Unlike the boom times of the Gilded Age or the dot-com bubble of the 1990s, the prosperity of the 1950s ran both deep and broad. The bane of American society in the 21st century—drastic economic inequality—did not afflict the nation to the same degree during the roaring ’50s. Incomes grew at roughly the same pace for all groups, and those at the very top of the economic pyramid paid far more taxes than the wealthy do today. Instead of enriching only a few fat cats, 1950s-era prosperity helped create and nourish what is now a vanishing species: the American middle class.
