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Family & Lives · New episodes on Mondays

The Year They Were Twenty

Each episode rebuilds a single year between 1950 and 1985 from the ground up: what rent, groceries and a first car cost, how you asked someone out, and the rules nobody wrote down. Two hosts go back to the year your mom or dad turned twenty, check the prices in today's money, and finish with three questions you can ask them this week. It's warm, often funny, and about ordinary people rather than headlines.

Hosted by June and Nate, performed by synthetic voices. Verified to the FactUnion Standard. Sources are in every episode's notes.

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Episodes

Newest first

  1. Half a Paycheck: The Baby Letter and the First House

    You've heard women couldn't get credit cards until 1974, but the discrimination that cost young couples the most happened at the mortgage desk, where a wife's paycheck might count for half, or nothing, without a doctor's letter.

    13 Oct 2026 · 24 min

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