I think a lot of commentary on this problem doesn't fully account for the historical conditions that allowed for such a rapid increase in material prosperity for the average person in the 20th century (especially in the US), and the historical conditions leading to its partial reversal.<p>The population was expanding so rapidly, and enough actual investment (in terms of value delivered in the form of usable roads, not $) was made in infrastructure, that a young family could acquire a home without having to buy from existing homeowners. Because of suburbanization and very high demand, massive amounts of new housing was built on inexpensive land.<p>Retirements were generally funded with pensions, and there was still a general societal expectation that you'd take care of your parents when they became old. This was more practically workable as most women became homemakers or only worked part-time once they had children. Medicine was not as advanced as it is now, so people weren't kept alive in poor health for as long as they are now, and there weren't as many uber-expensive treatments necessitating people to save up large amounts in case they needed them for care later. With way more working adults per retired adult than now, and with retirements more funded via cashflow (of children's jobs or from a company's revenue) rather than ROI like they are now, there was a lot less pressure to extract value out of businesses.<p>And on top of all that, Asia (except Japan) was basically undeveloped, and Europe (and Japan) was destroyed - the rest of the world almost non-factors economically. There was very little pressure to lower wages due to international competition.<p>There are no simple or obvious fixes to these problems. Promoting housing construction could help a lot, but besides that, we don't have a ton of options. The "pie" of existing assets will always grow unless it's destroyed (in war mostly), so it will always be harder and harder to earn your way into a decent slice. As technology improves international competition will only become more of a factor in price, not less. And there is no "solution" to the increased number of retirees per worker, or more advanced medical care costing more, that isn't horrific. But on the bright side it doesn't seem like these problems will get that much worse than they are now.