Where this stupid misconception that all people had houses back in a days is coming from? O get it if you lived in soviet union, sure, they would give you housing. But was it good enough? As you could not choose it, sell it or change it? Also, people built their own houses too. Are you willing to get an affordable piece of land and build yourself? Somehow i dont believe so. So no, things are not worse than before. And you should compare a person back then from a poor family and his opportunities to become well payed and a poor person now and his opportunities to get well payed. Wth is your problem, i dont get it. Life was always hard, and even harder than now. Nothing is free. And nothing was ever free. But at least now you have choices and birth control and insurance and stuff like that that was absolutely not common before. Life is freakishly good compared to the past.