The United States has problems and always had. But the historical record of the United States as an economic powerhouse is unrivaled. The US had a bit of a head start on economic growth, being a direct descendant of the country that really kicked of the Industrial Revolution. But we took that head start and really ran with it, now being by far the highest income large country, and the highest income country that does not derive a significant part of its GDP from fossil fuels or being a tax haven.
The average American has, as best as we are able to measure it, a standard of living that is at least 20 times greater than Americans when this country began.
Source: the indispensable Our World in Data
Economist Writing Every Day 
Average is nice but of course it’s the average. Now if the data shows X improvement in the bottom quartile…. I think that’s a better measure of how well we’re doing as a country.
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