If the husband could get a steady job, families used to be able to afford a house on the husband's income in the suburbs, that would have been the standard expectation, the average. Also, what is a steno pool?
Families with one income can't buy a house when the market is all two income families, the houses are all way overpriced where I am, but it's also a place where jobs haven't vanished like a tide that went out.