America's reputation for quality of life falters...
It was hard enough to wake up today to the news about the American public not being told the whole truth and nothing but the truth about the coronavirus. But then to read that the U.S. quality of life is failing us too was almost too much.
Nicholas Kristof wrote in The New York Times about the latest 2020 figures from The Social Progress Index, a vast comprehensive measure of genuine quality of life, independent of economic indicators. The Index is based on the experience of more than 7 billion people across 163 countries collected over the past 10 years. It is based on 50 metrics of well-being — nutrition, safety, freedom, the environment, health, education and more — and essentially rolls up to report on which countries are thriving for its populations and why. Using over 80,000 data points, Norway comes out on top in 2020, followed by Denmark, Finland and New Zealand.
America’s quality of life reputation is declining quickly and is in marked contrast to what we like to think about ourselves. The United States, Brazil and Hungary are the only ones (out of 163 countries!) in which people are worse off than when the index began in 2011. In fact, the US is #28, having dropped from #19 in 2011. To put it in perspective, Kristof writes: “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. The Social Progress Index finds that Americans have health statistics similar to those of people in Chile, Jordan and Albania, while kids in the United States get an education roughly on par with what children get in Uzbekistan and Mongolia.” And it goes on from there. This stings.
The Index allows you to look at the individual states in the U.S. and how they fare. The picture is not pretty in terms of our reputation for living well and living up to our potential. To be perfectly blunt, the U.S. is not working for millions of Americans. As the head of this Index Michael Green says, “The United States’ failure to improve quality of life for its people has far-reaching effects. We see it in a 20-year decline in competitiveness; rising discontent and a sense of unequal opportunity; divisive politics, as citizens turn on fellow citizens; and declining participation and trust in democracy.” Yep.
Where the U.S. does the worst nationwide was on Access to Advanced Education and Health and Wellness. We do not have healthy citizens and we do not provide decent educational opportunities for all Americans. If this is not a referendum for the election, not sure what else is.
Americans need to wise up to how we no longer hold the reputation for being the greatest country on this earth. We have plenty of work to do to shore up our reputation and provide for our citizens, all citizens that is. I have been reading about how America’s reputation has been declining over the past few years but this report deserves greater attention and serious inquiry. These findings make it clear that people are mightily struggling despite us being one of the richest countries on earth.