlife preserves. Libraries. It was broadly enriching in a way few even then experienced, and it was affordable for that level of income just a few decades ago.

Now, everyone I know my age with a family has to have a two-income household just to stay barely afloat. That isn't progress. People blame some vague notion of "capitalism" while ignoring all the political distortions in our monetary system, corporate collusion, a.firect command economy in various sectors, and every-growing regulatory burdens on startups and small businesses. COVID restrictions killed the remaining. Dreams of uncountable families while subsidizing megacorps. Trump is now waging an illegal, senseless war which is directly impacting food and fuel prices on top of escalating money supply inflation pressures and it's resultant rising prices and economic instability.