How do you think the United States ranks in the Human Poverty Index compared to the other top industrialized nations?
If you said “badly” – then yes, you are correct.
The United States ranks NEAR THE BOTTOM (17 of 19) in the Human Poverty Index (2008) based on the key indicators of life expectancy, literacy, unemployment and population below 50% of median income (%).
Bet you didn’t know that did you?
But these numbers are from 2008. Since then we’ve had the depression/housing crash and many more have joined the ranks of the poor.
The poor are mostly women and children. So poor women and children in the U.S. would be better off living in almost any other industrialized nation OTHER THAN the United States.
Think about that for awhile.
It is interesting too that we think of ourselves (Americans) in such glowing terms! “We are the greatest, the best, the most exceptional!” There is even a “stadium chant” that goes along these lines with a refrain of “…we are the greatest…”
You heard a lot of this pep-talk this last weekend around the 9/11 Commemoration events. I think it is RIGHT to remember the people who were killed in the disaster. What is wrong is to repeat over and over the idea pushed forth by President Bush after 9/11/2001 that “they hate our way of life.”
There are two BIG questions: Who is “they”? The US is unpopular with a large part of the world, not just al-Qaeda, so who is included in “they”?
The second question is what is meant by “our way of life”? Did the president mean the lifestyle that exploits others around the world through greedy multinational corporations just so we can have a luxurious lifestyle of cheap gadgets? Or did he mean “our way of life” to be the lifestyle that generates more trash in this country than in large parts of the remainder of the world, so we must ship our trash elsewhere or sink in it? Or perhaps the president meant “our way of life” that bullies other countries to do things that support the US, even to the detriment of themselves?
Good question. Anyway, maybe “our way of life” is not such a hot deal. Some of the numbers – as quoted in this blog – are good evidence that it is time to reflect.