It seems, these days, that you can’t turn on the TV or log on to social media without someone griping about how awful things are. They complain about everything, from taxes to avocados to bills to cell signal strength. But the truth of things is a lot rosier than popular media would lead you to believe. Global illiteracy rates are below 14 percent. Global rates of extreme poverty are below 10 percent. Despite there being more people currently alive on the planet than ever before, there are also more calories per capita than ever before. This is not to say that there aren’t improvements to be made or that there aren’t bad things happening, but perhaps bearing these facts in mind might improve our outlook on life. Join Antony Davies and James Harrigan as they talk about thankfulness and more on this week’s episode of Words and Numbers.
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Quick hits
Walmart employs 1% of Americans
The largest employers in each US state
www.businessinsider.com
Walmart Will Let Its 1.4 Million Workers Take Their Pay Before Payday
www.nytimes.com
Nearly every American spent money at Wal-Mart last year
www.cnbc.com
High school reports 100% college placement rate
Teachers Around The Country React To Investigation Into Ballou High School
www.npr.org
What Really Happened At The School Where Every Graduate Got Into College
www.npr.org
Data
How Americans compare with the global middle class
www.pewresearch.org
Real Median Household Income in the United States
fred.stlouisfed.org
What Our Cell Phones Say About Us
abcnews.go.com
USATODAY.com - First cell phone was a true 'brick'
usatoday.com
Real gross domestic product per capita
fred.stlouisfed.org
What Percent Are You?
graphics.wsj.com
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James R. Harrigan
Antony Davies
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Antony Davies
Antony Davies is associate professor of economics at Duquesne University and Chief Academic Officer at FreedomTrust.
He is a member of the FEE Faculty Network.
This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.
