I think most of the myth is about the 1950s Eisenhower era, when Germany, Japan, China, and S. America weren't competing at all with our own economy. It was significantly less competitive then and for a brief period of time we were a powerhouse, but over time that has faded.
This was a period when you could support a family and live a comfortable middle-class existence while working on an assembly line. It wasn't a question of the education, just much less global competition.
