Exactly. My parents and all their cousins grew up in houses with about 100 sq feet per person. Three bedrooms, 7 kids, etc. Sure, they were able to live on dad's salary, but mom's entire day was spent toiling so they could make it work. If you want to live like they did in the 70s (and 60s and 50s), you certainly can on one income. But it won't be pretty, because it wasn't pretty then either. We have two income households because we have greater expectations for standards of living.