The 50s sold us on industrialized farming as making food cheaper, we'd work less, and have more free time. This sort of worked for the middle class suburbanites (single income earner, two cars, and leisure time), but over the next two decades all that went away.
Today you can't hope to make it through a middle class family life without both parents working, and prices of food, housing, energy all represent that. Meanwhile energy, pharma, commerce, tech are all making billions in surplus profit. Two incomes have replaced one, double the workforce but economically rewarded with half the mobility. Wages have not had to go up because we just added another earner to the picture.