Answer:
Some aspects of the average American’s life that reflect the high level of development of the United States are, among many others, the following:
-Access to quality education and education, both because it is provided by the government and because, being private, the population's wages are high enough to access these services.
-Access to high-quality consumer goods: cars, appliances and other artifacts are usually of the latest model or of little age, compared to other countries.
-The high value and stability of the US dollar against other currencies.
-The low rate of poverty and unemployment in the country.
"The second “decline” of the U.S. economy took place in the 1970s and 80s. America’s international economic position fell markedly by the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s. In 1970, the export trade of the six countries of the European Community accounted for 27.6% of the world total, more than doubling that of the United States (13.7%). The figure for Japan was 6.2%. In 1971, the United States suffered from a trade deficit, though the amount was small ($2.2 billion). Shortly, it rose to $6.8 billion in 1972, and since then, it occurred almost every year, which was totally different from what was before the 1970s. The case for Japan was just the opposite. Not only Japan experienced fast increase of its export trade but it also earned a surplus of $300 million in 1965 for the first time since the end of World War II. Its surplus increased annually to reach $5.17 billion in 1972, almost as much as the deficit ($6.8 billion) suffered by the United States in the same year. As regards the world gold reserve, the United States accounted for 29.9% of the total in 1970, which was much less than the European Community (36.9%). The position of the US dollar, though remaining the world’s principal reserve currency and settlement currency, had been clearly weakened, and that of the Deutsche mark and Japanese yen markedly risen. The “dollar shortage” in the initial years after World War II gradually became “dollar oversupply”. This eventually led to the dollar crisis in the early 1970s. In 1971, the United States suspended the exchange of US dollars for gold, and various countries began to implement the floating exchange rate system. The Bretton Woods system centered on gold thus collapsed. This was an important symbol for America’s “decline”."
