When Rutgers and Princeton played the first intercollegiate football game in 1869, it is doubtful any person alive could have foreseen the impact football would have on twenty-first-century American life. From the weekly money and passion fans pour into their favorite teams, to the media hype and parties linked to season-ending bowl games, football is truly big business, both in college and in the pros. And how the game has changed!
By the turn of the twentieth century, some of the land-grant colleges of the Midwest were also fielding teams, one of the earliest being the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW). The Badgers, as they are popularly called today, enjoy a long-standing sports tradition, and thereby provide some historically interesting facts. As shown in Figure 1.1 on page 2, in 1902, UW’s football team was made up of players whose average size was 173 pounds. Most of the athletes played “both sides of the ball,” on offense as well as defense, and substitutions were infrequent. Economists today would say they were short on specialization. By 1929, the average size had increased modestly to 188 pounds, and players were increasingly, though not yet exclusively, specializing on offense or defense. By 2012, the average weight of Wisconsin football players was 237 pounds, and players routinely specialized not just on defense or offense, but by particular positions and by special teams, and sometimes by types of formations. Even more dramatic size changes are revealed by comparing the weight of the five largest players. UW’s five biggest players in 1902 averaged 184 pounds, hardly more than the average weight of the whole team. As shown in Figure 1.2 on page 2, in 1929 the five biggest players averaged 199 pounds. By 2012, the five largest offensive players averaged 333 pounds, more than a 60 percent jump over 1929.
UW alumni and students have also been big-time basketball enthusiasts, favoring players with speed, shooting and jumping skills, and height. In 1939, the Badgers’ starting five had a considerable range of heights by position just as they do today. Figure 1.3 on page 3 conveys not only the consistent differences among guards, forwards, and centers, but also the dramatic gains in height by players at every position taking the court today. The 2012 guards were taller than the 1939 forwards. Indeed, one of the 2012 guards was taller than the 1939 center. Such dramatic height gains are partly a result of the growing college entrance opportunities that exceptionally talented players enjoy today compared with young players long ago. But the height gains also reflect more general increases in average heights for the U. S. population overall, and these gains in turn indicate improvements in diet and health.
Changes in average height tell us quite a lot about a society; nations whose people are becoming taller—as they have in Japan over the last 50 years—are becoming richer and eating better. Because of genetic differences among individuals, an individual woman who is short cannot be considered to be poor. Such a conclusion would not be unreasonable, however, especially along with other evidence, for a society of short people.
Heights reflect the accumulative past nutritional experience during the growing years, the disease environment, health care, as well as genetic factors (which change very slowly). Americans are the heaviest people in the world; the Germans are second. Dutchmen are the world’s tallest, with male adults averaging 6 feet 1 inches. Americans today, with adult males averaging 5 feet 10 inches and 172 pounds, are nearly 2 inches taller than their grandparents. The average height gain of Americans during the twentieth century was a little more than 3 inches. We are richer and eat more and better than Americans did 100 years ago, sometimes to excess, with a third of the population currently measured as obese or overweight.
Another, and arguably even better measure of a society’s vitality and well-being is the length of life of its citizens. Throughout most of history, individuals and societies have fought against early death. The gain in life expectancy at birth from the low 20s to nearly 30 by around 1750 took thousands of years. Since then, life expectancy in advanced countries has jumped to 75 years, or 150 percent, and in 2010 in the United States it was 79 years. This phenomenal change is not merely a reflection of decline in infant mortality; as Table 1.1 shows for the United States, the advances in length of life are spread across all age groups. As a consequence, in 2012, 314 million people were living in the United States, up from 76 million in 1900.
Sources: Data for 1901, U. S. Department of Commerce 1921, 52-53; and data for 1940-1996, National Center for Health Statistics, selected years, Www. cdc. gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsrS0/nvsrS0-04.pdf to see National Vital Statistics Reports, vol.60, no.4, Table 6, 2010.
The gains in population size and in length of life stem primarily from economic growth, because such growth leads to better diets and cleaner water, to sewage disposal, and other health-enhancing changes. The broadest and most commonly used measures of overall economic performance are the levels and the rise in real gross domestic product (GDP). The U. S. real GDP increased from $0.5 trillion in 1900 to more than $13.3 trillion in 2011, measured in constant real purchasing power of 2005 dollars. When divided by the population, GDP per capita averaged $5,557 (in 2005 constant dollars) in 1900. In 2011 it was $42,671, almost eight times higher. Average yearly increases of 2 percent, which for any given year appear small, have compounded year after year to realize this advance.
These gains have not been exclusive to the few, the middle class, or the very rich. Individuals and households the government classifies “officially poor” have incomes surpassing those of average Americans in 1950 and all but the richest (top 5 percent) in 1900. The poverty income level in the United States, about one-fourth the U. S. average, is far higher than average per capita incomes in most of the rest of the world. To show how widespread the gains from economic growth have been, Figure 1.4 lists items owned or used by average households in the United States in 1950 compared to below
FIGURE 1.4
Ownership by Poor Households (2001) vs. Ownership by All U. S Households (1950)
Percentage of Households
Source: US Census Bureau.
Poverty-threshold Americans in the last decade. Figure 1.5 further reveals the many amenities used by households labeled poor. Air-conditioned homes with electricity, a refrigerator, a flush toilet, television, and telephones are common among Americans, rich and poor. Indeed, the substantial gap among income classes as measured by income or wealth becomes much narrower when measured by basic categories: food, housing, and items and services for comfort and entertainment. In the United States there are more radios owned than ears to listen to them.
Despite gains for people labeled “poor” in the United States, the gap between the rich and the poor remains wide. This gap is an important element in drawing conclusions about the success or failure of an economic system. It bears on the cohesion, welfare, and security of a society. A useful starting point from which to consider this issue is to view a snapshot of the division of income in the United States. Figure 1.6 shows this distribution in fifths for all U. S. households for 2010. As in other years, a large gap existed between the top fifth and the bottom fifth. In fact, the richest fifth of the population received half the income (50.2 percent), about the amount the remaining four-fifths received. The poorest fifth U. S. households received only 3.3 percent of total income in 2010 (not including food stamps, assisted housing, Medicaid, and other such assistance).
The household quintile shares (bottom to top) for 1947, were 5.0, 11.9, 17.0, 23.1, and 43.0; and for 1977:4.1,9.0,14.7,24.0, and 48.2. Such distribution changes, including the 2010 figures, appear rather modest, albeit rising in recent decades as many observers emphasize.
The important question, however, is whether the people in the bottom fifth in one period were also in that category decades later. If all of the people in the top category in 1975 had switched places by 2010 with all the people in the bottom category (the bottom fifth rising to the top fifth by 2010), no change would be observed in the data shown in these measures. But surely such a switch would be considered a huge change in the distribution of income among people.
The American Income Pie by Fifths, 2010
Source: U. S. Census Bureau. “Share of Aggregate Income Received by Each Fifth and Top 5 Percent of Households, All Races: 1967 to 2007” (Www. census. gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/h02AR. html).
to the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Economic Mobility Project (2012) data extending back in time from 2009 show the degrees of change in family income between generations. Figure 1.7 shows the percentage gains of current Americans over their parent’s family income: 84 percent for all adult children; those raised in the top quintile gained 70 percent over their “rich” parents; those in the bottom gained 93 percent. Figure 1.8 shows the mobility into different quintiles. Forty-three percent in the bottom quintile stayed there, but 57 percent moved into higher quintiles, albeit only 4 percent into the top fifth of those raised in the top quintile, 40 percent stayed there, and 8 percent of this wealthy group fell to the bottom quintile by adulthood. Clearly, this is considerable mobility both ways.
FIGURE 1.7
The percentage gains of current Americans over their parent's family
Income
All Adult Children Raised in Top Quintile Raised in Fourth Quintile Raised in Middle Quintile Raised in Second Quintile Raised in Bottom Quintile
Percent with Family Income above their Parents, by Parents’ Quintile
The mobility into different quintiles
Percent with Higher Family Income than their Parents Note: Income is adjusted for family size.
Chances of Moving Up or Down the Family Income Ladder, by Parents’ Quintile
100% n
5 - 40% h
Another perspective on the economic gains that Americans experienced during the twentieth century comes from looking at the availability, ownership, and use of new goods. Figure 1.9 shows a virtual explosion in the array of goods routinely owned and used in U. S. homes. Most of the items shown were not even available to the richest Americans alive in 1901.
World History
