Every dollar in your pocket is worth 86% less than it was in 1971.
Inflation was just the smokescreen. The real hit was dismantling the middle class.
Here’s how doubling the workforce, abandoning the gold standard, and devaluing the dollar rewired the economy 🧵
1. Back then, wages and prices made sense.
🔹The average worker earned ~$5,600 a year.
🔹A home cost ~$12,000 (about 2 years’ salary).
🔹Groceries took less than 10% of one income.
One paycheck supported an entire family.
That would vanish in less than a generation.
2. Then 1971 hit. Nixon killed the gold standard.
Overnight money became paper, no longer tied to anything real.
Paychecks grew in numbers, but shrank in power.
You made “more money” — but less of it was yours.
3. The second shift came quietly. Policies and narratives nudged women into the workforce.
Feminism was framed as liberation, but for corporations, it was a profit multiplier.
🔹 Double the workforce → wages stagnated
🔹 Two incomes → double the taxable revenue
4. Inflation crept in, almost invisible at first.
Costs soared. Two paychecks became the new baseline — not for comfort, but for survival.
What had once been a foundation for independence turned into a treadmill — families running faster than ever, going nowhere.
5. Then the social fabric shifted.
One parent at home became impossible.
Children were raised by schools, screens, and daycares — while both parents worked full-time.
The classroom became the first conveyor belt, stamping out compliant workers for a machine that owned their future before they did.
6. As money lost value and families drowned in debt, health became the next battlefield.
Big Pharma sold solutions to the stress, the poor diet, the exhaustion — masking the symptoms while the system profited.
🔹 Pills for every problem
🔹 Treatments that never solved the root cause
🔹 A cycle of dependence
7. This wasn’t progress. It was the perfect prison.
🔹 Work consumed your life
🔹 Debt chained your future
🔹 Pills numbed the pain
And the chains were built long before you noticed you were wearing them.
Thanks for reading.
If you found value in this thread, follow for more:
@MatrixMysteries
Want deeper dives and exclusive content?
Consider Subscribing — more truths, fewer filters.
Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.
A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.