The State of the United States of America — And What Comes Next
By Granite State Report
1. The Mood of the Nation: Strange, Anxious, and Still Very American
The United States in the mid-2020s is a paradox machine.
Economically, it remains the world’s largest economy in nominal terms, with solid long-run growth prospects and unmatched technological capacity. Yet households are squeezed by housing costs, medical bills, and a constant sense that the ladder is missing a few rungs. Congressional Budget Office (CBO) forecasts project modest real GDP growth through 2027, with slightly higher-than-previously-expected unemployment and inflation — not a crisis, but not a boom either. (Congressional Budget Office)
Politically, Americans are more polarized than at any time in recent memory. Eight in ten adults say Republican and Democratic voters not only disagree on policies, but “cannot agree on basic facts.” (Pew Research Center) International data show the U.S. among the most politically polarized democracies in the world. (Our World in Data)
Culturally, national pride is slipping. Gallup polling finds only 58% of U.S. adults now say they are “extremely” or “very” proud to be American — the lowest in more than two decades — with a yawning 56-point gap between Republicans and Democrats on this question. (AP News)
At the same time, the country is undergoing a demographic and technological transformation: it is becoming older, more racially and ethnically diverse, more urban-suburban, and more wired, with artificial intelligence (AI) and automation reshaping work faster than most institutions can adapt. (Census.gov)
The future of the United States will be decided at the collision point of four big forces:
- Polarization and the health of democracy
- Economic restructuring and inequality
- Demographic change and social identity
- Climate disruption and technological acceleration
None of these forces guarantees collapse. None guarantees renewal. The story from here is contingent — on choices made by elected officials, institutions, communities, and everyday citizens who still have to go to work on Monday.
2. Democracy on the Edge: Polarization, Distrust, and the Rules of the Game
A Statista chart comparing polarization scores across democracies, highlighting the United States as among the most polarized. (Our World in Data)
2.1 Polarization as a way of life
Research from Pew and other institutions shows a decades-long trend: Americans increasingly cluster at ideological poles, and fewer hold a mix of liberal and conservative views. That ideological separation sits on top of a potent cocktail of negative partisanship (hating the other party more than liking your own), media echo chambers, and social sorting by neighborhood, church, and workplace.
By 2024, a large share of Americans say they would be unhappy if their child married someone from the other party; politics has become a proxy for moral character and basic identity. Research from V-Dem and Our World in Data scores the U.S. high on “political polarization,” meaning society is divided into hostile camps and cross-ideological interaction is discouraged. (Our World in Data)
Local leaders feel it too. A 2025 CivicPulse/Carnegie survey of local officials found that perceived polarization in their communities remained high even after the 2024 presidential election and subsequent change in administration. (Carnegie Corporation)
2.2 Democracy: threatened, but not yet broken
A 2025 NPR/PBS/Marist poll found roughly three-quarters of Americans believe democracy is under serious threat, largely because of political violence and deepening partisan division. (TIME) The January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol, ongoing challenges to election results, and rising threats against election workers and public officials have all contributed to that sense of fragility.
Yet for all the doom-scrolling, core democratic infrastructure still functions:
- Elections continue to be free and highly competitive.
- Courts still routinely rule against the sitting administration in high-profile cases.
- Civil society — media, universities, advocacy groups — remains noisy, fragmented, and often infuriating, which is another way of saying “alive.”
Scholars like Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, who literally wrote the book How Democracies Die, describe the U.S. as a “stressed but still functioning” democracy: norms are eroding, but institutions have not fully capitulated. (YouTube)
2.3 What the next decade could look like for U.S. democracy
Roughly speaking, three paths are plausible:
- Slow-motion erosion
- Gerrymandering, voter suppression, and minority rule harden.
- Losers increasingly refuse to accept defeat; more elections are contested in courts and streets.
- Political violence, while still rare in absolute terms, becomes a “normal” threat in American politics.
- Institutional renovation
- Bipartisan or cross-party coalitions push for reforms: independent redistricting, ranked-choice or alternative voting methods, stronger protections for election workers, clearer rules for presidential transitions and emergency powers.
- States continue to experiment (as Maine and Alaska have with ranked-choice or similar systems), and some of those changes diffuse nationally.
- Shock-and-reset
- A major crisis — economic, environmental, or security-related — forces a renegotiation of constitutional or electoral rules. That reset could strengthen democracy (e.g., renewed voting protections and representation reforms) or move the system toward managed democracy with fewer constraints on executive power.
The uncomfortable truth: all three can happen at once in different parts of the country. Blue cities, red states, tribal governments, and federal institutions are evolving on different timelines.
3. The Economic Reality: Powerful, Unequal, and Under Strain
3.1 Short-term outlook: muddling through
Economic forecasts from CBO, Deloitte, and other major forecasters paint a picture of modest real GDP growth, stubborn inflation pressures, and some upward drift in unemployment through the mid-2020s. (Congressional Budget Office) This is not the stagflationary nightmare of the 1970s, but it is a world where many households feel permanently on the edge.
Key pressure points:
- Housing: Shortages in high-opportunity metros push prices and rents beyond reach.
- Healthcare: Costs and insurance complexity continue to erode real incomes.
- Student debt and childcare: Two anchors on young and middle-class families.
The macro story is “slow but stable.” The micro story in many households is “one emergency away from disaster.”
3.2 Inequality: the structural fault line
Income and wealth inequality in the U.S. remain among the highest in the developed world. While exact numbers vary by measure, the top 10% hold the majority of wealth, and the top 1% hold a share bigger than the bottom 50% combined. This inequality matters not only for fairness, but for political stability: high inequality correlates with lower social trust and more volatile politics.
Polls on national pride and satisfaction with the country’s direction show a consistent pattern: pride and optimism tend to be higher among older, wealthier, and more conservative Americans, and lower among younger, less affluent, and more progressive Americans. (AP News)
3.3 AI, automation, and the “great reshuffle” of work
Exhibit from McKinsey’s “Generative AI and the future of work in America,” showing occupations most exposed to AI-driven automation. (McKinsey & Company)
Reports from McKinsey, Brookings, RAND, and others converge: AI and automation will not eliminate “all jobs,” but they will change most jobs and force millions of workers to switch occupations by 2030 and beyond. (McKinsey & Company)
Findings from these studies include:
- Up to 30% of tasks in many white-collar jobs (administrative work, basic analysis, customer service) can be automated or accelerated by generative AI.
- The net-zero energy transition and federal infrastructure investment could create millions of jobs in construction, clean energy, and advanced manufacturing. (McKinsey & Company)
- McKinsey estimates an additional 12 million occupational transitions in the U.S. by 2030 due to generative AI alone, on top of existing churn. (McKinsey & Company)
Here’s the catch: the U.S. has no coherent national strategy for managing this transition. Training programs are scattered, community colleges are underfunded, and workers are largely left to figure out reskilling in their spare time.
If this remains true, the economic future looks like:
- Productivity gains concentrated at the top (major firms, superstar workers).
- Widening inequality between regions that harness AI and those that don’t.
- Surges of resentment in communities where traditional work disappears faster than new opportunities appear.
If the country manages to build serious workforce policy — portable benefits, wage insurance, strong public training and apprenticeship pipelines — the same technologies could boost productivity and living standards without tearing communities apart. That is a policy choice, not a law of physics.
4. Demographic Reality: Older, More Diverse, and Less Rural
4.1 A slower-growing, older America
The Census Bureau’s 2023 National Population Projections show U.S. population growth slowing significantly, driven by lower birth rates and, depending on policy, uncertain levels of immigration. (Census.gov) Key trends:
- The U.S. is on track to become a super-aged society by mid-century, with a sharply rising share of people over 65.
- Working-age population growth will be modest, and in some scenarios flat, increasing pressure on Social Security, Medicare, and state budgets.
Aging societies tend to be more risk-averse, more focused on preserving existing systems, and less willing to support ambitious public investments — unless those investments are framed around care, health, and security.
4.2 A “majority-minority” era
Pew Research Center and Census projections point toward a mid-century United States in which no single racial or ethnic group constitutes a majority. (Pew Research Center) Hispanics, Asian Americans, and multiracial Americans will account for an increasing share of the population, especially among younger cohorts and in major metropolitan areas.
This diversity is not evenly distributed:
- Many metropolitan regions are already majority-minority.
- Some rural and exurban regions will remain overwhelmingly White and older.
This creates a political geography where the median national voter and the median local voter can look very different depending on where you stand — fueling cultural conflict over everything from school curricula to holiday displays.
4.3 Immigration: the swing variable
Immigration policy is the wild card in demographic projections. The Census Bureau runs multiple scenarios with different assumed migration levels, because immigration can offset low birth rates and labor shortages. (Census.gov)
High-immigration scenarios:
- More working-age adults to support an aging population
- Faster innovation and entrepreneurship
- Intensified debates over cultural identity, language, and national “story”
Low-immigration scenarios:
- Tighter labor markets and potential wage gains in some sectors
- Greater fiscal stress on entitlement programs
- Slower overall economic growth and less dynamism
Given how central immigration has become to partisan identity, the future of U.S. population dynamics is as much about politics as demography.
5. Climate Change: The Background Threat Becoming Foreground
Screenshot from NOAA’s Climate Explorer showing projected temperature increases across U.S. counties. (Climate.gov)
5.1 Already here, not just “coming soon”
Climate change in the U.S. is no longer a distant scenario for 2100. The Environmental Protection Agency’s 2025 update on climate indicators shows:
- Average U.S. temperatures have risen significantly over the last century, with most warming in recent decades.
- Heat waves, heavy precipitation events, wildfires, and coastal flooding have become more frequent and severe. (EPA)
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that by 2100 there is a 5% chance global temperatures could rise more than 4°C above late-19th-century levels, and a similar chance they could be held below 2°C — a huge range, but both outcomes imply major physical and economic risks for the United States. Sea levels have a 5% chance of rising around 4 feet or more, and an equal chance of 2 feet or less. (Congressional Budget Office)
Smithsonian, PBS, and others highlight six major U.S. impact categories: extreme heat, sea-level rise and coastal erosion, more intense storms, wildfire risk, impacts on agriculture, and stress on water systems. (Smithsonian Magazine)
5.2 Climate as a national security and migration issue
In practice, climate change in the U.S. is going to look like:
- Insurance crises in vulnerable coastal and wildfire-prone regions, with private insurers exiting markets.
- Internal climate migration, as some communities become simply too risky or expensive to inhabit in their current form.
- Stress on infrastructure, from power grids to water systems to transportation networks, requiring trillions in adaptation and resilience investment over coming decades.
The future political fights will not just be about emissions targets; they will be about who gets paid to move, who gets protected in place, and which communities are quietly left to absorb the damage.
5.3 The opportunity side
There is also a blunt economic upside: the transition to a low-carbon economy, if handled with even basic competence, is a massive industrial policy project. Clean energy, grid modernization, building retrofits, electric vehicles, advanced transmission, and climate-resilient agriculture all require legions of workers and new firms.
This transition could either:
- Deepen existing regional divides (coastal, tech-heavy states surge ahead; others fall behind), or
- Spread opportunity more evenly through deliberate policy: siting new manufacturing in struggling regions, tying incentives to local hiring, and aligning community colleges and unions with climate-related skill pipelines.
Again, nothing about this is automatic. The physics of climate change are inevitable; the political economy of climate solutions is not.
6. Culture, Identity, and the Social Fabric
6.1 Declining trust, rising fragmentation
Trust in institutions — Congress, media, big business, even churches — has fallen. Research from the American Academy of Arts & Sciences documents a partisan polarization of trust itself: Republicans and Democrats trust different institutions and sources of information, including media, universities, and science.
Add in social media’s incentive structure — outrage and identity affirmation outperform nuance by a mile — and you get an information environment optimized for performative conflict and status games, not problem-solving.
The result:
- People increasingly inhabit different reality tunnels.
- Conspiracy thinking, once fringe, leaks into mainstream discourse.
- Shared narratives about what America is fracture into a dozen competing mythologies.
6.2 Generational fracture
Younger Americans grew up with:
- 9/11, endless war, and the Great Recession
- Mass shootings as a routine part of school life
- Climate anxiety as a baseline emotion
- Social media as the default public square
Their political and social instincts differ sharply from older generations. Surveys show that Gen Z and young Millennials are less likely to express strong national pride and more skeptical that the system works for them. (AP News)
Older Americans, meanwhile, often feel bewildered by rapid cultural change on issues of gender, race, and identity, and by the speed at which social norms have shifted around language, humor, and historical interpretation.
The American social contract is being renegotiated, not via a constitutional convention, but via millions of small conflicts in workplaces, schools, online platforms, and families.
7. Three Futures for the United States
Forecasting a country as large and chaotic as the U.S. is a bit like forecasting the behavior of a thunderstorm from a single raindrop. Still, based on current trends and comparative political research, three broad future archetypes are worth sketching. None will materialize in pure form; bits of each will likely show up in different places and sectors.
Future A: “High-Tech, Low-Trust America”
- Economy: AI and automation deliver strong productivity growth; big firms and well-educated workers benefit disproportionately.
- Society: Inequality widens; regions that miss the AI/clean-tech wave stagnate. Housing and healthcare remain expensive, limiting mobility.
- Politics: Polarization hardens, but outright democratic breakdown is avoided. Politics becomes a permanent zero-sum media spectacle; real decisions increasingly shift to courts, executive agencies, and corporate boardrooms.
- Climate: Adaptation is uneven; wealthy communities fortify themselves, while poorer and rural areas absorb heavier losses.
Think of this as the “Brazil-ification” scenario: a dynamic, innovative economy overlaid with entrenched inequality and chronic low-grade political crisis.
Future B: “Fragmented Federalism”
- Economy: Subnational clustering intensifies — high-growth tech and climate-economy hubs in some states, deindustrialization and depopulation in others.
- Society: States diverge sharply on abortion, voting rules, education content, gun laws, and social policy. Crossing state lines increasingly feels like changing countries.
- Politics: National politics remains paralyzed; real experimentation happens at state and local levels. Some states move toward multi-party or ranked-choice systems; others double down on winner-take-all majoritarianism.
- Climate: Climate adaptation and mitigation policy vary wildly; some states aggressively decarbonize and harden infrastructure, others delay and pay.
This scenario doesn’t end the U.S. as a sovereign state, but it does push the real action down to states and metros. The phrase “United States” becomes more descriptive than literal.
Future C: “Messy Renewal”
- Economy: The country finally invests heavily in human capital — public higher education, apprenticeships, career-long training — and treats AI as a complement to workers, not just a cost-cutter. Wage growth improves for the bottom half of the distribution. (Brookings)
- Society: Reforms to housing, healthcare, and childcare reduce basic economic insecurity. That doesn’t end culture wars, but it takes some gasoline out of the fire.
- Politics: Electoral and institutional reforms — from independent redistricting to alternative vote systems to stronger guardrails around election administration — slowly reduce the power of extremists.
- Climate: A combination of federal and state action accelerates decarbonization, while big investments in resilience reduce economic losses from climate shocks.
“Messy renewal” isn’t utopia. It still involves partisan brawls, policy failures, and the usual American chaos. The difference is direction: institutions gradually become more capable of absorbing shocks and solving problems in public view, which can slowly rebuild trust.
The brutal part: this better future is not guaranteed by trends; it requires deliberate, often unglamorous work by legislators, local officials, unions, business leaders, and civic organizations. It’s the most plausible “good news” path, but it is also the least automatic.
8. What Actually Matters From Here
The state of the United States is not a single number or slogan; it is a running argument between three stories:
- “The system is rigged and failing” – expressed in populism, street protests, and disengagement.
- “The system is fundamentally sound but mismanaged” – the technocratic instinct to tweak policy knobs and restore a lost normal.
- “The system is evolving into something new” – a recognition that technological, demographic, and climate shifts are rewriting the rules whether we like it or not.
Which story dominates will shape not only elections, but the texture of daily life: whether schools feel like battlegrounds, whether local news survives, whether AI tools feel like empowerment or surveillance.
Over the next two decades, several leverage points will matter disproportionally:
- Election and representation rules: how districts are drawn, how votes are counted, what barriers exist to participation.
- Information ecosystems: whether high-quality local and national journalism can remain financially viable in the age of platform monopolies and generative content.
- Workforce and education systems: whether the country builds serious, large-scale pathways for reskilling and upward mobility in an AI-heavy economy. (McKinsey & Company)
- Climate adaptation and migration policy: who gets help to move, who gets help to rebuild, and who gets left behind as climate impacts intensify. (Congressional Budget Office)
The stakes are high, but the narrative of inevitable decline is as simplistic as the old narrative of inevitable progress. The United States has repeatedly reinvented itself under pressure — Reconstruction, the Progressive Era, the New Deal, the civil rights era. Each reinvention was partial, unequal, and morally compromised. But they changed the trajectory.
The current moment has that same feel: brittle institutions, rising conflict, technological upheaval, and a dawning realization that the old operating system is glitching.
The future isn’t prewritten. It’s going to be determined the old-fashioned way: by who shows up, what they demand, and which institutions prove capable of evolving rather than collapsing.
9. Suggested Videos for Readers Who Want to Go Deeper
These are not endorsements, but useful starting points across different perspectives:
- On American democracy and polarization
- The State of American Democracy | Levitsky, Przeworski, Stokes & Ziblatt — The Civic Forum discussion with leading scholars of democratic erosion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUE2rSBr9Yc (YouTube)
- The State of American Democracy | Levitsky, Przeworski, Stokes & Ziblatt — The Civic Forum discussion with leading scholars of democratic erosion.
- Heather Cox Richardson | Democracy Awakening — Historical perspective on how U.S. democracy got here and what renewal might look like.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5MI5VkcoAk (YouTube)
- The State of American Democracy (various expert panels)
- Harvard Ash Center’s The Breakdown webinar series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqoSPLEK2Mg (YouTube)
- On AI and the future of work in America
- AI and the Future of Work in America — A range of explainers and panel discussions, including:
- News analysis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd8MOWH1OHc (YouTube)
- On climate change in the United States
- Climate Change in the United States – 1895/2021 — Visualization of U.S. temperature anomalies over time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHV6745gt10 (YouTube)
- Climate Change in the United States – 1895/2021 — Visualization of U.S. temperature anomalies over time.
- PBS NOVA’s coverage of climate impacts and adaptation in America:
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/major-effects-climate-change-america/ (PBS)
These videos pair well with written reports from institutions like the Congressional Budget Office, EPA, Pew Research Center, Brookings, RAND, and McKinsey, which provide much of the data summarized here. (Congressional Budget Office)
10. References and Further Reading
Economy & Future of Work
- Congressional Budget Office. CBO’s Current View of the Economy from 2025 to 2027. (Congressional Budget Office)
- Federal Reserve. Summary of Economic Projections – September 17, 2025 FOMC Meeting. (Federal Reserve)
- Deloitte. US Economic Forecast Q3 2025. (Deloitte)
- EY. US Economic Outlook – September 2025. (EY)
- McKinsey Global Institute. Generative AI and the Future of Work in America. (McKinsey & Company)
- Brookings. Generative AI, the American Worker, and the Future of Work. (Brookings)
- RAND. AI and the Future of Work. (RAND Corporation)
Democracy & Polarization
- Pew Research Center. Political Polarization topic hub. (Pew Research Center)
- Carnegie Corporation / CivicPulse. Perceptions of Political Polarization at the Community Level after the 2024 Election. (Carnegie Corporation)
- Our World in Data / V-Dem. Political Polarization Score, 2024. (Our World in Data)
- Time / NPR/PBS/Marist poll reporting on U.S. democracy and political violence. (TIME)
- Gallup national pride survey coverage (AP, Washington Post). (AP News)
Demographics
- U.S. Census Bureau. 2023 National Population Projections. (Census.gov)
- Pew Research Center. Demographic Projections series. (Pew Research Center)
- Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service (UVA). National 50-State Population Projections: 2030, 2040, 2050. (Cooper Center)
Climate
- U.S. EPA. Climate Change Indicators in the United States (updated October 2025). (EPA)
- NOAA Climate.gov. Future Climate Projections – Graphs & Maps (Climate Explorer). (Climate.gov)
- Congressional Budget Office. The Risks of Climate Change to the United States in the 21st Century. (Congressional Budget Office)
- Smithsonian Magazine. Six Big Ways Climate Change Could Impact the United States by 2100. (Smithsonian Magazine)
- PBS NOVA. 4 Major Effects of Climate Change in America. (PBS)
Social Trust & Institutions
- American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Distrust, Political Polarization, and America’s Challenged Institutions.
However dark or bright any forecast looks, one thing remains consistent about the United States: it is very hard to bet against 330-plus million people who are simultaneously stubborn, inventive, loud, and constitutionally allergic to being told that the future is already decided. The question is less whether the country can reinvent itself again, and more whether it chooses to do the boring, grinding work required to make that reinvention real.
