The good old days? In many ways, yes

“The Lost Ones: The Opportunities and Outcomes of Non-College-Educated Americans Born in the 1960s” compares wages, medical expenses, and life expectancy for non-college-educated white men, women, and couples born in the decade around 1940 with circumstances for those born 20 years later—a cohort 49-to-58 years old as of 2014. Finally, with this model, they analyze the impact that the later generation’s worse wage schedules, medical expenses, and life expectancy profiles have had on their labor supply, savings, and welfare. Model estimates closely match data on labor market participation, hours worked, and asset accumulation for all four demographic groups—single men, single women, married men, and married women—of the 1960s cohort over their entire working lives.

Source: www.minneapolisfed.org