Then Before Us

Health

Before You Could Google Your Symptoms: What Getting Sick Used to Actually Mean

Before WebMD, before telehealth, before AI symptom checkers — when something felt wrong, your options were limited, personal, and often surprisingly human. The way Americans navigate illness has been completely transformed in a single generation, and the story is more complicated than it first appears.

Mar 13, 2026

Finance

Six Figures Used to Mean Something Different: The Quietly Shrinking Power of a $100,000 Income

In 1990, a $100,000 salary was genuinely exceptional — the kind of number that bought a house, put kids through college, and left room to spare. Today, that same figure is a starting point in many American cities, and somehow it doesn't feel like enough. What happened?

Mar 13, 2026