[quote=The-Shoveler]I see quite a few soccer moms in SD area.
I think there are almost as many stay at home parents today as there were in the 70’s
Most of my friends I grew up with, their spouse does not work full time or at all in most cases.[/quote]
Yes, the trend of more and more mothers entering the workforce started to reverse in about 2000. People finally wised up to the fact that they weren’t really gaining any material advantages. Oftentimes, it costs more to work outside the home than it does to stay home — what I call working for negative income.
Also, advantages to the two-income household only exist for as long as you are one of the few families doing this. Once you reach a critical mass, prices start moving up to offset any additional purchasing power earned by the second earner, and wages go down as the supply of workers goes up.
A good read is Elizabeth Warren’s The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents are Going Broke.
