America's Golden Age Plan Has a Missing Ingredient: Your Health

By Penn Quarter Partners

The White House's Science: A New Golden Age report lays out six national missions: AI, quantum computing, fusion, space, robotics, semiconductors. It's an ambitious, overdue attempt to give America a coherent technology strategy for the next century.

But it's missing something: your health.

And it disregards the synergistic ecosystem of  basic medical research and industry-led clinical development that's added decades to American lives and trillions to the American economy. Those are missed opportunities — and necessary ones to fix.

The Case, in Numbers

Life sciences innovation has significantly contributed to extending and improving people’s lives and driving economic growth in the U.S. We see and feel the tangible results every day and the impact also is borne out by data.

Between 1970 and 2020, the average American gained six years of life, and between 1969 and 2020, the U.S. death rate dropped 35%. Infant mortality fell from 26 deaths per 1,000 babies in 1960 to under 6 by 2016. Heart disease deaths fell nearly 68% over that stretch. (NIH) The five-year survival rate for all cancers combined reached 70% for people diagnosed during 2015–2021 in the U.S.

The economic value of those extra years of life: roughly $38 trillion a year, adding an estimated $61 trillion to the U.S. economy since 1970.

Every $1 NIH spends generates roughly $2.57 in economic activity, supporting over 400,000 jobs and nearly $95 billion in economic activity in FY2024 in all 50 states. Zoom out further and medical R&D returns are 27-to-1; progress in just four disease areas has delivered an estimated $167.5 trillion in value over 30 years.

Health Innovation Could Be the Reassuring Counterweight to AI Anxiety

A Fox News poll from March 2026 found 66% of voters concerned about AI, up from 56% in 2023. Fifty-nine percent think AI will eliminate more jobs than it creates over the next five years; only 7% think the reverse.

That's an opening. The life sciences sector offers a growth story — a record 2.1 million jobs, with jobs in medical R&D projected to grow nearly 9% over the next decade. As a TEConomy and BIO report illustrates, "the industry's employment multiplier is 4.48, which means that for every one bioscience job an additional 3.48 jobs are supported throughout the rest of the national economy."

Since the beginning of 2025, biopharmaceutical companies have vowed to invest more than $582 billion to strengthen U.S.-based R&D, expand manufacturing, and create jobs across the nation.

Pairing the New Golden Age's AI-forward vision with an equally prominent life science innovation mission would let the administration tell a fuller jobs story: not just what's coming, but how the administration is building on what’s working and where America is leading.

The Real Seventh Mission: American Health Innovation and Prosperity

A healthy population is the foundation everything else in the New Golden Age strategy depends on. A workforce that can't work, learn, or show up doesn't power AI labs, quantum startups, or semiconductor manufacturing. Health and the innovation driving health improvements are infrastructure, just like the power grid or broadband.

We could call the seventh mission American Health Innovation and Prosperity: a commitment to keeping Americans healthy, productive, and economically secure — with life sciences innovation as one of its central engines. That means:

• A healthy, productive workforce: poor health drives absenteeism and rising costs; continued progress protects the labor force the other six missions rely on

• Life sciences as an economic driver: the jobs, exports, and R&D investment already flowing from a $2.57-per-dollar-return sector

• Resilience against the next shock: pandemic preparedness and supply chain security, learned at a $14–16 trillion cost during COVID

• Broad-based opportunity: Life sciences funding reaches all 50 states, giving this mission the broad geographic reach and employment opportunities

This isn't a call to protect the status quo; NIH has real problems worth fixing. But treating health as core infrastructure, with life sciences innovation as a driver of it, gives the New Golden Age strategy a foundation the other six missions can stand on.

The U.S. possesses a life sciences ecosystem that balances government funded basic research and private sector-led clinical development, manufacturing, and scale. These dynamics, made possible by supportive public policies, have enabled life sciences innovation to flourish. Other countries, namely China, are fervently trying to emulate success in the U.S. and capture global life sciences leadership.

Bottom Line

A federal science strategy that added a decade to American lifespans, generated $61 trillion in value, and employs 2.1 million Americans at its peak is more than a footnote — it's a model. Six missions are a strong start. A seventh, built around health as the foundation of American prosperity, would make the strategy complete.