The happy people at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington, D.C., last year issued a book of lists that shows just how good you have it. There’s no better time, at the end of the difficult, at times tragic year of 2001, for just such a list. “It’s Getting

Better All the Time,” is a 265-page compendium of what authors Stephen Moore and Julian L. Simon call the greatest trends of the last 100 years.

So, for those looking for reasons to celebrate New Year’s Eve, here are 15:

. The childhood death rate from pneumonia and influenza has fallen 93 percent since 1900.

. Americans devoted almost half of their incomes to food in 1900; today, that number is 10 percent.

. About 40 percent of American adults had high school diplomas in 1940, today 90 percent do.

. Adjusting for inflation, the median family income in America has more than doubled since 1950.

. The accidental death rate on the job has plummeted from about 38 per 100,000 workers in 1930 to 4 per 100,000 now.

. A half-century ago, 40 percent of American children lived in poverty. Now 20 percent do.

. The United States feeds three times as many people with one-third as many farmers on one-third less farmland than in 1900.

. A recent congressional study points out that 100 years ago Americans spent about two-thirds of their budgets for necessities, but now spend just over one-third of their budgets for food, shelter and clothing.

. In 1900, about 50 percent of Americans owned their own homes; now more than two-thirds do. And the number of families in housing with more than three persons per bedroom has fallen from one in five a century ago to one in 20 today.

. The price of a unit of light has fallen during the century from 40 cents per 1,000 lumen hours to less than one-tenth of a cent today. Over the last 100 years, the nation has gone from 2 percent of homes having electricity to more than 99 percent.

. In the last 25 years, all six major air pollutants have decreased significantly.

. Real per capita donations to charity by Americans rose from about $250 in 1955 to $550 by 1996.

. Between 1972 and 1997, the number of women-owned businesses increased from 1 million to 8.5 million.

. In 1950 more than one-third of the world’s population lived under Marxist-Leninist regimes compared with 2 percent to 3 percent today.

. In 1900, the average work week was 60 hours; since about 1950 the average work week has been almost unchanged at 40 hours long, which helps explain why you may have time to read this and time to enjoy New Year’s Day.