LOOKING ON THE BRIGHT SIDE: Despite dour campaigns, American life is getting better.

To provide a much-needed injection of good news, HumanProgress, a project of the libertarian Cato Institute, launched “Your Life in Numbers.”

The website is fairly simple. You enter your country and year of birth and it tells you how much six important ways life in that country has changed since your birth.

For example, I plugged in my birth year and found that life expectancy in the United States improved by 5 percent since I was born. Income per person is up 45 percent. Average years of schooling is up 7 percent. Infant survival is up by 38 percent.

The median age in the U.S. now is 38. Since someone born in 1978 in the U.S. entered the world, income per person is up 81 percent, infant survival is up 59 percent and life expectancy is up 8 percent. Food supply per person is up 15 percent and average years of schooling are up 12 percent.

I just want to ensure these trends continue.