Yeah! We’re Number 40, 11, 16, 22, 24, 27, 48, and 29!
Monday, November 1, 2010 at 02:06PM A big reason why America keeps drifting ever deeper into mediocrity is a misperception about how far we have already declined, how determined and effective our foreign competition is, and how ineffective minor tweaks to current policies are likely to be. It's gotten so bad that even Tom Friedman is chastened:
"Here is a little dose of reality about where we actually rank today," says Vest: sixth in global innovation-based competitiveness, but 40th in rate of change over the last decade; 11th among industrialized nations in the fraction of 25- to 34-year-olds who have graduated from high school; 16th in college completion rate; 22nd in broadband Internet access; 24th in life expectancy at birth; 27th among developed nations in the proportion of college students receiving degrees in science or engineering; 48th in quality of K-12 math and science education; and 29th in the number of mobile phones per 100 people.
Friedman may still think the way up is doubling down on globalization. To the contrary, we can't afford to fix these problems if Americans' real personal incomes continue to be hammered by the ways in which the US has designed and implemented globalization and free trade.
Skeptic
Charles Blow's column today presents more evidence that America is mediocre or worse among the IMF's "advanced economy" countries. See his chart below. The US ranks 30 out of 32 advanced nations in income inequality measured by the Gini Index. Sixteen percent of Americans reported food insecurity, putting us in a tie for last place (with South Korea) among the 20 nations reporting. (The poll question was, "Have there been times in the past 12 months when you did not have enough money to buy food that you or your family needed?")
Only 5 nations in the group of 33 have a lower life expectancy at birth. The US has the largest percentage of its population in prison of any of the 33 countries (0.743%); second place France has less than half that incarceration rate (0.365%). The US unemployment rate ranks 26th highest out of 33; only Spain, Slovakia, Greece, Portugal, Slovenia, France, and the Czech Republic have higher unemployment rates.
Our least bad rankings here are in student test scores. We're number 16 out of 30 in science and 24 out of 30 in math.
Skeptic
In Unicef's Comprehensive Assessment of Children and Adolescents in the Economically Advanced Nations the US ranked 20 out of 21, just ahead of the UK. Rankings were derived by giving equal weight to six assessments: Material well-being, health and safety, educational well-being, family and peer relationships, behaviours and risks, and subjective well-being. The US had it's highest ranking, 12, in educational well-being and was dead last in health and safety.
Skeptic
Charles Blow writing in NYT today reproduces a chart from the Bertelsmann Stiftung Foundation similar to the one above but covering different metrics. The US ranks 27 out of 31.
Skeptic
A brilliant clip from The Network via MoveOn.org.
Skeptic
More stats and links along these lines are in this new post, American Exceptionalism, shake hands with Inconvenient Facts.
Reader Comments (1)
Transparency International released its new global national rankings in October. The US fell from 19th in the list of corruption rankings to 21st. If we drop 2 notches a year for the next 10 years, we'll end up at an Egyptian level. Going down on this count also.