Chelsea Follett
Chelsea Follett
This Thanksgiving comes in the wake of an emotional election that left some celebrating and others mourning. In such a charged political moment, it can be hard to focus on the big picture. Amid the continued effects of pandemic-era inflation, the ravages of natural disasters such as Hurricane Helene, intensifying culture wars, not to mention ongoing actual wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, some may find it hard to feel thankful even during a holiday devoted to thankfulness. Yet there remain many real reasons for gratitude—regardless of whether your preferred candidate won or lost.
Rising prosperity. Extreme poverty characterized the life of most of our ancestors. When George Washington prayed that “the great Lord [might] grant unto all Mankind … temporal prosperity” in his Thanksgiving Proclamation in 1789, the average income in the United States, adjusted for inflation, was lower than that in Kenya today. Extreme poverty still plagued over 70 percent of people around the world when Abraham Lincoln made his own Thanksgiving Proclamation in 1863. Today, that figure has fallen to less than 9 percent. In 1990, when I was born, over 2 billion people lived on less than $2.15 dollars a day (in 2017 purchasing power parity dollars); today, fewer than 700 million endure that level of poverty, as more than 1.3 billion have risen into higher income brackets. Thanks to rising incomes, literacy and electricity access are spreading, while malnutrition and unsanitary conditions are rarer. And although there is still more progress to be made, rising prosperity thus far has been widely shared, making the world wealthier and more equal. The rate of progress has in some cases stalled amid pandemic-related disruptions, but the long-term trends are still heartening.
Health and abundance. Many Americans will gather with their families for the Thanksgiving holiday. One underappreciated cause for thankfulness is that we now enjoy more years with our loved ones, » Read More
https://www.cato.org/blog/reasons-feel-thankful-2024