{"id":163184,"date":"2025-09-04T22:55:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T22:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/life-is-getting-better-no-matter-what-youve-heard-and-read-opinion-usa-today\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T22:55:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T22:55:13","slug":"life-is-getting-better-no-matter-what-youve-heard-and-read-opinion-usa-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/life-is-getting-better-no-matter-what-youve-heard-and-read-opinion-usa-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Life is getting better, no matter what you've heard and read | Opinion – USA Today"},"content":{"rendered":"

I choose optimism.
That sounds almost like a political statement these days, but it shouldn’t be. No matter what politicians, activists and others with an agenda tell you, the reasons for optimism<\/a> far outweigh the case for fear and discouragement.
This week, I will wrap up a nearly 42-year career in journalism. The world has changed many times over since I walked into a newsroom in Owensboro, Kentucky, for the first time as a full-time professional.
And on most measurements, our world is a much better place now than then.
You know, I can hear you. “Yeah, right,” you muttered. “This guy can’t exit stage right fast enough.”
But no, really. The facts are on the side of optimism.
Take, for example, the standard of living in much of the world. The World Bank estimates that the global extreme poverty rate was 43% in 1985<\/a>. It’s now less than 9%<\/a>.
That’s extraordinary progress over the past 40 years \u2212 largely thanks to capitalism<\/a> and global trade<\/a>.
Humans are not only wealthier, but we also are living longer than ever before. Life expectancy around the world was 62.2 years in 1985<\/a>. By 2023, it had increased to 73.2 years. Even in the United States, where we are routinely told that Americans are dangerously unhealthy, life expectancy has increased<\/a> from 74.56 years in 1985 to 79.25 last year.
Statistics aside, I can attest, as someone born in the swinging ’60s, that Americans’ standard of living is much higher now than then. Homes are bigger<\/a> and more comfortable. Cars are safer<\/a> and more reliable. Health care is immensely better (although much more expensive). Violent crime rates are down significantly<\/a>, since at least the early 1990s. The civil rights of all Americans are better respected and better protected than 60 years ago (one example: Fort Lauderdale’s world-famous beaches were still racially segregated<\/a> in my lifetime.)
I can still hear you muttering. What about climate change? Income inequality? Donald Trump<\/a> and MAGA? The loony left and socialism? Artificial intelligence and the “end of work”<\/a>?
I’m not saying that we don’t have problems, or that you shouldn’t be concerned about any or all of those things. What I am saying is that the prophets of doom have been consistently wrong for at least the past 60 years. I’m confident they are still wrong, and they will be wrong 60 years from now when my grandchildren are my age.
In 1984, when I began my career, we were told to fear imminent nuclear annihilation<\/a>, mass starvation triggered by overpopulation<\/a>, the depletion of oil and gas<\/a> leading to economic collapse, the extinction of whales<\/a> and many other species, and President Ronald Reagan’s “police state.”<\/a>
None of it happened.
Only a few years ago, we were told that the American dream is dead<\/a> and that the millennial generation<\/a> would forever trail baby boomers and even Gen X in health, wealth and happiness.
Guess what? Millennials are now financially better off<\/a> than baby boomers were at the same age, and they’re on track to become the wealthiest generation in human history<\/a>. You know who is likely to surpass them? Their children.
Rapid advances in medicine are not only extending lives<\/a> but also dramatically improving the quality of life for older people<\/a> like me and almost certainly will do so to an unimaginable degree over the next 20 or 30 years as millennials near retirement age.
So, healthier and wealthier? Check. Happier? Not so much.
Younger Americans, in particular, are more discontent now than in past decades. Rates of anxiety and depression<\/a> spiked before and after the COVID-19 pandemic<\/a>.
The U.S. surgeon general even declared that loneliness and isolation were at epidemic levels<\/a> in 2023.
The reasons for the disconnect between the upward and to the right trend lines in so many areas of our lives and the downward spiral of our emotional, mental and spiritual health are complex and varied, although the wasteland of social media is often identified as a primary cause.
My lifelong profession also has a role. Journalism is structurally designed to miss the most important story of our lifetimes \u2212 that life on this planet is better now<\/a> than it has ever been for a rapidly growing number of people.
As an old editor I worked for said, we don’t write about planes landing safely at the airport because it’s not news. Yet, we go DEFCON\u00a01 when a plane crashes, and rightly so. But focusing almost solely on problems while largely ignoring what works can lead to skewed perceptions.
Sticking with air travel, flying has become roughly twice as safe<\/a> each decade for almost 60 years. In 1968, one commercial air passenger died for every 350,000 passengers who boarded a plane. In 2022, it was 1 per every 13.7 million.
But only 64% of Americans this year said air travel is “somewhat” or “very” safe<\/a>. That disconnect is driven, at least somewhat, by 24\/7 news coverage of plane crashes.
Much of life is about assessing risk \u2212 is it safe to cross the street, to eat the brown banana, to invest in that new computer company called Apple? (I sadly missed that last one. Apple stock traded at 10 cents a share<\/a> my first year as a journalist.)
When we’re fed information on news platforms and social media feeds that paints the world as unceasingly dark and scary, it affects how we think about our own surroundings and how we act. I have friends who won’t visit our city’s downtown because they’ve read and heard so much about crime in our community, even though the downtown is largely safe for most people and crime stats are trending in the right direction<\/a>.
In 2023, University of Virginia researchers<\/a> studied the public’s negative perceptions about long-term trend lines. The authors concluded, \u201cWe found something on which all Americans seem to agree: Things are getting worse than they really are.\u201d
In reality, most things are not getting worse. They are getting better<\/a>, and in many cases, much better \u2212 whether or not we acknowledge that fact.
You are certainly free to choose pessimism, fear and despair if that’s what you want. I choose optimism. And the facts are on my side.
That’s enough for now. You’ve been a great audience all these many years. Thank you for joining me on the journey. It’s been good, and I’ve enjoyed it immensely. But my ride is here.
And adventure awaits.
Tim Swarens will retire this week after a nearly 42-year career as a journalist, including working as an editor and writer at USA TODAY, the Indianapolis Star and the Miami Herald.<\/em> Read his Good News<\/a> newsletter<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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I choose optimism.That sounds almost like a political statement these days, but it shouldn’t be. No matter what politicians, activists and others with an agenda tell you, the reasons for optimism far outweigh the case for fear and discouragement.This week, I will wrap up a nearly 42-year career in journalism. The world has changed many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":163185,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-163184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163184\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}