Except that the 40 week is becoming the 60-70 hour week for both mum and dad if you want to keep your jobs, with poor job security and higher costs. We're still riding the tail of the baby-boom economic benefits, but it's shrinking rapidly. I earn much more in dollar terms than my dad did, but all things considered I'm worse off than he was. My wife and I both have to work to pay off an average house and all other costs are high and rising rapidly. Wages are stagnant, or growing more slowly than inflation. Oh and we have our 80K of combined student debt that we're paying off too. The middle class is being systematically dismantled for the benefit of the 1%.