For Americans, Life's Not So Bad After All

Check out this Steve Moore piece from the Wall Street Journal over the weekend. While acknowledging that the economy has slowed and that times are tough in many parts of the country, Moore contends that Americans so take for granted the "necessities" of modern life that we have lost touch with what it really means to face difficult financial times:

Here's the intro:

A few weeks ago I gave a talk on the state of the economy to a group of
college students -- almost all Barack Obama enthusiasts -- who were griping
about how downright awful things are in America today. As they sipped their
Starbucks lattes and adjusted their designer sunglasses, they recited their
grievances: The country is awash in debt "that we will have to pay off"; the
middle class in shrinking; the polar ice caps are melting; and college is
too expensive.

And the clincher graph:

Times are tough in many old industrial areas of the country. And middle-class anxiety about the costs of health care and higher education is real. But new data from the Census Bureau reveal that Americans of all income groups have made enormous gains in their standard of living in recent decades. As late as 1970, air conditioning, color TVs, washing machines, dryers and microwaves were considered luxuries. Today the vast majority of even poor families have these things in their homes. Almost one in three "poor" families has not one but at least two cars.

This column reminded me of a classic Walter Williams piece from a
while back. Williams noted that even a "poor" American is
the envy of the world:

Poverty in the United States, in an absolute sense, has virtually
disappeared. Today, there's nothing remotely resembling poverty of yesteryear. However, if poverty is defined in the relative sense, the lowest fifth of income-earners, "poverty" will always be with us. No matter how poverty is defined, if I were an unborn spirit, condemned to a life of poverty, but God allowed me to choose which nation I wanted to be poor in, I'd choose the United States. Our poor must be the envy of the world's poor.

Both the Moore and Williams columns also reminded me of a conversation I had with a former co-worker of mine. She was a bright girl, far more intelligent than I am, and a graduate of an elite East Coast college. She had a high-paying job, two professional parents who loved and supported her, and a decent, loving boyfriend to boot. And yet, despite such obvious advantages, she was remarkably pessimistic about her own future. Not because of lingering doubt in her own abilities, mind you, but because of the conditions of the country which have made it "much more difficult to achieve success" than it was for her parents. I pressed, but never could quite figure out just what those "conditions" were. Ultimately, like the students mentioned by Moore and the "poor" described by Williams, she never realized that she, barely into her late 20s, already lived a life of ease and prosperity that is the envy of most of the world, if not her own parents.