ARTICLE IN ITS ENTIRETY! Seven graphs that show how dramatically life in America has changed over the last 250 years

                                       

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When confronted with problems of our own time, many of which often feel insurmountable, I have often found that turning to history provides me with valuable perspective. This is not because history repeats itself. In fact, I don't really think that it does repeat itself, at least not precisely. Instead, I find that looking at how differently the average person lived 10, 25, 100 or even 250 years ago has a tendency to provide a sense of gratitude for being alive right now by showing how far we have come as a nation. This can help make the problems we face seem less severe, and more solvable, then when I am only reading headlines from the last few days. In this email, with the 250th anniversary of our nation approaching, I thought it would be illuminating to consider many of the problems we face in our own times–such as making ends meet, the environment, working conditions, life expectancy, media usage, education levels and democratic participation–by placing them within long-term historical trends, often going all the way back to 1776. To visually illustrate the changes we have undergone as a nation, I have put to use Google's free AI tool, Gemini, to make several of graphs you will see in this article. I will state upfront that I expect there are at least some errors in these graphs, as AI tools for research are still very much a work in progress. However, overall I believe they do provide a generally accurate summary of the long-term trends in our country, as they match up with other research on these topics. 1. Real median income / standard of living has consistently gone up since 1776. Affordability and high prices are the words on the lips of every politician right now. Personally, I think this focus is entirely justified, because polling consistently shows affordability is what Americans are most focused on, because prices have begun to outstrip wages in recent months, and because I personally agree that it sure seems like almost everything costs a heck of a lot these days. That said, when I look at long-term trends of how people have lived during the entire 250 years of our nation's existence, I feel inwardly embarrassed at my complaints given how much better we live now compared to any other time in history. This is a graph of the changes in real median income over the last 250 years. I had Gemini make several of these graphs for me, and ultimately landed on this one, because it most closely tracked with hard data on real median income over the last 70 years from places like the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The simple fact is that the average person in the United States is a lot wealthier than they used to be, even when accounting for the increase in prices. Now, as I covered in an earlier article, "Four Things You Can Do to Feel Better When Everyone Around You Is Wrong," I know that people don't feel that way, and I don't really want to delve into cultural psychology to try and figure out the various causes for that disconnect. Suffice to say, outside of recessions and depressions, which tend to be short and which as such don't really show up in this graph, Americans have consistently gotten wealthier over the last 250 years. That trend will probably continue for a while, even if it happens at a slower rate than it did during the middle third of the 20th century. 2. Personal C02 emissions skyrocketed during the 20th century, but more recently have begun to decline. This next chart looks at per capita carbon dioxide emissions among Americans since 1776. I think it is useful to look at this graph immediately after the income chart, as they are almost certainly connected: (Note: This graph does track pretty closely with harder, peer reviewed data on this topic, some of which you can see visualized here.) It seems noteworthy how this graph tracked pretty closely with rising incomes until about 1970, the dawn of the modern environmental movement. After that time, the two graphs began to diverge. Over the last five decades we have continued to experience increases real median income, albeit at a slower rate than during the middle third of the 20th century, while also decreasing our per capita carbon footprint. In fact, per capita CO2 emissions are now down to the level they were 100 years ago, even though real median income has quadrupled in the same time frame. Personally, I find that quite hopeful! 3. Average hours worked per year went up for a while after 1776 before sharply trending downward for a century and then continuing slowly downward after that. Here is the average number of hours worked per year by Americans since 1776 (once again, I like this graph because it closely corresponds with harder data on more recent years): We don't think about this much, but right now we have more leisure time than at any point in history. The people who came before us, especially those who lived before the New Deal and the rise of organized labor, just had to spent a much higher percentage of their time working than we do. An extra 1000-1500 hours per year is an extra three to four hours per day, including weekends and holidays. That is a much harder way to live! 4. Outside of major pandemics, life expectancy has gone up consistently since 1776. I'm sure that most of us are aware of the long-term increase in life expectancy outside of major pandemics, but I think it is useful to look at a graph of increasing life expectancy immediately after considering the decrease in the number of hours by the average person per year: This graph is far from perfect, as it implies that the 1918 flu pandemic began shortly after 1900. It also does not include the last few years, during which life expectancy has regained all of the ground it lost during the COVID-19 pandemic. An important development that the last two graphs show in combination with one another is that the amount of leisure time the average American experiences over a lifetime is now roughly four times larger than it was two centuries ago. During that time, life expectancy has more than doubled, while the number of hours worked per year has declined by almost 50%. 5. Media consumption has gone sharply upward since 1950. What are we doing with all of the extra leisure time we have been granted? In short, we are consuming a lot more media. Here are the trends in hours per day that Americans have spent on different types of media since 1950: (I doubt that this graph is 100% accurate, but once again it roughly lines up with research I have seen on this topic) To my eye, the two most important trends here are: First, the dramatic rise in the total number of hours spent per day consuming media. During the half century I have been alive, Americans have added six hours of media consumption to their everyday lives, up from 7.5 in the 1970s to 13.5 hours today. The extra hours of media consumption has mostly involved computers, whether desktops, laptops, smartphones or tablets (mostly smartphones). This is such a dramatic change in the way we live that any explanation of almost any modern problem we face must at least, in part, mention how spending more than half of our waking hours using computers has changed us. I mean, the computer was inaccessible to the general public before about 1980, and now using computers is how the average American spends the majority of their time. 6. Graduating from high school is kind of a new thing. This one surprised me, but it was only in 1970 that, for the first time, the majority of American adults had graduated from high school: This is certainly a far cry from the days of my great-grandfather who, growing up in late 19th century Pennsylvania Dutch Country, dropped out of a German-speaking public school after third grade and never looked back. Americans spend far more of their lives in school now than at any time in the past. This trend started with the High School Movement of the early 20th century, but has continued unabated since then. A higher percentage of American adults have bachelor's degrees now than had high school diplomas in 1950. 7. The percentage of the population voting in presidential elections has consistently risen. I would like to close this article with a graph not from AI, but instead from the Data is Beautiful Subreddit. This graph shows the percentage of eligible Americans who voted in presidential elections since 1796 (the red line) and, more importantly, the percentage of all Americans who actually voted in presidential elections since that same time (the blue line): US presidential elections 1796-2020 percentage of population voting and eligible voter turnout. What we see in the blue line is the slow, bumpy and yet still persistent upward march of democracy. When our nation was founded, fewer than 5% of Americans participated in our presidential elections. Now, over 40% participate. For my money, it is particularly notable that this upward trend is not just a thing of the past that you hear about in 7th grade Social Studies, but a still-unfolding event that continues into our own time. Honestly, the way things are going, we might hit 50% of the country participating in presidential elections before long. Before you go, if you believe in what we are trying to do here at Bowers Kerbel Media, which is the two-person, reader-supported, pro-democracy and pro-Democratic organization which runs both the Bowers News Media news and activism email list, and Wolves and Sheep, our informed political analysis and practical life advice Substack, I would really appreciate it if you signed up for a free subscription to Wolves and Sheep: Sign up for a free subscription to Wolves and Sheep Thank you for your time, Chris Bowers Founder, Bowers News Media *** About Bowers News Media is a one-person, pro-democracy and pro-Democratic news and activism email list, run by me, Chris Bowers. I am a 22-year veteran of online progressive politics at Daily Kos, Open Left and MyDD. I write all of the emails myself, in an honest, measured, personal voice, citing all of my sources and avoiding exaggeration. I aim help you make a difference in the world without driving up your anger or fear. Further, I will always remain accessible to you by reading every single email you send me, and replying to many of them. Wolves and Sheep is a pro-democracy and pro-Democratic political analysis Substack run by Matthew Kerbel, a former political science professor of over 30 years at Villanova University. Matt brings you timely, outside the beltway analysis of our national politics, informed by history and social science, to help you make sense of what often feels like an out-of-control world. Together, we run Bowers Kerbel Media, a joint effort between Bowers News Media and Wolves and Sheep. Matt and I are old friends, and even wrote a book together a little over a decade ago.

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