That alone cuts out nearly half the country. The skilled labor economy has been hollowed out and is nearly extinct in most places. You and I live in similar places and the dream remains alive here, but it is long dead in the corner of the country in which I was raised.
It is true that you may have to move to find places where a single income can buy a house, but that has always been true. The necessity of having to move to find better economic conditions has been true since the dawn of humankind. It's why we left Africa, and eventually covered the globe.
It is not like in the 40s and 50s you could live anywhere you wanted either. In fact, the 40s and 50s is right in the heart of the urbanization movement that happened precisely because capital concentrated, exactly like what is happening in many major cities today, and regular people could no longer afford to live where they grew up and had friends and family, and were left with little choice but to leave their existing life and head for the city to start a new one.
It wasn't particularly pleasant. Most people don't crave that kind of adventure. Most people would rather stay near to friends and family and the life they know, but sometimes you don't get that option. That remains true today.
That alone cuts out nearly half the country. The skilled labor economy has been hollowed out and is nearly extinct in most places. You and I live in similar places and the dream remains alive here, but it is long dead in the corner of the country in which I was raised.