Seems I was born around the same time and this is how I remember it too. Another major economic factor he seems to have left out is government policies encoura

Seems I was born around the same time and this is how I remember it too. Another major economic factor he seems to have left out is government policies encouraging (sometimes actively) the US manufacturing base to leave to other countries. This utterly destroyed the formerly thriving US manufacturing-based small businesses, eliminating a huge percentage of semi-skilled jobs in the process.