Our Place in the World

Regular readers know that I'm especially concerned with the decline of this country over the past several years. The decline is in a number of areas - innovation, educational achievement, health care, economics, competitiveness; the list goes on. So you can appreciate how intrigued I was when I heard of the American Human Development Project. This is a privately funded group that applies some of the methodology used in the development of the UN Human Development Index.

Note the title - human development - not economic development. It's an approach based on the work of the economist and Nobel laureate, Amartya Sen. Briefly, the approach is based on the principle that life is more than making money. Yes, one needs money but the question is what one does with one's money. The approach looks at how well we are educating our children, caring for the sick and weak, how much freedom we have; basically, what kind of life do we lead.

For at least the past twenty-eight years the U.S. has not been the top-ranked country in terms of human development. We were second in the 1980s, dropped to sixth in 1995, ninth in 2000 and twelfth in 2005. We had the highest per-capita income in 2005 but could not do as well in the areas of health and knowledge as those countries above us in the human development index (HDI).

Some disturbing facts with regard to our place in the world:

• We spend more per capita on health care but die at a younger age than most developed countries.
• Our life expectancy is lower than forty-one other nations.
• More of our babies die at birth than thirty-three other countries; we're at the same level as Croatia and Cuba.
• We are no longer tops in math and science education.
• In France and Italy just about every three- and four-year-old goes to pre-school. In Russia, Japan, England, Canada and Germany, 75% do. Here the average is 53%.
• We're #1 in the percentage of kids living in poverty.
• 163 countries mandate paid maternity leave. Our mothers are dependent on the generosity of the employer.
• 145 countries have paid sick leave. We are dependent on the generosity of the employer for paid sick leaves.
• We have the most people in prison; with 5% of the world's population we have 24% of the prisoners.
• We spend more on defense than any other OECD nation.
• Mirder is five times higher in the U.S. than in other OECD nations.
  

And some facts about us:

• A baby born in D.C. is two-and-a-half times more likely to die before reaching one year than a baby born in Vermont.
• 6% of us have severe mental illness.
• 14% can't read the newspaper.
• 22% can't balance a checkbook.
• One in five kids lives in poverty, one in thirteen lives in extreme poverty.
• The value of the minimum wage has decreased by 40% since 1968.
• More families with children are homeless today than at any time since the Depression.
• Until the 1970s .1% of the population was in jail. Now its .7%.

The authors of this report know that we can do better. We all know that we can - and must - do better. Here is their prescription for doing so:

• Promote prevention and public health.
• Make health care affordable to all Americans.
• Modernize K-12 education
• Invest in at risk children as early as possible.
• Strengtheen and support famikies to better balance work and family responsibilities.
• Launch a Marshall Plan for the Gulf states (e.g, Louisiana, Mississippi)
• Take responsibility for our most vulnerable.