Incomes don’t just grow by percentages; they compound across generations. In the 20th century, wages in the United States grew nearly eightfold. But the real miracle wasn’t just bigger paychecks. It was what those paychecks allowed people to buy, do, and experience - things that their grandparents couldn’t even imagine.
Consider just a few of the products that were unavailable in
1900 but commonplace by 2000:
Transport & Communication
- Affordable
automobiles
- Airplane
tickets - to anywhere in the world in a single day
- Helicopters,
rockets, even space travel
- Global
Positioning System (GPS)
- Video
conferencing with anyone, anywhere
Consumer Goods & Daily Life
- Plastic
- Refrigerators,
microwaves, air conditioners
- Credit
cards
- Teabags,
bubble gum, nylon stockings
- Safety
razors, bras, Velcro
Entertainment & Media
- Radio,
movies, television
- Photocopiers,
videotapes, video games
- Personal
computers, email, websites, smartphones
Medicine & Biology
- Penicillin
and antibiotics
- Insulin
- Polio
and Hepatitis-B vaccines
- The
birth control pill
- Pacemakers,
Prozac, Valium, Viagra
And since 2000, the list has only accelerated: CRISPR gene
editing, AI assistants, mRNA vaccines, reusable rockets, 3D printing, solar and
wind at scale, drone delivery, streaming media.
This is what progress feels like to the ordinary
person. It’s not an abstract rise in GDP. It’s the astonishment of standing in
a grocery aisle with choices your great-grandparents couldn’t have named, let
alone afforded.
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