Are Things Better Today Than 40 or 50 Years Ago?

I'm going to presume that most of us on this site are over 50 years of age, so we've been around and have observed atleast 2 if not many more generations in order to make a comparison.

How many of you think the OVER ALL financial and social conditions in the United States....especially for AfroAmericans...are better today than they were in the 70s or 80s?

Whether you say yes or no, please state your reasons..............


I'll go first by honestly saying: I'm not sure.

Houses and cars are nicer today than they were 40 years ago.......but homelessness itself seems to have increased.
I'm not sure if homelessness has increased relative to the size of the population or if the actual percentage itself has increased since the 70s or 80s.
However I believe the percentage of homelessness indeed HAS increased.

I think jobs are more plentiful today than they were back in the day, but the relative wages aren't paying the same.
It's harder for the "average" person without a college degree to make a decent independent living today than back 40 or 50 years ago.

I think dating and finding intimate relationships is either harder or trickier today than 30 or 40 years ago.
I'm not determining this based on myself, but based on a lot of the younger men and women I'm seeing and hearing and the problems they are experiencing.
A lot more people are dealing with personal trauma, baggage, and even psychiatric issues like autism and ADHD than back in the day.
While social media has made it easier for those who ARE attractive to hook up with eachother, it seems as if there are a lot more people with "weird" problems....both men and women....that take them out of the sex/dating pool all together.


I also believe that incarceration is far higher today than it was 40 or 50 years ago.
Even much higher than the 90s during the so-called Clinton Crime Bill era that has received so much notoriety.
Even in the 90s you didn't see or hear about so many private prisons as you do now.
Again, I'm not sure if the increase in incarceration is due to the increase in population....or if the percentage has risen.