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<\/a>The same is true for many human health trends. After a few years of decline, life expectancy in the U.S. is once more on the rise, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0in 2024. The average American now lives to be 77.5, up from 76.4 last year (though still a bit short of the all-time high of 78.8, set in 2019).<\/p>\n The reversal of that downward trend is primarily due to two factors. First, the ebbing of the COVID-19 pandemic, which ended far sooner than it might have thanks to the rapid development of a vaccine. Second, a turning of the tide in the long battle against opioid overdose deaths, which\u00a0declined by 14 percent<\/a>\u00a0between June 2023 and June 2024 relative to the previous 12 months.<\/p>\n Our political and media culture often seems to thrive on negative trends. But one measure of the strength of any society is what happens when things are going in the wrong direction. It requires clear ideas, people unwilling to accept decline with a shrug, and leaders who seek change rather than scoring populist points by blaming others for problems.<\/p>\n Wealth helps a lot too. The fact that so few Americans\u2014about 11 percent<\/a>, according to the Census Bureau\u2014live in poverty means more resources are available for solving other problems, and more people have more time to spend thinking up solutions.<\/p>\n Simply reversing a bad trend is not cause for declaring “mission accomplished.” Much more could be done to alleviate, for example, the opioid crisis\u2014including the legalization of alternative ways to get high. The same is true for violent crime, which is once again falling in most American urban centers but could always be lower.<\/p>\n What will be the next negative trend to get reversed? Perhaps automobile deaths, which have climbed in recent years as Americans have opted for bigger vehicles and more distractions. Cars that do more (or all) of the driving for you will be a revolution for safety. In its latest public report, automated vehicle developer Waymo claims its newest technology\u00a0is 3.5 times better than human drivers at<\/a>\u00a0avoiding accidents in real-world tests. <\/p>\n Disappointments and failures will always remain. Scarcity and death are still with us. But as America enters the second quarter of the 21st century, it is a resilient place where people\u2014and bees\u2014are living better lives.<\/p>\n The post The Media Loves Negative Trends, but America Keeps Moving in the Right Direction<\/a> appeared first on Reason.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Remember the bee apocalypse? The U.S. reversed that trend. What other trends can we reverse? …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":""},"categories":[19,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111460"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111460\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/3rdcitynews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Source:](\"https:\/\/d2eehagpk5cl65.cloudfront.net\/img\/q60\/uploads\/2025\/01\/ideas1.jpg\")
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