The folks over at Human Progress have rolled out a neat project to measure the improvement of the human condition. You can check it out at yourlifeinnumbers.org. Just plug in your country and birth year and the website will tell you how much things have improved since the year you were born.
Spoiler alert: Everything is better.
In just 25 short years, the United States has seen a 45% increase in income per person, a 38% increase in the infant survival rate, and a 5% increase in the average life expectancy. This is a huge victory and one we should be grateful for. There has literally never been a better time to be alive.
But that’s not all. This tool also gives you the ability to compare the results between countries. While the improvements in the US are definitely encouraging, greater gains have been felt in relatively poorer countries. Just look at the comparison below between the U.S. and Cambodia. On the whole, relatively poorer countries have experienced, and likely will continue to experience, larger gains than relatively wealthier ones.

This is a big reason to be optimistic about the future. Every day, more and more people are lifted out of extreme poverty. Fewer people today live on the equivalent of $3 a day than ever before. Life expectancy, education, representative government, food supply, income and infant survival are all on the rise in virtually every part of the world.