Why You Might Be Better Off Than You Think
Source: U.S. News & World Report | January 20, 2011
There are plenty of things wrong with the U.S. economy, and practically everybody knows what they are. Yet America remains one of the most comfortable places in the world to live, and prosperity is still well within many people's reach. Longer-term gains in quality of life remain largely intact - including many improvements we tend to take for granted. "People care about more than GDP," says Michael Cox, a professor at Southern Methodist University and former chief economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. "Living standards also involve leisure time and recreation, variety in choice of diet, working conditions, and safety and security. And most of those things are still getting better." When measured against the heady days of 2006 and early 2007, conditions today do seem disconcerting. But measuring today's living standards against longer-term trends reveals many ways we're better off than we were not long ago. [Read this article]
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