That he can't afford the house he grew up in has to do mainly with two factors: 1. House prices are still ridiculously high, since cities and college towns hav

That he can't afford the house he grew up in has to do mainly with two factors: 1. House prices are still ridiculously high, since cities and college towns haven't hit the back side of the bubble yet. 2. The academia job market has shit all over its knees. The economic tone of the past 35 years isn't growth or decline but stagnation. Some people are better off than their parents; some are worse off. This has always been the case, but it used to be that being better off was far more common. Now it's 50/50. Economic growth has been decent in the past 35 years, and world economic growth has is at record highs, but the upper class (which is better described as a malevolent and extremely powerful interest group than any kind of formal conspiracy; of the latter, there is none) has done an excellent job of siphoning off all of the gains for themselves, leaving the lower 99.5% of the American population in essential stagnation. They don't want the American lower- and middle-classes to get poorer (they'll revolt) or richer (they'll challenge their position) but to stay right where they are.