> For most Americans life expectancy and qualify of life are dropping measurably.
Half of that is easily demonstrably false. Quality of life for the majority of Americans continues to improve.
The US welfare state has improved considerably in the last 30 to 50 years.
- Homelessness has been slashed by 20-25% in two decades thanks to housing programs the Bush and Obama administrations pursued. Homelessness nationally is sitting near the lowest levels in US history.
- Childhood poverty has collapsed by roughly 45-50% in 40 years.
- The overall poverty rate at 11.8% is near an all-time record low. That figure is lower than in either Canada or France today. In 1960 the poverty rate was 100% higher than it is now.
- The poorest 25% of Americans now get free healthcare, that was not true at all at the supposed peak of US well-being and financial per capita outcomes in the ~1965-1980 time frame. The fact is, the bottom 1/3 are far better off today than they were in the 1960s and 1970s. The homelessness and poverty rates demonstrate that.
- The middle class is expanding at the fastest rate since the 1960s. More income as a distribution share is finally beginning to shift from corporate profit to labor.
- For the last several years wages for the bottom 2/3 of labor have been rising dramatically faster than wages for the top 1/3.
- The US savings rate is strong at 8%. Household balance sheets are similarly strong. The share of household income going to debt service costs is near 40-50 year lows.
Several of those are entirely due to a continued resource shift via the rapidly expanding US welfare state and increasing progressive taxation.
As per Wikipedia [0]:
"Medicaid is the largest source of funding for medical and health-related services for people with low income in the United States, providing free health insurance to 74 million low-income and disabled people (23% of Americans) as of 2017"
Half of that is easily demonstrably false. Quality of life for the majority of Americans continues to improve.
The US welfare state has improved considerably in the last 30 to 50 years.
- Homelessness has been slashed by 20-25% in two decades thanks to housing programs the Bush and Obama administrations pursued. Homelessness nationally is sitting near the lowest levels in US history.
- Childhood poverty has collapsed by roughly 45-50% in 40 years.
- The overall poverty rate at 11.8% is near an all-time record low. That figure is lower than in either Canada or France today. In 1960 the poverty rate was 100% higher than it is now.
- The poorest 25% of Americans now get free healthcare, that was not true at all at the supposed peak of US well-being and financial per capita outcomes in the ~1965-1980 time frame. The fact is, the bottom 1/3 are far better off today than they were in the 1960s and 1970s. The homelessness and poverty rates demonstrate that.
- The middle class is expanding at the fastest rate since the 1960s. More income as a distribution share is finally beginning to shift from corporate profit to labor.
- For the last several years wages for the bottom 2/3 of labor have been rising dramatically faster than wages for the top 1/3.
- The US savings rate is strong at 8%. Household balance sheets are similarly strong. The share of household income going to debt service costs is near 40-50 year lows.
Several of those are entirely due to a continued resource shift via the rapidly expanding US welfare state and increasing progressive taxation.