Social Progress Index

I had never heard of it. The operators claim their index is “a comprehensive measure of real quality of life, independent of economic indicators. The Social Progress Index is designed to complement, rather than replace, economic measures such as GDP.” The organization in based in D.C. and has been producing this index since 2011. It looks at 2.4 billion people in more than 45 countries.

It’s goal is to “measure 50 social and environmental indicators to create a clearer picture of what life is really like for everyday people. The index doesn’t measure people’s happiness or life satisfaction, focusing instead on actual life outcomes in areas from shelter and nutrition to rights and education. I found it at Nicholas Kristof’s column in today’s NY Times.

It sounds pretty comprehensive. “We divide these indicators across three broad dimensions of social progress: Basic Human Needs, Foundations of Wellbeing, and Opportunity. Within each dimension, there are four components that further divide the indicators into thematic categories. Our diverse selection of indicators allows for granular analysis of the specific underpinnings of social progress in each country, while the broad categories of the index framework help us to better understand global and regional trends.”

The average score for the three categories are 74.65 in Basic Human Needs, 60.82 on the Foundations of Wellbeing dimension and 57.25 on Opportunity. We are not doing that well. Along with Brazil and Hungary, we are the only ones in which people are worse off than when the index began in 2011. Our ranking in 2011 was 19th, this year it’s 28th. A couple of other findings: The United States ranks No. 1 in the world in quality of universities, but No. 91 in access to quality basic education. The U.S. leads the world in medical technology, yet we are No. 97 in access to quality health care.