This is just one of the stories from our “I’ve Always Wondered” series, where we tackle all of your questions about the world of business, no matter how big or small. Ever wondered if recycling is worth it? Or how store brands stack up against name brands? Check out more from the series here.Travis Cochran from Houston, Texas, asks: I listened to your installment about single-income families and how their median incomes compare with the past and it made me wonder how "costs" compare in the same way. Years ago, we didn’t have Netflix, cellphones, college, Internet, etc. Without all these spending avenues, how would today's income compare?The cost of modern life is expensive: Americans are doling out money for everything from streaming subscriptions to health insurance to exorbitant college tuition. Joe Favorito, a managing partner at Landmark Wealth Management, conducted an analysis looking at how essential expenses have changed over time. In 1950, essential expenses amounted to 25% of our income. In 1980, that figure increased to 32% and today, it now stands at 38%. He pointed out that our discretionary income has “dropped by 13%” since 1950, but the financial pressure Americans face feels “heavier,” than that amount. That’s because a massive share of our income is now tied to “non-negotiable contracts,” like cell phones, high-speed internet and health insurance. Average new homes are also larger than the average new home back in 1950, leading to “lifestyle inflation,” and the cost of services like health care and education have skyrocketed. Americans also aren’t making as much money as they should be which is the real issue behind the financial pressures they face, explained Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute.She said life is unaffordable for working people and the reason is actually because of the “long-term suppression of workers’ wages,” not the recent price spikes we’ve seen. “If pay for working people had kept up with productivity over the past 45 years, the paychecks for typical workers would literally be more than 40% higher — that would certainly solve a lot of affordability problems,” Shierholz said. Favorito told Marketplace that he thinks there are some expenses that are unnecessary, like that streaming subscription, and that it’s misleading to say that the standard of living today is so much more expensive. But he thinks there are some items that are essential that didn’t exist before, like cell phones. “How do you run a business without a cell phone nowadays? That's not very practical,” Favorito said. If you took away all of these extra amenities, he thinks people in their 30s would be living a much better lifestyle than other adults from the 1950s, and a lifestyle that’s at least equal to someone from the 1980s, Favorito said. The median net worth of millennials rose to between $76,300 to $91,000 by the time they reached 35, while the net worth of Boomers was about $58,000, adjusted for inflation, by the time they reached 35, according to Favorito’s analysis. However, Baby Boomers also began investing later than other generations due to higher mortgage rates and fewer investment tools as they entered the workforce, and have seen the value of their homes appreciate over time.Favorito said Americans’ purchasing power hasn’t declined as much as people would argue. But he said there’s a big difference when it comes to healthcare and education costs. And despite having a higher net worth, younger generations are in a more financially “fragile” position because they have higher debt-to-income ratios. Millennials have the fastest-growing levels of debt because of student loans and because more of them are now having children and buying homes.