America remains great and continues to grow and prosper suggesting that the choice in November is very simple
"Make America Great Again" sounds fantastic. Read the quote again and again and something very cold and scary emerges.
To any analytical reader this quote simply implies that we have lost our greatness, hence it is of paramount importance to make her great again.
Have we really lost our greatness?
This author argues with publicly available statistics that America has not lost its greatness at all; as a matter of fact it is the fastest post-COVID-19 recovering economy among the developed nations.
Americans are getting richer, but wealth is unevenly distributed
Over the past century, the real gross domestic product (GDP) of the U.S. has grown significantly.
Фrom 1980 to 2023, the real GDP grew from $5 trillion to about $25 trillion, a 400% increase, effectively quadrupling the economy (see Chart 1 below).
This growth reflects in the wealth of its citizens. Real per capita income grew from $32,377 in 1980 to $67,672 in 2024 (adjusted for inflation), a 210% increase, meaning Americans have become twice as rich during this period.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) also soared from 2,400 to over 40,000, marking a 1,600% increase (see Chart 2 below).
Wealth distribution, however, remains uneven.
The middle class held $10.7 trillion at the end of 2022, a 13% increase from 2019.
The top 20% held 71% of the total wealth, approximately $99 trillion, with the top 1% owning about 17% of the total wealth.
https://www.tennessean.com/story/opinio ... 725201007/
