The sharp decline in America's standing the in the world since the Bush administration came into power is bad enough, but a new study suggests that the real, and breathtaking, American decline after nearly eight years of Robber Baron era politics has been in our status as a developed nation. From the Guardian:
Despite spending $230m (£115m) an hour on healthcare, Americans live shorter lives than citizens of almost every other developed country. And while it has the second-highest income per head in the world, the United States ranks 42nd in terms of life expectancy.
These are some of the startling conclusions from a major new report which attempts to explain why the world's number-one economy has slipped to 12th place - from 2nd in 1990- in terms of human development.
It gets worse. According to the The American Human Development Report, which is funded by groups like Oxfam America and the Rockefeller Foundation, countries that are beating us in things like long life and infant mortality are doing it with far lower levels of government spending.
Japanese, for example, can expect to outlive Americans, on average, by more than four years. In fact, citizens of Israel, Greece, Singapore, Costa Rica, South Korea and every western European and Nordic country save one can expect to live longer than Americans.
More findings that will curl your hair:
The average Asian woman lives to be 89 years old, while the average African-American woman can expect to live until 76, a 13 year gap. For men, the gap between Asians and African-Americans is 14 years.
One in six Americans has no health coverage. That adds up to 47 million people.
The US ranks 42nd in global life expectancy and 34th in terms of infants surviving to age one. "The US infant mortality rate is on a par with that of Croatia, Cuba, Estonia and Poland. If the US could match top-ranked Sweden, about 20,000 more American babies a year would live to their first birthday."
"The US has a higher percentage of children living in poverty than any of the world's richest countries. In fact, the report shows that 15% of American children - 10.7 million - live in families with incomes of less than $1,500 per month."
14% of Americans (40 million people) - "lack the literacy skills to perform simple, everyday tasks such as understanding newspaper articles and instruction manuals."
American enrollment of three and four-year-olds in preschool is at 50%, while most of Europe, Canada, Japan and Russia are at 75%.
In terms of human deveopment, "some Americans are living anywhere from 30 to 50 years behind others when it comes to issues we all care about: health, education and standard of living. For example, the state human development index shows that people in last-ranked Mississippi are living 30 years behind those in first-ranked Connecticut."
"The richest fifth of Americans earn on average $168,170 a year, almost 15 times the average of the lowest fifth, who make do with $11,352."
The U.S. is "far behind many other countries in the support given to working families, particularly in terms of family leave, sick leave and childcare" but first among the 30 richest countries in terms of the number of people in prison, both in absolute and percentage terms. The U.S. "has 5% of the world's people but 24% of its prisoners."
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dim url
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"[T]he practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.' Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 84, August, 1788
