The post-war middle income people had and continue to have legitimately comfortable lives and could afford higher education, single family homes, annual vacation, etc.<p>Today&#x27;s middle income people can barely afford to raise children and have neither retirement savings nor the promise of future pension. They have miraculous pocket computers and unlimited streaming entertainment, but they&#x27;re only a paycheck or two from desperation and they feel powerless to make real decisions in their lives.<p>Maybe today it&#x27;s a hollow marketing campaign, but in the 1950s there really was a group of people who had a significant degree of choice about how to spend both time and money. They were better off than the poor and worse off than the rich, a true middle class.