I say "the middle class was better off only a few decades ago".

You show me a graph that ends two decades ago. About poverty.

You say "no worries about the future, or how you are going to eat when you retire, if you get to retire," and I pointed out that the number of the elderly in poverty has fallen off a cliff since your mythical golden age.

The current poverty rate for seniors is now below that of when the above graph cuts off, naturally [pdf warning]: https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio...

The graph on page 9 shows that the number of people in poverty since your first graph ended (in 2000) has increased by 15 million.

Is this the right link? This article is about poverty and not about how far you could go on a middle class income

It's about elderly people living in poverty. It's very relevant to whether retirements and pensions are falling off a cliff and whether people won't be able to eat when they're retired, as alleged.

Ah.. but what about being able to afford a house on a job that requires minimal education like working in a factory? That was actually the main point from my interpretation.