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It is popular to say that America is in decline. American decline is an accepted premise on both the Left and parts of the Right. While the Left celebrates American decline because, for them, it is the decline of an oppressive imperialist power, the doomer Right claims it can reverse it with ideas that would actually bring it about, such as tariffs, overregulating technological innovation, or reducing population growth from legal immigration. But both sides get the facts wrong: America is not in decline; it is beginning a century of dominance. While there are grave threats ahead, America can and should remain the world’s top superpower simply by staying on its current path.
Last year, America produced 26% of the world’s total production of goods and services despite Americans representing barely over 4% of the world’s population. This share is higher than it was back in 1980 — before the China boom and the liberation of Eastern Europe from socialism — when Americans represented over 5% of the world’s population. In other words, while in 1980 the average American produced six times as much as the average citizen of the rest of the planet, in 2025 the average American produced eight times as much.
In fact, the ratio of American productivity to that of the rest of the world hasn’t varied much since the 1960s. While at the end of World War II the United States was much more productive than the destroyed European and Asian nations, only during the stagflation of the 1970s and the Great Recession did U.S.-to-world production per working-age person dip below a 6-to-1 ratio. During the Reagan years and the internet boom, American workers reached new heights relative to the rest of the world, becoming over eight times as productive. The only other period in recent history when America’s lead over the planet matched today’s was the peak of the dot-com boom and the booming Reagan economy.
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Relative to China, the U.S. is also getting richer. The ratio of American to Chinese working-age productivity bottomed out during the COVID-19 pandemic and has since rebounded from under 6-to-1 to 7-to-1.
But even if China’s productivity begins catching up with America’s and returns to its all-time record over the coming decades, its ongoing demographic collapse will continue to shrink its share of the world economy.
By the end of the 21st century, China’s working-age population is projected to shrink by over 70%, while America’s is expected to remain stable. Due to demographic decline, even if China’s GDP per worker rises back to its record relative to America’s, its share of world GDP will decline from 16% today to 5% by the end of the century while America’s will remain stable at around a quarter. Even if, by a miracle, the Chinese manage to catch up to half of American productivity rather than the current 14%, its share of the world economy will still decline. In other words, China is doomed thanks to America’s productivity and demographic advantages.
Critics of these facts may say that focusing on gross domestic product is akin to worship of a statistic, and that what really matters is the standard of living of the average person. But by that measure, America is also improving. The median American family earns nearly 50% more today than it did in the mid-1980s, and what Americans earn eclipses what the citizens of any other nation earn for the same work. In terms of price-adjusted income after taxes and transfers, the American household has a disposable income 39% greater than that of the average German household, 68% greater than the British, 81% greater than the Canadian, 86% greater than the Swedish, and more than twice that of the Japanese.
America is succeeding, but success isn’t guaranteed. The doomers are wrong that American decline is a fact — but decline is possible, and the doomers themselves push the policies that would make it happen. Only Washington can force America into economic and social decline.
The first great risk America faces is strangling artificial intelligence (AI) before it makes America richer and technologically dominant. The AI buildout is now the single largest engine of American growth and job creation: data center investment is approaching 3% of GDP, more than twice what telecommunications investment was during the internet boom. The United States also has more data centers than all other major countries combined, meaning that America, not China, will own and control the data.
Yet a horseshoe coalition of leftists and populists now campaigns to stop data center construction and overregulate AI — exactly the outcome the Chinese Communist Party wants. Every blocked data center is a gift to Beijing and lost tax revenue for local and federal governments, which means a stronger China and higher future taxes for all of us.
The second and related risk is shutting the door on high-skilled legal immigration. America’s main advantage over China rests on both innovation and demographics, both driven by immigration. Without net migration, the Census Bureau projects that the American working-age population will shrink like China’s rather than remain stable. Furthermore, college-educated immigrants are founding and powering the tech startups that are growing the economy, creating new products, lowering production costs through innovation, and hiring thousands of other Americans. Ending employment-based immigration would mean voluntarily following China’s fatal demographic path.
Finally, America will decline if Washington continues in fiscal denial. The federal deficit is on track to hit $2 trillion this year, national debt just hit $40 trillion, over 120% of GDP, and interest alone now costs more than Medicare, Medicaid, or the Pentagon. If Washington does not cut both fraudulent spending and entitlement growth, interest rates will keep rising, making homes harder to afford and fewer investments viable.
Despite what the doomers and demagogues tell you, America is not in decline; it is beginning a century of greater dominance than ever. But decline is a policy choice, so let’s pray that our leaders let builders build, keep the door open to the smart and talented from around the world, and put the fiscal house in order so the doomers are proven wrong.
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Daniel Di Martino (@DanielDiMartino) is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and an economist.
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