I got a raise to $1.81 an hour, and the gal who had been there two years longer was making 1.72 an hour. She was outraged. I had quit work for 3 months to ski, and came back in April of 1972. Nixon had taken us off the gold (lite) standard in 1971, and inflation was kicking in. It was a brand new world. She got her raise eventually, they started with the new hires. Incidentally, this was a Catholic hospital kitchen, a Catholic Hospital started by a Saint who founding a couple of dozen of these in major cities in USA. Before 1972, there was no such thing as anyone going bankrupt over hospital bills... if you could not pay, it was written off as charity.
Some dead rich person had paid.
The middle class started disappearing in earnest in the late 1970s. Massive inflation started eating away at the standard of living for most Americans. Yet much of this was covered up by access to debt. Credit cards, creative mortgages, student loans, and auto debt all allowed Americans to continue acting as if prosperity was only an American Express card away. Credit card debt outstanding is now back up to $900 billion, a number last seen during the Great Recession before the great deleveraging.
There was no such thing as a student loan before 1970. You worked summers and made enough to pay tuition and live the rest of the year. And you actually got an education... you did not get out of college with a BA unless you could speak another language. Can't cut it? Don't graduate (or more likely, don't go... plenty of good jobs without a college education.)
There were auto loans, but you'd have a car paid off in three years max. Yes, there were 30 year mortgages, but houses were cheap.
So yes, there were some loans at interest... but that was the least of your expenses in life. You entire life otherwise was usury-free, on credit
To review: mal-credit is what banks issue with no asset backing and at interest (usury)
Bene-credit: asset backed time-to-pay at no interest (usury).
In the neighborhood the pharmacy, grocery, gas station, florist, cabbie, hardware store, and so on all allowed you to buy on interest-free credit and pay at the end of the month (since people were paid once a month.) Your clothes and appliance were bought at a department store, where there too you just signed your name and on big ticket items, GE gave you six months to pay, if you needed it. As a kid I walked into stores and charged things to my parents. Never interest. The whole world worked this way.
Before lending credit destroyed our economy, the extractors (miners, farmers) extended usury-free credit to manufacturers, manufacturers to wholesalers, wholesalers to retailers, and retailers to their customers. Almost the entire economy ran on no-interest (usury) bene-credit, except for the rare-in-a-lifetime house or car purchase. (And these were often creatively financed.)
This entire bene-credit regime was made possible by labor, who extended credit to their employers for up to 30 days before being paid.
What happened, is all of that family business and unitive and creative finance was crowded out by EZ Cheep credit made possible by the crime of usury, on steroids, since the banks do not even bother to have assets to back their loans.
We haven't lost this. Amazon is a customer of mine. It takes in money immediately and pays me up to 60 days later, which means they are ahead about $20 billion on any given day.
The best fix for this problem is a New Labor Movement, which charges industry what workers are worth, since workers lend hard assets, their labor, to make this criminal regime possible.
Honor Labor.
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