At first, our time travelers felt comfortable.  Items in the stores didn't look that much more expensive, given the ensuing 18 years.  The president was congratulating himself as inflation seemed under control.  Wages hadn't risen much either, but health insurance cost over $5,000 per month for each individual.  Almost all employers had dropped their plans and government didn't take up the slack.  People did with out.

The median price of a single family home just hit five million dollars!  People, who were lucky to buy a long time ago, didn't have to work anymore.  They lived off home equity loans.  One could easily live for 20 years off an equity loan and just pay it back by trading down to a slightly smaller property.  

As for most workers, they couldn't afford homes.  Workers lived in their cars. 

This wasn't a big change as taxpayers had voted down all road building projects.  Everyone just sat in traffic all day anyway.

Employers had finally become more innovative, however.  People could conduct work from their cars using things like cell phones.  Cars became both the homes and the office "cubicles of the future." 

Lots of cell phone toys under this tree.  It isn't really an artificial Christmas tree, it's a cell phone tower made to look like a tree.  Those aren't ornaments, they are antennas.  Notice the flat hexagonal plains in the tubular steel trunk.  Located in Bellingham, WA.