How do the "Have Nots" get on in life?

Yes it can, but far, far better than sitting at home on benefits.

More people are in work now than at any time since the early seventies, so that’s something

"In work" can mean anything from full-time, highly paid work to a zero hours contract for a minimum wage job.

well said MAWBROON

I grew up in the 40s during and after the war my mother did all the washing using a gas boiler for the sheets etc and rinsing in the sink - we had a mangle in the garden and my father made it so that the water drained away fast.
When I married in the early 60s there were plenty of launderettes to do the big stuff such as sheets and towels and then I graduated to a wonderful Hooint Countess washing machine with an electric mangle.
These things are not easily available now and automatic washing machines are almost a necessity - same for the fridge - we had a larder with a tiled shelf before we had a fridge in the late 50s.
People on minimum wage find things very difficult indeed and if it were not for benefits there would be many more families on the street with nowhere to go. It is far from being a lack of getting a job or not working long enough hours - for many people wages are low and prices high.
See if you can volunteer somewhere in a poor distric grannysue and see for yourself how these people are managing - there will be some as you describe but not many - most are doing their best to just live with what they need and pay their bills.

You are a braver woman than me Maw . I didn’t know where to start so I didn’t [gin] oops I meant but maybe first one is more appropriate

Well said Ilovecheese

^As for your question, is it true you got out of life what you put into it?
No more so then than now^

Many people put a whole lot into life. They help others for no reason other than out of the goodness of their hearts, they work damned hard and get very little in return.

There again there are those who are completely selfish, they think of number one and wouldn't do a thing to help anyone else (unless they were being paid for it). They quite often do very well in life.

Are we all dealt the same "cards" and its up to us to play the best hand. No way.

Ah, those good old days of misery and hardship!
Why shouldn't the yoof of today suffer like we did, isn't that just what we want for out children and grandchildren?
No wonder us older people get a bad name for grumbling!

GrannySue I think that expectations are very high now, and a sense ( by some) of entitlement doesn’t help them.
More people are in work now than at any time since the early seventies, so that’s something, as a short while ago there were far too many able bodied younger people living on benefits.
Under all governments, not enough houses have been built in the last 30 years, which, coupled with massive population explosion due to non EU and EU migrants and marriage break down have caused such a shortage of affordable olaces to live.Younger people now therefore have a harder
time of it, regards housing.
Of course the maxim holds true, you really do have to put something in to get something out, but that goes for any age group.

It's all depressing if you think about it for too long. Existing from week to week, pay packet juggling and searching down the sofa for pennies that don't seem to end up backthere anymore. You could do without switching on the lightsuntil absolutely necessary so using less electricity if necessary but now everything you do to keep abreast needs wifi 12 month contracts etc. Caught me at a depressing time!

Oh dear.
Where does one start?
Fair enough I was a child in the Fifties and a teenager in the Sixties, but the misery of unwanted pregnancies was all too clear, less a case of avoiding pregnancy one way or another than back street abortions or rushed register office weddings and years of grinding poverty afterwards. I know, my sister did the latter and was “disowned” by my father . How she and BIL existed on his minimal wages (he had to drop out of university) and food parcels when my mum was able to visit from 300 miles away I do not know, but to say life was hard was an understatement. Saving (ha ha) was a luxury denied to them just as it is to many today. A fridge (yes small) was a Christmas present.
Let’s not hark back to “good old days”when a twin tub was the height of luxury or pretend that scenarios such as that in Cathy Come Home are anything other than best consigned to the dustbin of social history.
I don’t want to be part of the point of view of some older people muttering that “fings ain’t wot they used to be” , or “they never had it so good” and generalising that young people loaf around in their expensive trainers, blah, blah.
Actually probably the same comments were made about Teddy Boys in the 50s/60s or Mods and Rockers, or beatniks or whatever name the older generation applied to the “yoof” of their day. (While muttering darkly that a spot of National Service would do them good and get a bleddy haircut boy!)
As for your question, is it true you got out of life what you put into it?
No more so then than now.