As life expectancy has risen by 80 percent since 1900, we have traded tuberculosis, typhoid, polio, and strep infections for diseases of the elderly. By contrast, New Years Day 2000 finds us celebrating the longest peacetime economic expansion in history. Unemployment is at a 30-year low, and corporate profits and real wage gains are occurring simultaneously, due largely to technology and increased productivity. What's more, these gains have been spread across all income levels. Even those in the lowest income levels today have a standard of living that exceeds most Americans at the beginning of the century.
Some challenges already are clear.
Many of today's unemployed find themselves short on skills and knowledge. Assuring health care for all and social security for our aging population has the potential of pitting young against old. Its impact on our labor markets and practices is inescapable. Despite the lessons of history, protectionism and economic isolation are once again being touted as a means of dealing with global realities. As the Russian Federation after a-70 year failed experiment demonstrates, a nation cannot wall out the world.