Why is life so expensive nowadays

A few decades ago you could afford to live comfortably on a part time salary or one full time job was all you needed to cover necessities, have money for extra spending and savings and there was not this constant struggle like there is today. Working class and middle class people are struggling to get by? How did prices soar to unprecedented rates that they are today? Like I mentioned in my previous posts I wish we had the social progress of today but with the prices of 1960s-1980s or even earlier.