Is America great? Is it a shithole? The stats

In lieu of recent media headlines, I thought it was important that someone addresses the objectivity of the state of the country. The fact of the matter is that, no, America is not “great” and it’s unlikely that it will be anytime soon regardless of who sits in the oval office. But it certainly isn't a "shithole" either. The problems that plague the country cannot be solved in a four-year timeline, or eight years for that matter. Rather, the progress we so desperately need will be the result of persistent dedication on behalf of all parties and individuals who participate in government as well as persistent change demanded by us over the course of generations. But the good news is that as a society, we are very much better off today than we have ever been, contrary to popular media outlet reports. Bare with me for a few minutes and you’ll be much happier knowing what you will after reading.

Today, Martin Luther King day, I sit here reflecting on the progress that has been made since his historic I have a dream speech and looking ahead still to the years of progress we have in front of us. However, the fact of the matter is that if you, right now, were to be dropped in a random location on Earth not knowing who you would become or your political affiliation, race, religion, or what have you, the overwhelming amount of data suggests that if you had a choice regarding the year of your birth, 2018 is the best choice and I’ll tell you why.

Man has always struggled with using violence to solve its problems. Without boring anyone with war and genocide statistics, I’ll just state that it is universally accepted that we are living in the most peaceful, healthy, well educated and wealthy time in human history.

Child Mortality

If we go in chronological order, assuming the scenario above, the first thing you need to do upon birth in life is survive the first 5 years. Statistically speaking if you can make it to your fifth birthday the chances of survival increase dramatically. So let’s take a look at the stats.
I don’t think any self respecting person in the world wishes to see a high rate of child mortality and the great news is that we are making INCREDIBLE strides in this area. For the sake of data, let’s define a “child” as someone aged 0-5, I think you’ll be surprised by the statistics.

https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality#global-picture-of-child-mortality-from-1800-until-today

In the year 1800, 43% of children died before they turned 5 years old. In 1960 we progressed to the point where 18.5% was the norm. Great progress indeed but put in other terms, nearly 1 in every 5 children born in 1960 died before their fifth birthday. Compare that with 2015 at 4.65% globally. However in industrialized nations the child mortality rate is below 0.5%. In larger countries such as Brazil and China, their numbers have reduced by tenfold in this area over the last four decades. Statistically speaking, you’re significantly more likely to live to see your fifth birthday today than ever before in human history.

Life Expectancy

To continue, over the course of one century we have increased the average global life expectancy from 34.1 years in 1913 to 70.8 in 2013. In the Americas in 1913, life expectancy as you can see in the photo below was at a staggeringly low 45.1 years whereas in 2013 it sits comfortably at 76.5. We have increased our life expectancy by 69% in just one century. The objective facts are that you can expect to live a longer and healthier life today than ever before.

https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy

Disease

Next I want to tackle a few diseases that have historically ravished much of the world. Polio, Smallpox and Malaria. Here are the graphs:
Smallpox:

Polio:

Malaria:

More information: https://ourworldindata.org/eradication-of-diseases#empirical-view

You can see that we have made significant strides in every area. By and large you are much less likely to die of disease in 2018 than you were at any other point in human history. This is due largely because of an advance in medical technology and discoveries we have made since industrialization.

Education

Now that we have made sure that you not only live to see your fifth birthday, but you’re also less likely to die from disease the next issue we should take a look at is education. Education is something that people love to debate. Common core? What do we do about kids not hitting benchmarks? How do we adjust the education system to accommodate modern times? I won’t pretend I have all the answers, I don’t think anyone does, but I do want to show you how far we have come.

https://ourworldindata.org/literacy#empirical-view

In 1900, only 21% of the world could read. 2015 on the other hand, 85% could. That means that in a little over a century, we increased our literacy rates by more than 400% globally.

By and large, education enrollment has also improved significantly. Though I won’t pretend that there isn’t much that still needs to be done on this front. Here are the figures on primary school enrollment if you’re interested: https://ourworldindata.org/global-rise-of-education#school-enrollment-and-attendance

Poverty and Welfare

Finally I want to highlight something that every political party loves to talk about but fail to properly address, poverty levels and welfare of citizens. Unfortunately, the World Health Organization, WHO for short, only began reporting absolute poverty in 1981, though it is clear that every region has seen momentus improvements.

First let’s look at a chart of total population living in poverty. Keep in mind that these are population figures and overall population has increased at a much faster rate than the impoverished population.

Population Growth:

https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth#shares-by-world-regions
The following chart is a more well rounded figure to reflect the well-being of society. Here is a graph that shows extreme poverty as a percent of total population.

For anyone interested in exploring the topic of poverty even further: here is a link to an study compiled by the World Bank titled Monitoring Global Poverty, Report on the Commission of Global Poverty:
https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/25141/9781464809613.pdf

Thank you for dropping in. I hope that now you feel a little more content in the world we live in. That isn’t to say that we need to stop improving or facing our problems head on, but for a few minutes why don’t we all just take a moment to ourselves and appreciate how lucky we are to live today and how far all of our ancestors had to come for us to have the society that we do.

Leave a comment and feel free to reach out if you would like me to cover any other topics in a future post. I'd love your feedback.

Cheers
-Lizk