I think it’s important to acknowledge that today U.S. citizens in the bottom economic decile live longer lives and do so with more comfort and convenience than even the wealthiest and most powerful people of 100 years ago. Not even the infamous robber barons, such as Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, with all their staggering wealth, had access to anything approaching modern health care (and dentistry!); air-conditioned comfort; television, instant communication across the planet via text, voice, and video; computers, let alone supercomputers in their pockets giving them the internet, Google, GPS, and approximately free and instant access to the world’s information.

Yes, there is still much work to be done to improve the United States, but I’d rather be poor in the United States today than wealthy in the United States 100 years ago. I suspect that most educated people would choose likewise.