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American Empire Is Past Its Prime
It is often said these days that while America (USA) is still the biggest imperialist power, that it is in decline.
A recent article in the online news service, Pearls and Irritations, provides some facts about the American empire's decline, The article is by Les Macdonald and was posted in Pearls and Irritations on February 9, 2025.
The post reveals some revealing statistics about different aspects of the USA economy and society.
•Life expectancy. In 1900, 46.6 years for men, 48.7 years for women. In 2000, 74.7 years for men, 79.9 years for women. Between 2017 and 2021, life expectancy dropped by nearly 4 percentage points, a decline that marks a stark departure from the previous century’s progress.
•Income and "Productivity". According to the Economic Policy Institute, the earnings of the US middle class (middle income earners) in real terms was $17,867 less per year in 2007 than in 1979. Between 1979 and 2007, productivity increased by 74% while real wages increased by 9%. Since 1979, wages and salaries for the top 1% of employees rose by 138% while real wages for the bottom 90% rose by 15%
•Consumer Price Index. Since 2000, the CPI went up by 83.28% while the median wage went up by 34.7%
•Health Care Access. Tens of millions of people have no health coverage or minimal health coverage with the resulting added cost to individuals contributing to over 40% of the average 530,000 bankruptcies per year.
•Manufacturing. In 1946, More than 50% of the world's manufactured goods were produced in the USA. in 2024, it was only 15.9% of world's manufacturing produced in the USA. In 1979 there were19.6 million USA workers employed in manufacturing. In 2019, only 12.8 million, a reduction of 35%. (USA Bureau of Labor Statistics). The largest sector of USA manufacturing is military production, approximate dollar value of $1trillion per year!
•Education. USA graduates 70,000 engineers per year compared with USA main rival China's 600,000 per year. USA student loan debt is $1.74 trillion with 7% in default category.
•Privatization. Privatizations over the last four decades has seen a boom in private prison population. Prison population in 1980 was 320,000. In 2024 it was 1.8 million. Private prison operators lobby for harsher prison sentences to fuel their labor force inside prisons.
•Firearms. In 2024 more than 500 million firearms in the USA were in private hands which is an average of 1.93 firearms per adult.
These figures do not indicate a rosy picture of USA society and economy. The recent signing off by Trump and the Republicans for a further $1 billion military export to Israel and Trump's plan to "redevelop" Gaza into a "Middle East Riviera" and sending Palestinians out of Gaza altogether is being trumpeted (!) to give lucrative contracts to USA big business. A taste of this is the announcement only a day ago by the USA government that private USA security contractors would replace some Israeli troops in a small part of northern Gaza.
It is often said these days that while America (USA) is still the biggest imperialist power, that it is in decline.