That was no Golden Age. They do not exist. We had other problems, we also had some of those same problems.
I can't comment on internal American problems, but some on your list are universal and with one exception it is these universal ones I will answer.
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Racism and political or religious extreme "isms" were as rife in the past as they are now; if not more so in some ways. The USA had by then ended the near-apartheid of some States; but the year 2000 was not very long after the old Boer-led, apartheid regime of South Africa been toppled to world-wide acclaim. Not long too, after the end of the USSR - now of course being replaced in the World Domination Stakes by China, albeit in more subtle ways.
We have always been prone to epidemics, occasionally major pandemics, some from Corona virus-species that like Covid-19, had originated in animals. A medical-lecturer friend has told me the haemorrhagic diseases like Ebola would have been far, far more devastating even than Covid-19 is proving, had they managed to escape around the world.
Food-poisoning from Salmonella and similar organisms was very common; usually due to poor hygiene and risk-taking. The most common causes were poor kitchen hygiene at home; and food left out for some hours in warm situations, such as buffet meals at large social gatherings.
Child abuse and trafficking were very common and twenty years the world was already realising it had been going on for decades, indeed centuries, but largely hidden from view. This was both in family homes and in institutions run by major religious authorities. Indeed, the latter seemed the worse; and the more assiduous at covering their tracks.
Similarly, so was domestic abuse generally, and it is only a few years ago that the offence of "coercive and controlling behaviour" became part of UK law. This covers mental, social and financial control, not just physical assault.
You cite abortion. Well, you may not like it but it has always happened and except where made legal so it could be controlled properly, was under-cover, under very poor medical and hygiene standards very dangerous for the desperate patients.
What of Female Genital Mutilation? I would prefer the adjective dropped - leaving it just "Genital Mutilation", of either sex. Now illegal at least in the UK though extremely difficult to enforce; and I think we have only recently seen the first successful prosecutions thirty - not your twenty - years after the law was passed. These are ancient practices, but only recently became widely known of.
Industrial diseases were a lot more common than now, not because industry has shrunk since but because we now know a lot more about harmful substances, so have instituted regulations to control the hazards hence reduce the risks. For example, that era saw a big rise in reported cases of lung-cancer, not just from tobacco already known as the most common cause, but also cases from past exposure at work to fibrous asbestos.
Similarly, it was only really in the last few decades we started to act on reducing the environmental damage we are doing to the world around us - but the problems were beginning to be recognised much earlier.
So was it really better two decades ago?
No.
If Humanity excels at anything, it is at being fractious, muddle-headed and self-destructive.
If Nature excels at anything, it is keeping Humanity in its place.
'Twere ever thus, I am afraid....
