The State of U.S. Economy

It seems to me that Robert J. Samuelson (“Why Getting Ahead Feels Like Falling Back,” Commentary, June 8) isn’t old enough to remember, but regardless of all of the feel-good statistics that he trots out to “prove” that things are better than ever, there is at least one important indicator that proves that he is wrong.

As someone who is old enough to remember what things were like during the Great Depression, I can tell Samuelson, that by one very important measure things are now even worse than they were then. During the 1930s, it was possible for my father to house, feed and clothe a family of seven on the very modest salary of a “blue-collar” job. Today, not even professionals with “good” jobs can do that.

Regardless of what gadgets and luxuries are available to us now, the simple fact is that when it is no longer possible to meet even the basic needs of a family without several members having to work, as any economist knows, we are poorer.

SANFORD THIER

Palos Verdes Estates

In the 1970s my husband was a petty officer in the Navy, we had one child and I didn’t work. We had a lovely apartment in San Diego, a late-model car and spent our weekends going on day trips or to the movies. We had no debt because no one would extend us credit.

Now it’s the ‘90s, we both have been working for 20 years, my son supports himself, we live in an average apartment in Fullerton, we have two cars that are on their last legs, we rarely go out, have no toys yet we’re $5,000 in debt.

I can’t debate with a clever economist like Robert Samuelson, who could argue with all those statistics. He tells me and the millions like me that our incomes really aren’t stagnant, that we’re really quite prosperous, that everything is peachy and we should just quit our whining, that our perceived rut is just in our imagination. Well, what does someone like me know about such matters?

LINDA ROSE

Fullerton