Real estate. The US economy floats on the perpetually-increasing cost of land. Thats where your mortgage money goes, to a series of finacial instruments to allow others to benifit from the eternally rising value of "your" property.
You should look at other countries where pay is much less and real estate is at similar levels of cost: from Europe, Canada, China, Australia and India.
Condos in Mumbai are priced similar to those in the major cities in the US.
https://www.reddit.com/r/mumbai/comments/zxsl8l/mumbai_real_...
And Mumbai is one of the more affordable cities globally.
That is why mortgages are (future) taxpayer subsidized. Without the subsidies from the future, the real estate prices would not be able to rise so much.
There is also economic agglomeration to exacerbate the issue.
You should not look towards pensions and healthcare, but rather the actually wealthy old men. Those are who the ones stealing your future.