Gender Equity and Political Empowerment: We’re Number 37

In terms of political power and gender equity, the World Economic Forum (WEF) noted that the United States had jumped from 53rd place during the latter years of the first Trump administration to 37th place, thanks in part to the Biden administration’s executive appointments. The WEF calculations for gender equity and political empowerment considered three criteria: the percent of women in the national legislature; percent of women in ministerial positions; and years with a female head of state.

Gender equity also means a different focus on lawmaking and public policy. As Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (Democrat-New York) lamented a decade ago, “Basic rights that our mothers and grandmothers successfully fought for are still on the table. I can guarantee you that if Congress was 51 percent women, we wouldn’t be wasting a day on whether women should have affordable contraception. We would be talking about the economy.

Sources: “Global Gender Gap Report, 2021,” World Economic Forum, March 2021, https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GGGR_2021.pdf; Richard V. Reeves, “Congress Needs Gender Parity Quotas,” Brookings Institution, April 2021, https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/congress-needs-gender-parity-quotas/. Gillibrand quoted in Charlotte Alter, “Kirsten Gillibrand on Why She Hates the Phrase ‘Having It All,’” Time, October 1, 2014, https://time.com/3453839/kirsten-gillibrand-have-it-all/.

Participation of Women in National Legislatures: We’re Number 77

In the US Senate and the House of Representatives, there has been a slow, but steady increase in the number of women serving. In the 119th Congress (2025-2027), there are 125 women (29 percent) in the House of Representatives and 26 women (26 percent) in the Senate. (In addition, there are 4 non-voting women delegates in the House). In 2022, there are 562 women serving in state senates (28.5 percent) and 1,738 women in state lower chambers (32.1 percent). About two-thirds of all women serving are Democrats.

Throughout the world at the beginning of 2025, the Inter-Parliamentary Union found that 26.1 percent of legislators were women. Thus, the American representation could only be characterized as “near average,” ranking 77th in the world. In 2022, the Nordic countries (Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, and Norway) had the highest average of women lawmakers, at 41.4 percent. The Americas (North and South) were next with 21.8 percent, followed by Europe (minus the Nordic countries) at 19.1 percent; Asian countries were next with 17.4 percent, Sub-Saharan Africa with 17.2 percent, Pacific Islands with 13.4 percent, and Arab states with 9.6 percent.

Sources: Inter-Parliamentary Union, “Monthly Ranking of Women in National Parliaments,” (February 2025, https://data.ipu.org/women-ranking/?date_month=1&date_year=2025); “More Women in Parliament and More Countries with Gender Parity,” Inter-Parliamentary Union, March 3, 2022, https://www.ipu.org/news/press-releases/2022-03/new-ipu-report-more-women-in-parliament-and-more-countries-with-gender-parity

A Woman President? 30 Women Now Head Governments, But Not in the United States

With the June 2024 elections of Claudia Sheinbaum as president of Mexico and Halla Tómasdóttir as prime minister of Iceland, there are now thirty women who are heads of state or heads of government. In the United States, just two women have been the nominees for a major political party. Former First Lady and New York senator Hillary R. Clinton ran in 2016 and Vice President Kamala Harris ran in 2024; both were defeated by Donald Trump. Only two women, Alaska governor Sarah Palin in 2008 and California senator Kamala Harris in 2020 had been nominated by one of the two major parties in the United States to be vice-president. Harris was the only woman to serve as vice-president of the United States.

In the 2024 US presidential campaign, Donald Trump made it a point to demean, insult, and ridicule Harris, making crude sexist remarks, accusing her of sleeping her way to power and lacking the stamina and intelligence to lead the country. He routinely called her a “bad person,” someone who is “evil, sick, crazy.” Trump boasted that he would protect women, “whether the women like it or not.” Trump loyalists and rally-goers lapped it up. J.D. Vance, Trump’s running mate, and the about-to-be-elected vice-president, disparaged liberal women as “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable in their own lives.”

Source: Michael Gold, “Trump, Vance and Allies Hurl Insults at Women as Race Ends,” New York Times, November 5, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/05/us/politics/trump-nancy-pelosi-liz-cheney-women.html

Wide Open Campaign Spending: We’re Number 1

The 2020 presidential campaign between incumbent Donald Trump and challenger Joe Biden, along with the races for the House and Senate, proved to be, by far, the costliest in American history up to that point. A total of $14.4 billion was spent in 2020, more than double the previous high of $6.5 billion spent in the presidential year of 2016. Then came the 2024 presidential election, which easily topped the 2020 campaign. The Harris campaign raised over $1 billion, while the Trump campaign raised about $600 million. But the striking feature was the amount of money raised by billionaire sources, mostly Republicans, who gave to Super PACs in support of their favored candidates. Most prominent was Elon Musk who gave at least $288 million and played an outsized role in underwriting a get-out-the-vote effort on Trump’s behalf, offering daily $1 million sweepstakes for voters in battleground states.

It may be surprising to learn that only 1.8 percent of the American adult population gave more than $200 to a federal campaign in 2020. And including the many thousands of state and local campaigns going on during the same election cycle, probably no more than 4 percent of the adult population contributes money to political candidates and causes.

Sources: Karl Evers-Hillstrom, “Most Expensive Ever: 2020 Election Cost $14.4 Billion,” Opensecrets.org, https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2021/02/2020-cycle-cost-14p4-billion-doubling-16/; Fredreka Schouten, David Wright, and Alex Leeds Matthews, “Musk Spent More Than a Quarter-Billion Dollars to Elect Trump, Including Funding a Mysterious Super PAC, New Filings Show,” CNN, https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/05/politics/elon-musk-trump-campaign-finance-filings/index.html.

The Electoral College and Electing a President: We’re the Only Ones

The Electoral College system of voting for the American presidential election is an antiquated system and often confusing, winner-take-all system, putting the spotlight on individual states where race-thin victories could decide the election for the entire country. About 150 million citizens voted in the 2024 presidential election, but they didn’t vote directly for the president. Rather they voted for electors who are pledged to a candidate.

Five times in American history, the most recent being in 2000 and 2016, the losing candidate had more popular votes than the winner. In 2000, Al Gore won the popular vote by 500,000, but lost in the Electoral College; in 2016, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote with 3 million more votes than Donald Trump but lost in the Electoral College tally.

There have been over 700 measures proposed in Congress to get rid of the Electoral College method of choosing a president. But none have succeeded. The antiquated electoral system gives Republicans a better chance of winning the White House than reliance on solely on the popular vote.

When it comes to electing a country’s most important public official, the president, the system employed in the United States is a definite outlier. No other country uses such a mechanism.

Voting as a National Holiday in OECD Countries: We’re Number 28

The first Tuesday after the first Monday in November is Election Day in the United States. Most votes are cast that day, but thirty-eight states provide for a form of early voting; some of that voting can start as early as late September, some six weeks before the Election Day.

But Election Day falls on a workday for most Americans. Why not make Election Day a national holiday or move it to a Saturday or Sunday? Thirteen states (as of 2018) give workers the day off on Election Day; and more than twenty states require employers to give their workers time off (usually one or two hours) to cast their votes. Business leaders have stepped in. For example, in advance of the 2020 presidential election, some 600 companies—such as, Coca-Cola, Best Buy, Gap, J. Crew, and JPMorgan Chase—gave employees paid time off to vote on Election Day.

Nearly all the OECD countries have adapted weekend voting; the United States is just one of nine countries (out of the 38 in the OECD) that have national voting day during the week, and two of those countries—Israel and South Korea—have made that day a national holiday.

Sources: MakeTimetoVote.org, https://www.maketimetovote.org; Drew DeSilver, “Weekday Elections Set the US Apart from Many Other Advanced Democracies,” Pew Research Center, November 6, 2018, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/11/06/weekday-elections-set-the-u-s-apart-from-many-other-advanced-democracies/

Most Valuable Corporations: We’re Number 1

The United States is the home ten out of the thirteen largest corporations in the world. Further, most of these American companies have been created during the digital age, no more than twenty to thirty years ago. The top ten corporations according to market capitalization are

• Apple (US, broad range of computer products, founded 1976);

• Microsoft (US, computer software, 1975);

• Saudi Arabian Oil (Saudi Arabia, petroleum products, 1933);

• Alphabet (US, Google, digital search services, 1998);

• Amazon (US, online consumer products, web services, video, 1994);

• NVIDIA (US, computer technology, artificial intelligence, 1993);

• Meta (US, Facebook online services, 2004);

• Tesla (US, electric vehicles, batteries, 2003);

• LVMH Moet, Hennessy, Louis Vuitton (France, luxury goods); and

• VISA (US, credit card services))

Source: “The 100 Largest Companies in the World by Market Capitalization in 2023, Statista, n.d., https://www.statista.com/statistics/263264/top-companies-in-the-world-by-market-capitalization/.

Size of the Economy: We’re Number 1

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the United States ranks as number one in the world economy, with a gross domestic product (GDP) of $20.49 trillion. This is nothing new. The United States has had the largest economy in the world since 1871. In second place, and growing rapidly during the twenty-first century, is China with a GDP of $13.4 trillion. The third largest economy is Japan ($4.97 trillion) and the fourth largest is Germany ($4.25 trillion)

California, the economic powerhouse in the United States, has an estimated GDP of $3.63 trillion (2022) and is about to overtake Germany as the fourth largest economy in the world. On a per capita basis, the Golden State is the second largest economy in the world. California surpassed Brazil and France in 2015 and supplanted the United Kingdom in 2017.

Source: Matthew A. Winkler, “California Poised to Overtake Germany as World’s No. 4 Economy,” Bloomberg News, October 24, 2022, https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-10-24/california-poised-to-overtake-germany-as-world-s-no-4-economy

Global Waste: We’re Number 25

With its abundance and riches, the United States produces more waste per capital than any other country, with an estimated 811 kilograms (1,788 pounds) per person each year. No other country comes close. Sensoneo, a waste management consulting firm based in Slovakia, ranked South Korea as having the best global waste score (100); far behind was the United States with a score of 60.

Source: “Global Waste Index, 2022,” https://sensoneo.com/global-waste-index/

Natural Resources: We’re Number 2

The United States is fortunate to have an abundance of natural resources and on a worldwide scale is second after the Russian Federation. The US has the world’s largest proven coal reserves, and has abundant supplies of copper, lead, molybdenum, phosphates, rare earth elements, uranium, bauxite, gold, iron, mercury, nickel, potash, silver, tungsten, zinc, petroleum, natural gas, timber, and arable land. Yet the United States imports 100 percent of it needs for arsenic, cesium, fluorspar, gallium, graphite, Indium, manganese, niobium, rare earths, rubidium, scandium, tantalum, and yttrium.

The most resource-rich country is Russia, with large deposits of coal, timber, and rare earth metals. It contains the world’s largest proven natural gas reserves, accounting for approximately 20 percent of 2020 global totals. Further, Russia has the second largest gold reserves, about 12 percent of the world’s total. It has 12 percent of the world’s crude oil supply, and its oil reserves were the sixth largest in the world.

Saudi Arabia’s most important natural resource is oil and it has been the leading exporter of oil since the 1930s. Canada has the third largest oil deposits, after Venezuela and Saudi Arabia; it is also a leading producer of natural gas. For China, coal and rare minerals make up 90 percent of its natural resources.

Source: “United States,” The World Factbook, US Central Intelligence Agency, https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/united-states/

Median Age: We’re Number 38

America is growing older. In 1980, the median age in the United States was 30.0 years; in 2000, it was 35.0 years; in 2022, the figure stood at 38.9 years. This is a significant increase in the median age, and the United States has never been this old.

Japan is the oldest country, with a media age of 48.6 years, followed by Germany (47.8), Italy (46.5), Greece (45.3), and Slovenia (44.9). The United States ranks 38th in median age. By contrast, the youngest countries are in Africa, with 21 countries having a median age below twenty years old.

Source: WorldData.info; https://www.worlddata.info/average-age.php.

Megacities: New York (Number 11) and Los Angeles (Number 26)

In 1950, there were just two cities in the world—New York and Tokyo—that were considered “megacities,” that is, urban areas with populations of at least 10 million. By 2018, there were thirty-four such cities and the United Nations estimates that by 2035 there will by forty-eight megacities. America has just two megacities, New York-Newark (18.8 million) and Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana (12.4 million).

Tokyo (37.39 million), Delhi (30.29 million); Shanghai (27.05 million), São Paolo (22.04 million), and Mexico City (21.78 million) top the list of megacities.

Source: “Around 2.5 Billion More People Will Be Living in Cities by 2050, Projects New UN Report,” United Nations Department of Economics and Social Affairs, n.d., https://www.un.org/en/desa/around-25-billion-more-people-will-be-living-cities-2050-projects-new-un-report

Population Density: We’re Number 147

Indeed, there is room to grow in the United States. Its population density is just 35 persons per square kilometer. Compare that to Bangladesh, with 1,141 persons per square kilometer or Taiwan with 615 persons per square kilometer. The American state of Iowa and Bangladesh are almost equal in land size; but Iowa has 3.1 million persons, while Bangladesh has 168 million persons.

Source: “List of Countries by Population Density,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_population_density

Landmass: We’re Number 3

The United States indeed is an expansive country; it is the world’s third largest country, by landmass. Russia is by far the biggest country, with 17.098 million square kilometers (6.6 million square miles) of land and water. Canada (9.984 million square kilometers; 3.855 million square miles), the United States (9.826 million square kilometers; 3.78 million square miles), and China (9.596 million square kilometers; 3.69 million square miles) are close in size as the second, third, and fourth largest countries, respectively.

Source: CIA World Factbook, 2014. Country Comparisons: Area, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2147rank.html

Social Progress Index: We’re Number 26

The Social Progress Imperative, an organization founded by Professor Michael Porter, developed the Social Progress Index, which collects data from around the world. Rather than concentrating on wealth and GDP, the Social Progress Index looks at fifty measures, grouped around nutrition and basic medical care, water and sanitation, shelter, personal safety, access to basic knowledge, access to communications and information, health and wellness, environmental quality, personal rights, personal freedom and choice, inclusiveness, and access to advanced education. In 2011, the United States ranked eleventh; then it fell to twenty-eighth in 2020; two years later, the United States ranking had improved slightly, to twenty-sixth among industrialized countries.

Who does better? It is the usual suspects: Norway, Denmark, Finland, Switzerland, and Iceland come in at the top. Ranking above the United States were every industrialized country in the OECD: Australia ranked twelfth; South Korea, seventeenth; United Kingdom, nineteenth; and France, twentieth.

Twenty-eighth and twenty-sixth. Surely the US federal and state governments can do better. Are we held back because Americans do not want to see improvements, or Americans simply do not know how uncompetitive we have become in the past several decades? Are we held back because a majority of policymakers believe that it is not the government’s responsibility to enact improvements? More than thirty years ago, sociologist Paul Starr, who came to prominence through his efforts for national health care during the 1990s, argued that “many Americans have become convinced that there simply are no public solutions to our national problems. Or if there are, that Congress could not possibly enact them in a rational and coherent form.” Thirty years later, Michael Porter concluded, “We’re no longer the country we think we are.”

Source: Social Progress Index, 2022, https://www.socialprogress.org/global-index-2022-results/.Paul Starr, "Can Government Work?" The American Prospect (2) (Summer 1990);Porter quoted in Nicholas Kristof, “We’re No. 28! And Dropping,” New York Times, September 9, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/09/opinion/united-states-social-progress.html.

Size of the Economy: We’re Number 1

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the United States ranks as number one in the world economy, with a gross domestic product (GDP) of $20.49 trillion. This is nothing new. The United States has had the largest economy in the world since 1871. In second place, and growing rapidly during the twenty-first century, is China with a GDP of $13.4 trillion. The third largest economy is Japan ($4.97 trillion) and the fourth largest is Germany ($4.25 trillion)

California, the economic powerhouse in the United States, has an estimated GDP of $3.63 trillion (2022) and is about to overtake Germany as the fourth largest economy in the world. On a per capita basis, the Golden State is the second largest economy in the world. California surpassed Brazil and France in 2015 and supplanted the United Kingdom in 2017.

Source: Matthew A. Winkler, “California Poised to Overtake Germany as World’s No. 4 Economy,” Bloomberg News, October 24, 2022, https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-10-24/california-poised-to-overtake-germany-as-world-s-no-4-economy

Best Climate Performance: We’re Number 52

Since 2005, the Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) has been grading the climate mitigation performances of sixty countries and the European Union. Germanwatch, NewClimate Institute, and the Climate Action Network developed this independent ranking, drawing on the advice of 450 climate and policy experts, measuring the performance of these countries, which emit some 92 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases. The CCPI considers four main factors: greenhouse gas emissions (40 percent of overall score), renewable energy (20 percent), energy use (20 percent), and climate policy (20 percent). The CCPI ranking board decided to leave the first three positions blank on the 2023 ranking, noting that no country had performed well enough to be considered in the highest ranking.

The United States ranked 52nd out of 60 countries. Why is the US so embarrassing low on this ranking? The CCPI recognized the targets and policies for climate action announced by the Biden administration, citing the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, with its $21 billion on environmental projects, $7.5 billion for electric vehicles, and $65 billion for improving the power infrastructure and adjustments to renewable energy. It also acknowledges the Biden administration’s net-zero emissions target for 2050 and a 2030 goal of cutting 2005-level greenhouse gases by 50-52 percent. The impact of the Inflation Reduction Act, with its historic emphasis on climate change mitigation, is not factored into this analysis.

The CCPI report concludes that its country experts “welcome the US government’s new commitments. They note the obstructing role the Republican opposition plays in climate politics. However, the experts criticize that some policies lack a mandatory character, and implementation will not be quick enough. The main shortcoming described is that the US will not halt domestic fossil fuel extraction, and there are still fossil fuel subsidies in place.” But the US ranking on the CCPI listing has been worse: last time it was measured, in 2021, the United States sat at 55th place. With a new Trump presidential term, America’s place in the CCPI rankings will surely suffer.

Sources: Our World in Data, https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co2-per-capita-vs-renewable-electricity?tab=table and Global Carbon Project, https://www.globalcarbonproject.org/. Rachel Hellman, “US Lags in Latest Climate Protection Rankings,” US News, February 28, 2022, https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2022-02-28/denmark-shines-u-s-lags-in-latest-climate-protection-rankings. Climate Change Performance Index 2023, https://ccpi.org/ranking/ (accessed October 14, 2023).

Better Life Index: We’re Number 28

The OECD has developed a “Better Life” index, using a variety of measurements: housing, income, community, education, jobs, civic engagement, health, life satisfaction, safety, and work-life balance.   Looking at the members of the OECD, we find that Norway ranks Number 1, followed by Slovenia, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Iceland, Finland, Austria, Denmark, Portugal, and Netherlands. The United States ranks an embarrassingly low 28th.

Source: OECD Better Life Index, https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org.

Overall Infrastructure: We’re Number 11

Despite the infusion of billions of dollars from the Infrastructure legislation, the United States still has far to go in comparison with other OECD countries. Netherlands, Switzerland, Japan, South Korea, Spain, and Germany top the list of overall infrastructure. The United States comes in 11th place.

Note: Overall infrastructure score includes transport, telephony, and energy. First and second place would have gone to Singapore and Hong Kong, but they were left out of these rankings.

Source: “Ranking of Countries According to the General Quality of Infrastructure,” Statista, n.d., https://www.statista.com/statistics/264753/ranking-of-countries-according-to-the-general-quality-of-infrastructure/.

Prison Population: We’re Number 1

As of October 2021, the World Prison Population List estimated that approximately 10.35 million persons were incarcerated worldwide; by far the greatest number, 2.3 million, were imprisoned in the United States. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, nearly every state in America has a higher incarceration rate than any other country in the entire world. Louisiana has the highest incarceration rate in America, at 1,094 persons per 100,000 citizens; it is followed closely by Mississippi with 1,031.

Source: Emily Widra and Tiana Herring, “States of Incarceration: The Global Context 2021,” Prison Policy Initiative, September 2021, https://www.prisonpolicy.org/global/2021.html