Did it ever really leave? as far as I can tell the funny numbers went back up but for most real people things have been pretty consistently downhill since 2008.
If you really want to have a migraine, read Hunter Thompson's "Hell's Angels."
There's a passage where he talks about the economics of being a biker/hippie/artist circa 1970.
An Angel could work six months as a Union stevedore and earn enough to hit the road for two years. A part time waitress could make enough to support herself and her musician boy freind.
Post war recovery worked to a degree and had made life better but people screamed about it being a nanny state because people had the ability to explore the meaning of their own life without fear of imminent death and think of all the profit that was being missed out on because we were busy helping people.