I need my Dwight face to state with appropriate fervor, _wrong_. There are two primary economic causes for the loss of leisure: the concentration of wealth sin

I need my Dwight face to state with appropriate fervor, _wrong_. There are two primary economic causes for the loss of leisure: the concentration of wealth since 1970 at the top, and, the absorption of additional income by inflation in real estate. The stagnation of wages and erosion of benefits since approximately 1970 and the consequent accumulation of wealth into the top few percent in the US, has meant that every generation of working adults after 'our parents' (that is, from 1975 to present) has had to work harder to achieve an equivalent standard of living. Women entering the work force had a profound and complex effect on the income of the middle class. And even when added child care costs [post my own latch-key-kid generation] are factored in, additional income was being generated. That has masked until relatively recently the decline in purchasing power and the true long term costs for all but the most wealthy stemming from the erosion of both job security and the many benefits that used to adhere to full time jobs for the middle class and above. Individual families bearing the cost of health care, retirement, and simultaneous full time care for children _and_ in many cases aging parents is shift of contract. Leisure is a function of spare time and spare resources. Both have been monopolized by the mandate to maintain a standard of middle class comfort that was attainable on a single income a generation ago. And incidentally, the rise in real estate prices in the US directly tracks the entrance of women into the work force. TL;DR: real estate has acted like a sponge to absorb the nominal increase in resources of a two-earner family almost perfectly, leaving little or less than no additional resources for other pursuits. Like leisure. TL;DR TL;DR: we've gone totally off the rails as a culture for the benefit of the very very few.