- Americans have become a nation of perpetual whiners that imagine themselves as cosmic victims, despite being alive in the softest, most opulent time in human history. We should knock that crap off. Happy New Year.
Cartoonist Marshall Ramsey’s ode to 2025 featured Father Time riding a giant wave in a “2025” marked dumpster. It’s predictably on fire. I’m not picking on Ramsey. This theme of the American experience being a dumpster fire gained widespread traction during the COVID pandemic. It never waned.
Every year we imagine that things are getting worse. People drinking $8 soy lattes, listening to a playlist that includes every song ever recorded by man, lament about it on their $1400 phones.
But what if our lives are actually getting better? What if good things are happening all around us, every day?
What if the real problem is that Americans enjoy being miserable — imagining themselves cosmic victims — because the crying and whining brings us attention, absolves us of personal responsibility and makes us feel heroic for “enduring” the softest time to be alive in human history?
There’s a good chance all of those things are true…and that no one will care.
More Prosperity
There is much talk about affordability and income inequality in America. Inflation in recent years has been abnormally high thanks to horrific monetary and economic policy during COVID (both in President Trump’s first term and during Biden’s tenure).
Consider this, though: real wages — Americans’ earnings adjusted for inflation — are up over the period. This means our income actually is outpacing the cost of living. In Mississippi, over the last year, wages rose 5 percentage points above the rate of inflation.
Are these numbers skewed by income inequality — the rich getting richer while everyone else is mired in suffering? The data again suggest otherwise. Since 1980, every quintile of American workers has seen wage growth that outpaces inflation.
Put simply, more people are moving up the income ladder. The chart below shows the number of people earning $35,000 or less (adjusted for inflation) being cut by a full third since 1967. The number of people earning between $35,000-$100,000 similarly was cut by nearly a third. Meanwhile the number of people earning above $100,000 tripled in the same time period. Again, all of these figures are in constant dollars, meaning adjusted for inflation.
People live more opulently today. The average home in 1950 was under 1,000 square feet. Today, the average home is almost 2,500 square feet, features hardwood floors, granite countertops, and multiple bathrooms. The number of two-vehicle households has doubled since 1950.
People have more free time today. The average worker works 8 hours less every week now compared to the 1960s and engages in 7 hours a week more leisure activity. This additional leisure time is the equivalent of 7 weeks of vacation time. Leisure budgets have more than tripled since the 1960s, even when adjusted for inflation.
Most of the products we rely on are cheaper on a relative basis to income today. Consumer goods Americans rely on have become much cheaper, with better technology and more reliability. As an example, the average annual rate of deflation on a television between 1950 and today was 6.53%. Computers used to take up entire rooms. Today, we have a more powerful one in our pockets that doubles as a phone.
People live longer today. The average person lived 68 years in 1950. By 2019, we’d gained 11 years of life. Infant mortality has been cut in half in the last fifty years.
At Home
Mississippi saw record economic growth in recent years. Wages in the Magnolia State grew the second fastest in the nation over the last year. Billions in new economic development investments have been announced. Tens of thousands of jobs have been added. People who want to work can — the state’s latest reported unemployment figure stood at just 3.8 percent.
Good fiscal and tax policy are paying off to keep more money in your pocket. Our education gains have been nationally heralded.
In so many respects, the “Thank God for Mississippi” era that marked our place as a perennial bottom dweller is over. And yet on a daily basis, there are Mississippians repeating old mantras about being “last” in areas we are nowhere near last in.
Seeing the Good in Life
In short, we work less to make more, engage in more leisure and have better stuff.
It’s worth recognizing that material well-being, leisure and longevity are not a perfect measure of “whole person” well-being. The decline in religion, nuclear families, and civil institutions that once bound communities together is a negative.
I would caution, though, about over romanticizing the past. There are real markers of meaningful social progress since the 50s and 60s. Consider that minority groups were still being denied basic rights, including the right to vote during that period.
We live in an age where we are constantly bombarded with a message that life sucks. And it’s someone else’s fault. Politicians and pundits, on both sides of the aisle, message that way because discord and division are effective motivators. They want to direct your anger to accomplish their agenda, which requires you being angry.
Refuse to play the game. Your life is what you make of it. There is good in it. Whether you kick butt in 2026 is up to you.
Russ Latino
