An unfortunately popular myth peddled by populists on both the left and right is that America has been in steady decline since the 1970s. To hear them tell it, the country has become a rigged game: stagnant wages, hollowed-out jobs, and lives made harder by rapacious, elite-driven capitalism. But a more honest accounting of the facts reveals a different story—one of real, if uneven, progress. Yes, we are better off financially than we were in the days of disco and bell-bottoms. And we’re far healthier, too.

Let’s start with the economy. It’s true that the period from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s was tough, as the Great Inflation was followed by a war on inflation. Wage growth stalled as productivity gains slowed. 

But that’s hardly the whole story. Since the 1990 business cycle peak, real wages for average workers have risen by about 40 percent, according to economist Michael Strain. That’s hardly stagnation. Incomes would be even higher today had we sustained the strong productivity growth of the postwar boom, as I write in my 2023 book, The Conservative Futurist: How to Create the Sci-Fi World We Were Promised. Even so, today’s average worker has more money and access to better goods and services than ever before.

One problem with the “stagnant wages” narrative is that it assumes today’s workers are the same as yesterday’s. They aren’t, of course. The late 20th-century American working population has turned over, and these early 21st-century folks today benefit from a dazzling array of consumer innovations that make inflation measurement a thorny and often misleading exercise. Think about smartphones, ride-sharing, online investing, or targeted cancer immunotherapy. None of that stuff existed in 1975.

And on that note, let’s talk about health. As The Economist thankfully reports in its new issue, the age-adjusted cancer mortality rate has fallen markedly over the past 30 years, even as global cancer deaths have risen due to aging populations. Strip out the demographic factors, and the world has made extraordinary strides in preventing and treating cancer: “In America the rate is now about a third lower than in the 1990s. The trend is similar in other developed countries.”

In the US alone, nearly six million deaths were averted between 1975 and 2020 from just five forms of cancer—lung, breast, bowel, prostate, and cervical—thanks to a mix of reduced smoking, better screening, and improved treatments. Vaccines against HPV have driven a 90 percent drop in cervical cancer among young British women, according to the magazine, while new blood tests, genetic risk scores, and even AI-enhanced diagnostics are laying the groundwork for a more personalized, preventive approach to cancer care.

But wait, there’s more ahead! Research into “pre-cancer” biology, immunotherapies, and risk-targeted vaccines is moving fast. As The Economist puts it, the future of cancer treatment may involve stopping the disease before it even begins. That’s not hype. It’s happening in clinical trials right now, including with preventive vaccines for breast, colon, and lung cancer. And none of this optimism assumes any truly radical breakthroughs due to AI advances, which no one should rule out. ”Cancer has already become a much less deadly disease than it was 30 years ago. Thirty years from now, it will almost certainly be much less deadly than it is today.”

The bigger story here is progress. Economic. Technological. Medical. It hasn’t been a straight line, and it hasn’t benefited everyone equally. But it’s real. And it stands in sharp contrast to the lazy declinist narratives that dominate so much of our politics.