> A lot of the durable goods that became very cheap were a huge quality of life improvement that we simply take for granted.

Like the previous poster mentioned, I'm not sure that's really such a quality of life improvement.

First of all, food. I don't know where you shop, but the cost has definitely doubled, even tripled.

Second of all, the idea that it's some "good" that these things are "cheap" relative to wages - before they may have been expensive, but they were also investments. It doesn't really matter that much, because you can save to obtain them, and don't need to worry about re-obtaining them. Being in a situation where durable goods are cheap, but cost of living is high, means that you are disproportionately struggling - you can't save anything, any good that these products provide is outweighed by it being too expensive to live...