The lessons from America’s astonishing economic record

If there is one thing that Americans of all political stripes can agree on, it is that the economy is broken. Donald Trump, who saw trade as a rip-off and his country in decline, came into office promising to make America great again. President Joe Biden is spending $2trn , hoping to build it back better. . Nearly four-fifths tell pollsters that their children will be worse off than they are, the most since the survey began in 1990, when only about two-fifths were as gloomy. The last time so many thought the economy was in such terrible shape, it was in the throes of the global financial crisis.Yet the anxiety obscures a stunning success story—. America remains the world’s richest, most productive and most innovative big . By an impressive number of measures, it is leaving its peers ever further in the dust.