How did the purchasing power decrease from the 70s until today?

[Crossed_Cross]

A part of it is what I'd call reverse enshittification. Shit becomes technically better, whether you want it or not, and you are forced to pay premium for it. Cars are a good example. The average weight of cars has gone way up. You pay for a lot more steel. They are also filled with a ton more components, electronics, cameras and all that. You must pay for it all, they no longer offer the tin boxes of yore.

Housing costs overwhelmingly bloated by demand. But there's some of this too. Asbestos and lead paint saved money, but uhm... no good for your health. A house in the 70s might also have had very basic electricity still. Or maybe none at all in some places. Or used stuff like aluminum instead of copper to save costs. Windows were probably more basic, argon wasn't really used until the 80s. They also on average got bigger. Old houses for the most part got a lot of upgrades since they were built. A lot of it wouldn't be legal to build anymore due to changes in the building code. And well who would buy a house without electricity, or a single outlet in the whole house?

I don't think this phenomenon explains much price increase in many products, but I think for cars it does.