Yea, but in most parts of the country, one still can. Plenty of blue collar jobs pay pretty well, especially unionized ones like plumbing and welding and you make enough to do the little house and wife thing.

I'm not sure the problem is times changing so much as kids expectation changing, they all think they'll grow up white collar and rich now instead of accepting the obvious. They may not overall be doing as well as their parents as a generation, but they aren't doing that much worse either.