The "Good Old Days?" Well, not so much, really.

[ExWhoDoesntCare]

97. Yes, some things back then were worse

But you're off about a couple of things in your post. Like:

Health Care
No available treatment other than surgery for cancer.

Doctors started treating cancer with radiation therapy all the way back in 1903. The techniques were primitive an often caused more harm than good, but, by the late 1940s, they were starting to get a handle on how to use it in less dangerous ways.

In 1956, chemotherapy succeeded in treating those suffering from a rare form of uterine cancer that presented with tumors. By the 1960s, there were several chemo protocols available for a variety of different cancers. By the end of the decade, doctors were using several chemo drugs in assorted combinations to get even better results. That's when things really took off with cancer treatment.

The reason surgery occurred so often back then was because more people waited too long to see a doctor. Or a doctor didn't realize what the patient's symptoms meant, because the continuing education standards were much lower back then. A bunch of doctors simply didn't keep up with the latest developments, because nothing required them to do so. That doesn't happen so much these days.

Whichever the case, by the time it was obvious a patient had cancer, non-invasive treatments had zero chance of working; ergo, surgery as a last resort. But for those patients who went to the doctor early enough (or could afford to go often enough), and who had a doctor up on the latest info, radiation and chemo were increasingly available (and successful) treatments in the late 50s and throughout the 1960s.

Economic Issues
Yeah, houses were cheap compared to today, but the minimum wage was $1.25 when I was sixteen in 1962. That same year, my parents bought a three-bedroom house for $14,500. It was a struggle, since my father, an auto mechanic, earned only just over $3/hr. He worked a lot of overtime.

People were more likely to be able to afford a home in 1962 because the cost of homes was closer to their yearly salaries. Yes, your dad earned just over $3/hr, but a $14,500 home was still well under 2.5 times his annual salary. That's not the case anymore. In many areas, the majority are lucky to find a fixer-upper at 5X their annual salary. Places like California, it's more like 10-20X (or more) the average household income--as in two people working.

We don't even need to get into the student loan issue (although it's had a huge impact on under-35 y/o home ownership), because something else has made it more difficult to afford homes, even for people who have no student loans: Wages have simply not kept up with the cost of living. That minimum wage in 1962? It should be at least $13 today, not $7.25. And your dad's wage? It should be $31/hr today. Do you have any idea how many Americans can only dream of earning that much money? Tens of millions of working Americans make far less than that.

By the way: A house 2.5 times the yearly pay of someone making $31/hr is $161,200. Try finding the intersection between places that pay $31/hr, and decent homes, even fixer-uppers, that cost $161,200. Places where houses cost $161K don't tend to have any jobs paying $31/hr. And places that do pay that high? You're lucky if you can find a home costing 10X your yearly pay.