U.S. Trails Other Developed Nations In Social Progress

There's no doubt that the United States is the wealthiest nation in the world, and has been for quite a while now. But while wealth matters, it is not the only marker of how successful a nation can be. There is also something called "social progress" -- which is the mark of how well a nation provides freedom, wealth, opportunity, equal rights, and decent living conditions for all its citizens. A poor nation might find it hard to provide for all of its citizens, but a rich nation can be just as bad in caring for its citizens as a poor nation -- and sadly, that seems to be happening in the United States.

A few decades ago, the growth in productivity and wealth in the United States was shared more equally in this country -- and that resulted in a growing middle class, rising worker wages and business profits, and a shrinking number of poor people (as the government provided education and social programs to lift people out of poverty). But that changed about 1980, when the right-wing seized power in the U.S., and installed their "trickle-down" economic policy (which slanted the economic playing field to favor the rich and the corporations).

They convinced Americans that what was good for the rich and corporations was good for all Americans. But that is simply not true. While the policy has been good for the rich and the corporations (who are enjoying record incomes and profits while paying less in taxes), it has been disastrous for everyone else -- causing a shrinking middle class, falling wages, the loss of millions of jobs, a growing percentage of poor people, a growth in food insecurity, and the widest gap in income and wealth between the rich and the rest of America since before the Great Depression.

This has caused the United States to fall behind many other developed nations in social progress (how well the nation takes care of its population). The chart above shows the results of the 2014 Social Progress Index. This index ranks about 132 countries on how well they take care of their population (and grades each nation in three areas -- Basic Human Needs, Foundations of Wellbeing, and Opportunity. As the richest nation, the United States should rank first in how well it takes care of all its citizens. But the current right-wing policies has caused it to drop down to only 16th place, and unless those policies change soon, the country will slide even further down the list.

Here is how the United States ranked in all three areas of the Social Progress Index -- and since this is a ranking of how well the country is doing in each area, the lower the number the better (with the optimum number being a 1, designating a 1st place ranking). The U.S. could, and should, be doing a lot better than it currently is doing.