Food Waste: We’re Number 3 in Total Waste; We’re Number 8 in Waste Per Person

The USDA estimates that between 30 and 40 percent of all food is wasted in the United States. Food is wasted at all levels of its life cycle. Starting with the agricultural production in the fields (crop pests, poor irrigation, and disease), post-harvest handling and storage, processing, distribution (inefficient transportation), consumption, and the food end of life. About 16 percent of the waste comes from farms, 2 percent from manufacturers, 39 percent from businesses, and 43 percent from households. Food is the largest component of municipal landfills, and decomposing food releases methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. The United States spends approximately $218 billion (1.3 percent of GDP) each year to grow, handle, deliver, and dispose of uneaten food.

In 2015, the USDA along with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) set a goal to cut the US food waste by 50 percent by the year 2030. There was, however, no base line for food loss. The EPA admits that “the US still has a long way to go to meet the 2030 goal.”

The picture throughout the world is hardly better, and the US sits somewhere in the middle when it comes to alleviating the problem. It is estimated that one-third of all food globally is lost or wasted each year. The average North American household wastes about 130 pounds of food annually; the global average is nearly 35 pounds higher.

Sources: “Food Waste,” US Department of Agriculture, n.d., https://www.usda.gov/foodwaste/faqs; “Fighting Food Waste,” National Conference of State Legislatures, October 24, 2022, https://www.ncsl.org/agriculture-and-rural-development/fighting-food-waste#:~:text=The%20federal%20Bill%20Emerson%20Good,of%20which%20include%20greater%20protections; “Closing the Food Waste Gap,” Boston Consulting Group, n.d., https://www.bcg.com/featured-insights/closing-the-gap/food-waste; “Food Waste by Country, 2023,” World Population Review, n.d., https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/food-waste-by-country.

Hunger and Food Insecurity: We’re Number 24

The US Department of Agriculture states that about 56 percent of food insecure persons have participated in one or more of the federal government’s nutritional programs—SNAP (food stamps); special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), or the National School Lunch Program. Still, for many, this was not enough.

Whatever the cause—lay-offs from work, unexpected bills, marital discord, accidents and doctor bills—many Americans have to weigh the terrible decision of feeding their families or paying their bills. The lengthy pandemic unscored the uncertain circumstances facing many workers and communities. Food insecurity is certainly not confined to families with children. In fact, the biggest increase in food insecurity from 2020 to 2021 came from elderly women living alone.

In the federal bipartisan budget agreement in 2022, funds were set aside to feed hungry children during the summer break from school. It was anticipated that this $2.5 billion program would serve 21 million students, coming from families whose income was below the poverty level. The US Department of Agriculture called the summer nutrition program a “giant step forward” in meeting the needs of families when school is not in session. Yet, when the deadline for accepting the program came in January 2024, Republican governors in fifteen states rejected the funds, impacting an estimated 8 million children. “I don’t believe in welfare,” said Nebraska governor Jim Pillen. Iowa governor Kim Reynolds said she saw no need in adding this federal benefit to food-insecure children “when childhood obesity has become an epidemic.”

Along with Iowa and Nebraska, the other states declining to participate were Alabama, Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Vermont, and Wyoming. The three states with the highest level of food insecurity (Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas) refused these new funds. In addition, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and Wyoming were among the seven states that did not fully extend Medicaid coverage to low-income individuals.

The United States has miles to go, when compared with other OECD countries: the US ranked 24th, with 8.8 percent of its population experiencing moderate to severe food insecurity, far behind countries like the United Kingdom (3.5 percent), Germany (3.5 percent), and Japan (3.8 percent).

Sources: Alisha Coleman-Jensen, Matthew P. Rabbitt, Christian A. Gregory, and Anita Singh, “Household Food Security in 2021,” Economic Research Service, US Department of Agriculture, September 2022, https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/104656/err-309_summary.pdf?v=1779.1; Annie Gowan, “Republican Governors in 15 States Reject Summer Food Money for Kids,” Washington Post, January 10, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/01/10/republican-governors-summer-lunch-program/; “Status of State Medicaid Expansion Decisions,” KFF, December 1, 2023, https://www.kff.org/medicaid/issue-brief/status-of-state-medicaid-expansion-decisions-interactive-map/; “Prevalence of Moderate to Severe Food Insecurity in the Population-OECD Countries,” The World Bank, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SN.ITK.MSFI.ZS?end=2020&locations=OE&most_recent_value_desc=false&start=2017

Abortion and Reproductive Rights: We’re Hopelessly Divided

Thirteen states had already crafted anti-abortion statutes, dubbed “trigger laws,” just waiting for the Supreme Court to make the anticipated decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Center (2022). The unprecedented leak of the majority opinion certainly gave anti-abortion advocates the green light they needed. As of the end of May, 2023, fourteen states have banned abortions outright: Alabama (no exceptions for rape or incest), Arkansas (no exceptions for rape or incest), Idaho (nearly all instances), Kentucky (no exceptions for rape or incest), Louisiana (no exceptions for rape or incest), Mississippi (except for rape, but not incest), Missouri (except for rape, but not incest), North Dakota (except for rape or incest), Oklahoma (no exceptions for rape or incest), South Dakota (no exceptions for rape or incest), Tennessee (no exceptions for rape or incest), Texas (no exceptions for rape or incest), West Virginia (except for rape or incest), and Wisconsin (no exceptions for rape or incest, being challenged). Georgia has a six-week ban in effect.

The Texas law was dubbed the “vigilante law,” which established a $10,000 court award, letting individual citizens sue anyone who helps a woman obtain an abortion after the six-week mark—that included suing the doctor who performed the abortion down to the person who drove the patient to the clinic. The Supreme Court declined to temporarily block the Texas vigilante law. Other states have now embraced this idea: the Washington Post noted that at least thirty-five copycat laws have been introduced throughout America, not only for abortions but for a wide variety of polarizing issues—like book banning, gun control, and transgender athletics.

In six states—Indiana, Iowa, Montana, Ohio, South Carolina, and Wyoming—bans imposed by state legislatures have been block by state courts. In five states—Nebraska, Arizona, Florida, Utah, and North Carolina—abortions are banned during the gestational period, from 12 to 20 weeks. In twenty-five states, abortions remain legal, and in twenty of those states, new legal or constitutional protections have been created. In 2024 ballot measures, five states added to their abortion rights protections and in two states, Arizona and Missouri, previous abortions bans had been lifted. At the same time, voters in three states (South Dakota, Nebraska, and Florida) rejected measures to enshrine abortion rights in their laws and constitutions.

Thanks to Dobbs, there is no national law regulating abortions. Congress is gridlocked on this issue: not enough votes to make this a national protection; not enough votes to severely restrict abortion access. Women living in abortion-restricted states have the difficult choice: carry the fetus to birth or leave the state, hoping to receive the care they need in states that offer abortion services. In 2023, over 171,000 women traveled from states that restricted abortions to states that permitted the procedure. More than 14,000 Texas women crossed over into New Mexico; 37,300 traveled from mostly southern and midwestern states to Illinois; and 12,000 traveled from Georgia or South Carolina to North Carolina. Amy Hagstrom Miller, founder of Whole Woman’s Health, stated that “we’re having people travel hundreds or thousands of miles for a procedure that typically takes less than 10 minutes and can be done in a doctor’s office setting. Nobody does that for any other medical procedure.” An embolden 2025 Republican majority in the House of Representatives continues to talk about a nationwide law to regulate and restrict abortions.

In 2015, the Pew Research Center found that in over 96 percent of the 146 nations surveyed women were allowed to terminate their pregnancies in order to save their lives. Only six countries did not allow women to receive abortions under any circumstances (and since that 2015 report, Ireland, one of the six, has completely reversed its policy).

Fifty countries (26 percent) only allow abortions to save the life of the mother; eighty-two countries (42 percent) allow abortions when the mother’s life is at risk as well as for at least one other specific reason (rape, incest, fetal impairment, or social or economic reasons). Fifty-eight countries (30 percent) allow abortions on request for any reason, although many of these countries set a certain point in the pregnancy, such as twenty weeks, as the cutoff point for an abortion. In September 2023, the Mexican Supreme Court decriminalized abortion nationwide, making abortions legal in all of the country’s thirty-two states; previously the procedure had been available in only twelve states. In a brief announcement accompanying the ruling, the Supreme Court stated that penalizing women who sought abortions was “unconstitutional” and “violates the human rights of women.”

In March 2024, France became the first country to protect the right to have an abortion explicitly protected in its constitution. The vote in the French Parliament was overwhelmingly in favor of the abortion rights protection. In 1975, France had decriminalized abortion, permitting the procedure for any reason through the fourteenth week of pregnancy, and now that protection was enshrined in its constitution. As the Washington Post noted, French “activist and politicians have been transparent that this is, above all, a response to what has been happening in the United States” since the overturning of Roe.

Sources: Kimberly Kindy and Alice Crites, “Texas Abortion Law Created a Vigilante Loophole: Both Parties Are Rushing to Take Advantage,” Washington Post, February 2, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/02/22/texas-abortion-law-vigilante-loophole-supreme-court/; “Tracking the States Where Abortion is Now Banned,” New York Times, May 26, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/us/abortion-laws-roe-v-wade.html; Allison McCann and Amy Schoenfeld Walker, “How Ballot Measures Will Change Abortion Access,” New York Times, November 6, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/11/06/us/elections/abortion-ballot-results-laws-election.html; Molly Cook Escobar, Amy Schoenfeld Walker, Allison McCann, Scott Reinhard, and Helmuth Rosales, “171,000 Traveled for Abortions Last Year. See Where They Went,” New York Times, June 13, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/06/13/us/abortion-state-laws-ban-travel.html; Angelina E. Theodorou and Aleksandra Sandstrom, “How Abortion is Regulated Around the World,” Pew Research Center, October 6, 2015, https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2015/10/06/how-abortion-is-regulated-around-the-world/; Simon Romero and Emiliano Rodríguez Mega, “Mexico’s Supreme Court Decriminalizes Abortion Nationwide,” New York Times, September 6, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/06/world/americas/mexico-abortion-decriminalize-supreme-court.html; Karla Adam, “France Becomes First Country to Explicitly Enshrine Abortion Rights in Constitution,” Washington Post, March 4, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/03/04/france-abortion-constitution/?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=wp_news_alert_revere&location=alert.

Child Well-Being: We’re Number 36

In 1988, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) created a research center to support its advocacy of children worldwide. Its Office of Research-Innocenti, based in Florence, Italy, has compiled annual Report Cards on the status of children and their well-being in advanced countries.

For the Sixteenth Report Card (2020), out of thirty-eight countries examined, the United States came in thirty-sixth, ahead of only Bulgaria and Chile. Using data from the OECD, the World Bank, Global Burden of Disease Study, World Health Organization, PISA, and other data measurements, the Report Card focuses on three overall dimensions: mental well-being (both positive and negative aspects of a child’s mental well-being—life satisfaction and suicide rates); physical health (rates of overweight and child mortality); and skills (academic proficiency and social skills, such as making friends easily).

Source: “Worlds of Influence: Understand What Shapes Child Well-Being in Rich Countries,” Innocenti Report Card 16, UNICEF, 2020; written by Anna Gromada, Gwyther Rees, and Yekaterina Chzhen, https://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/Report-Card-16-Worlds-of-Influence-child-wellbeing.pdf.

Highest Infant and Maternal Mortality Rates: We’re Number 1

The Commonwealth Fund, using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the OECD, reports that “the United States has the highest maternal mortality rate among developed countries.” Further, there is an overrepresentation of obstetrician-gynecologists in the maternity workforce, a shortage of midwives, and the US lacks comprehensive post-partum support.

Women in the United States experience more late maternal deaths than women in other high-income countries. In the US, 52 percent of all maternal deaths come after delivery or postpartum while 17 percent of deaths occur on the day of delivery. Roosa Tikkanen and her colleagues at the Commonwealth Fund note during the first week of postpartum that “severe bleeding, high blood pressure, and infection are the most common contributors to maternal deaths, while cardiomyopathy is the leading cause of late deaths.”

As in many cases of health and welfare, there is a racial component to maternal mortality. Research conducted by Marian F. MacDorman and her colleagues concludes that Black women are more than three times as likely to die during pregnancy or postpartum than white women. Linda Villarosa, in Under the Skin, makes a sweeping and powerful assessment of the systematic assault on Black American’s bodies, the racial disparities, the neglect, the inbred biases, and the social racisms that African Americans endure, no matter their social or economic status.

Sources: Roosa Tikkanen, Munira Z. Gunja, Molly Fitzgerald, and Laurie Zephyrin, “Maternal Mortality and Maternity Care in the United States Compared to 10 Other Developed Countries,” Commonwealth Fund, Issue Brief, November 18, 2020, https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2020/nov/maternal-mortality-maternity-care-us-compared-10-countries; Marian F. MacDorman, et al., “Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Maternal Mortality in the United States Using Enhanced Vital Records, 2016,2017,” American Journal of Public Health, September 2021, https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2021.306375; Linda Villarosa, Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on Health in America (New York: Anchor, 2023).

Childcare and Early Childhood Education: We’re Number 28

As part of the “Build Back Better” plan the Biden administration described the childcare provisions as “the largest investment in childcare in the nation’s history,” a $425 billion package including universal and free kindergarten, expanded child tax credits, and a wage boost for caregivers. But the effort was stalled in Congress. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Republican-Kentucky) berated the childcare provisions as a “toddler takeover.” The Democrats, McConnell insisted in a floor speech, “want to ram though a radical, reckless, multi-trillion-dollar taxing and spending spree between now and Christmas. And a huge part of their bill would completely upend childcare and pre-K as they exist for families across America.” The legislation was stalled and ultimately died.

In April 2023, President Joe Biden tried again, bypassing Congress and signing an executive order directing federal agencies to make childcare cheaper and more accessible. Biden noted that “almost every federal agency will collectively take over fifty actions to provide more peace of mind for families and dignity for care workers.” Biden emphasized that this executive order, limited to the action of the federal agencies, wouldn’t require any new spending. “It’s about making sure taxpayers get the best value for the investments they’ve already made.” Executive agencies would lower co-pays for services, ensure that Medicare and Medicaid dollars could go further, improve care for veterans and Native Americans. This executive order was certainly helpful, but these provisions are a far cry from his earlier, unrealized commitment for $225 billion to cover childcare for low-income parents and another $200 billion for universal preschool education. Despite the efforts of the Biden administration and the signing of the executive order, a comprehensive federal childcare program is still not a reality.

During the pandemic, Congress set aside $24 billion in stimulus money for childcare. It helped keep many childcare facilities afloat. Yet during the first two years of the pandemic one-tenth (20,000) of all childcare centers folded. When the federal money ran out in September 2023, the Century Fund estimated that 70,000 childcare programs would close, affecting 3.2 million children, and causing a $10.6 billion loss to the US economy.

For single parents in the United States, the childcare costs as a percentage of their net income are the highest among all the OECD countries. For single parents in the United States, up to 50 percent of their income goes to childcare; for New Zealand single mothers it is 14 percent, for mothers in the United Kingdom, it is 8 percent; for German single parents, the percentage of childcare costs is 1 percent.

Sources: Floor statement of Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, December 7, 2021, https://www.republicanleader.senate.gov/newsroom/remarks/democrats-toddler-takeover-huge-childcare-inflation-and-discrimination-against-religion; Michael D. Shear, “Biden Signs Executive Order That Aims to Make Childcare Cheaper,” New York Times, April 18, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/18/us/politics/biden-executive-order-child-care.html; Abha Bhattarai, “Childcare is About to Get More Expensive, As Federal Funds Dry Up,” Washington Post, September 5, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/09/05/child-care-cliff-day-care/.

Trust in Government (OECD countries): Number 34

When looking internationally, one of the inescapable conclusions is that national governments that work effectively to lessen inequality, promote the well-being of their citizens, and deliver on those promises enjoy a higher level of trust from their citizens. Here the US ranks poorly.

Citizens in Switzerland have the highest percentage of trust in government (83.3 percent), followed by Finland (77.5), Sweden (68.8), Norway (63.6), and Denmark (63.5). The United ranks 34th with just 31.0 percent of citizens trusting the government.

Source: “Trust in Government,” OECD (2023), https://data.oecd.org/gga/trust-in-government.htm#indicator-chart. Luxembourg, ranking second, was left off this table.

Lowest Child Poverty (OECD countries): We’re Number 31

During the pandemic years, the percentage of child poverty declined in the United States and was greatly assisted by the Child Tax Credit. From July through December 2021, the Internal Revenue Service paid Child Tax Credits worth $250 per child (age 6 to 17) and up to $300 per child under the age of 6; a total of 61 million children in 36 million households were assisted. Thus, 3 million children were kept out of poverty in July 2021, climbing up to 3.7 million in December. Thanks to the Child Tax Credit, the poverty rate in 2021 fell to its lowest level ever recorded by the US Census Bureau. But there was a looming expiration date on this successful program.

The expanded Child Tax Credit was scheduled to be continued in the Biden administration’s Build Back Better legislation. The bill passed in the House of Representatives in November 2021, but was blocked in the Senate by the refusal of Democrat Joe Manchin III to agree. Thus, the Child Tax Credit was not renewed. The results were immediate. Child poverty has increased dramatically from 12.1 percent in December 2021 to 17.0 percent in January 2022. Researchers from the Columbia University Center for Poverty and Social Policy note that 3.7 million more children were in poverty in early 2022 due to the ending of the monthly tax credits, and Latino and Black children were hit the hardest. Then came the official numbers from the US Census Bureau: child poverty spiked in 2022, averaging 12.4 percent, up from 5.2 percent in the previous year. “By far this is the largest annual increase in US history for both children and the overall population in terms of poverty, going back to 1967,” said Zachary Parolin at the Columbia University Center for Poverty and Social Policy. Altogether, five million children were affected by the end of the tax credits.

The OECD calculates that the percentage of children living in poverty for Finland is 2.4 percent. Ranking second is Denmark (4.8 percent), third is Iceland (5.4 percent), fourth is Slovenia (5.6 percent), and fifth is the Czech Republic (7.1 percent). The United States ranks 31st with18.8 percent of children living in poverty.

Sources: Zachary Parolin, Sophie Collyer, and Megan A. Curran, “Absence of Monthly Child Tax Credit Leads to 3.7 Million More Children in Poverty in January 2022.” Poverty and Social Policy Brief Vol 6., no. 2. Center on Poverty and Social Policy, Columbia University (February 17, 2022), www.povertycenter.columbia.edu/publication/monthly-poverty-january-2022; Kyle Swenson and Amy Goldstein, “US Poverty Spiked in 2022, Reversing Gains, Census Bureau Data Shows,” Washington Post, September 12, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/09/12/us-poverty-rate-census-uninsured-2022/; “Proportion of Children Living in Poverty in the OECD Countries, 2020, Statista, https://www.statista.com/statistics/264424/child-poverty-in-oecd-countries/; OECD database.

Prevalence of Overall Poverty: We’re Number 28

The level and depth of poverty in the United States should trouble us all. Recent studies, written by sociologists Matthew Desmond and Mark Robert Rank, economist Anne Case and Angus Deaton, and economist Joseph Stiglitz, among many others, explore the depths of American poverty and its consequences. Deaton once observed that “There are millions of Americans whose suffering, through material poverty or poor health, is as bad or worse than that of the people of Africa or in Asia.” Furthermore, nearly 18 million Americans, 6 percent of the population, live in what is categorized as “deep poverty.” These individuals survive at less than one-half the official poverty rate. For single adults, that half-poverty line figure is $6,380; for a family of four, it is $13,100.

When comparing the poverty rates among the OECD countries, we find that the United States is the definite outlier. It has the highest percentage of overall poverty (15.1 percent) and the highest rate of child poverty (20.9 percent). Using 2019 data, the average overall poverty rate among OECD countries is 10.7 percent; the average child (ages 0 to 17 years old) poverty rate among the 25 OECD countries is 11.7 percent.

Of the 28 countries surveyed, the United States is ranked as 28th. Dead last.

Sources: Matthew Desmond, Poverty, By America; Mark Robert Rank, The Poverty Paradox: Understanding Economic Hardship Amid American Prosperity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2023); Anne Case and Angus Deaton, Death of Despair and the Future of Capitalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2021); Sitglitz, The Price of Inequality. “America’s Poor Are Worse Off Than Elsewhere,” Confronting Poverty, n.d., https://confrontingpoverty.org/poverty-facts-and-myths/americas-poor-are-worse-off-than-elsewhere/; Statistica, https://www.statista.com/statistics/233910/poverty-rates-in-oecd-countries.

Social Mobility (OECD and selected other countries): Number 27

How about Social Mobility, that widespread assumption that American sons and daughters, if they worked hard and played by the rules, would have a better life than their parents? This may be true in some countries, but increasingly not in the United States.

But in groundbreaking economic analysis, titled “The Fading American Dream,” economist Raj Chetty and his colleagues have shown that the prospects for children to earn more than their parents “have faded over the past half-century in the United States. The fraction of children earning more than their parents fell from approximately 90 percent for children born in 1940 to around 50 percent for children entering the labor market today. Absolute income mobility has fallen across the entire income distribution, with the largest declines for families in the middle class.” What would help reverse this downward trend? “A more even distribution of economic growth, rather than more growth, would allow more children to fulfill their dreams.” 

Why is the United States only 27th on this list? The OECD used several pillars to calculate its rankings. The US ranked high on Work Opportunities and Technology Access pillars but had the lowest scores in the region on the Fair Wages pillar; further, it ranked low on the Social Protection pillar and the Health pillar, where it performs “quite poorly.” Indeed, in America today, a child’s future ability to earn is closely tied with the socio-economic standing of its parents. “The game is half over,” wrote philosopher Matthew Stewart, “once you’ve selected your parents.”

The Scandinavian countries—Denmark (85.2), Norway (83.6), Finland (83.6), Sweden (83.5), along with Iceland (82.7), the Netherlands (82.4), and Switzerland (82.1) In addition, Germany ranked 11th (78.8), France ranked 12th (76.7), Canada and Japan ranked 14th (76.1), and South Korea ranked 25th (71.4)—all having social mobility scores higher than the United States (70.4). The Russian Federation ranked 39th (64.7), China ranked 45th (61.5), and Mexico ranked 58th (52.6).

Source: Raj Chetty, David Grusky, Maximilian Hell, Nathaniel Hendren, Robert Manduca, and Jimmy Narang, “‘The Fading American Dream’” Trends in Absolute Income Mobility Since 1940,” Science 356 (6336) (April 24, 2017), https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aal4617#editor-abstract. Matthew Stewart, “The 9.9 Percent is the New American Aristocracy,” The Atlantic, June 2018, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/06/the-birth-of-a-new-american-aristocracy/559130/.

Gender Equity in Wages: We’re Number 38

The Institute for Women’s Policy Research through its Status of Women in the States analysis shows that the persistent pay inequality is “far-reaching: if women in the United States received equal pay with comparable men, poverty for working women would be reduced by half and the U.S. economy would have added $482 billion (equivalent to 2.8 percent of 2014 GDP) to its economy.” Further, if working women were paid at the same comparable rate as men, the poverty rate among all working women would fall from 8.2 percent to 4.0 percent.

In looking at the wage gender gap in 2022, the OECD found that the United States ranked 38th among OECD and selected other countries. The country with the least wage gap is Belgium; for men earning $100.00, women earn $98.83. The average for twenty-seven countries in the European Union is this: men earn $100.00, women earn $89.37. The United States figures are far lower: men earn $100.00 and women earn $83.14.

Sources: “The Economic Impact of Equal Pay by State,” Status of Women in the States, http://statusofwomendata.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/SWS-Equal-Pay-and-Poverty_final.pdf; “Gender Wage Gap,” OECD, https://data.oecd.org/earnwage/gender-wage-gap.htm. The OECD defines the gender gap as “The difference between median earnings of men and women relative to median earnings of men.”

National Minimum Wage: We’re Number 17

In 2009, the US federal minimum wage was set at $7.25 an hour; despite repeated efforts to raise the rate, today it remains at $7.25. This is the longest period of time, since first enacted in 1938, that the rate has not increased. Adjusted for inflation, this minimum wage is 40 percent lower than the minimum wage ($1.60) set in 1970 ($11.95 in 2023 dollars). With the greater cost of food, housing, and other necessities following the pandemic, the $7.25 minimum has shrunk even further.

In 2013, Republicans in the House voted unanimously to defeat a bill that would have raised the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour; in 2014, a Republican filibuster in the Senate blocked similar wage increase. In 2019, Democrats introduced the Raise the Wage Act of 2019, with the goal of reaching $15 an hour by 2023, and eliminating the subminimum wage for tipped employees, which now is $2.13 an hour. Under this proposal, beginning in 2025, the minimum wage would be indexed to median wages, so that every year that the median wage grew, so too would the minimum wage. If enacted, the Raise the Wage Act would have affected 26.6 percent of the American wage-earning workforce, a total of 39.7 million workers. The proposal went nowhere, but was reintroduced two years later by Sanders and Scott.

While Congress has stalled, several cities and states have adjusted their minimum wages to keep up with inflation. In 2012, an advocacy campaign, Fight for $15, was launched among fast-food workers. Since then, several states and cities have increased, or soon plan to increase, their minimum wage to $15 per hour.

Four countries, Luxembourg, Australia, France, and Germany, have minimum wages above $12 per hour.

Sources: Raise the Minimum Wage website,https://raisetheminimumwage.com/federal-campaigns/. “Raising the Federal Minimum Wage to $15 by 2024 Would Lift Pay for Nearly 40 Million Workers,” Economic Policy Institute, February 5, 2019, https://www.epi.org/publication/raising-the-federal-minimum-wage-to-15-by-2024-would-lift-pay-for-nearly-40-million-workers/; “Ranking of OECD Countries by National Minimum Wage in 2021,” Statista, https://www.statista.com/statistics/322716/ranking-of-oecd-countries-by-national-minimum-wage/.

Income Equality: We’re Number 32

The US Census Bureau began tracking income inequality in 1967; in 2018, the level of inequality reached its highest peak. Recovery from the crippling 2008 economic downturn was slow but steady, but the economic separation between the rich and the poor became even more pronounced. The impact of the pandemic years only added to that separation.

All countries have income inequalities, but in looking at the OECD countries, we find that the United States ranks 32nd, just ahead of Bulgaria, Turkey, Mexico, and Costa Rica. Those countries with the least income inequality are the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Belgium, Norway, and Denmark.

Source: “Income Inequality,” OECD Data, https://data.oecd.org/inequality/income-inequality.htm.

Most Unequal Distribution of Wealth (worldwide): Number 3

One way of measuring inequality is through the Gini Coefficient, a statistical measurement that calculates how spread-out from one another are the wealth concentrations. Perfect equality, where 10 percent of the population have 10 percent of the wealth, is represented by the value 0.00; while the value 1.00 represents total inequality of wealth (the highest cohort has all the wealth, the rest of society has none). When comparing the United States with countries throughout the world, using the Gini Coefficient to measure wealth, it comes in as the third most unequal, just behind Brazil and the Russian Federation.

Source: James Davies, Rodrigo Lluberas, and Anthony Shorrocks, “Credit Suisse Global Wealth Databook, 2022, Credit Suisse, https://www.credit-suisse.com/about-us/en/reports-research/global-wealth-report.html.

Wealth Concentrated in Top 10 Percent of Households (OECD Countries): We’re Number 1

Among OECD countries, the United States stands far above the rest in the unequal distribution of wealth. While the Credit Suisse research shows that the top 10 percent of American families hold 69.2 percent, the OECD, using other data, estimates that nearly 80 percent of all wealth in the US is controlled by the top 10 percent of households.

Source: “Social Mobility,” OECD, https://www.oecd.org/stories/social-mobility/ from OECD Wealth Database.

Median Individual Wealth: We’re Number 18

The ranking of median individual wealth shows a different picture. In 2021, Australia ranked first with $273,900 in individual wealth; Belgium ($267,890) was second; New Zealand ($231,260) was third; Hong Kong SAR ($202,380) was fourth; and Denmark ($171,170) was fifth. The United States median individual wealth was $93,270, ranking 18th.

Source: James Davies, Rodrigo Lluberas, and Anthony Shorrocks, “Credit Suisse Global Wealth Databook, 2022, Credit Suisse, https://www.credit-suisse.com/about-us/en/reports-research/global-wealth-report.html

Average Individual Wealth: We’re Number 2

The United States is indeed a very wealthy country and, among OECD countries, ranks second in average individual wealth just behind Switzerland. In 2021, Switzerland had an average individual wealth of $696,604; the United States had $579,051. Australia ($550,110) was third, New Zealand ($472,153) was fourth, and Denmark ($426,494) was fifth.

Source: James Davies, Rodrigo Lluberas, and Anthony Shorrocks, “Credit Suisse Global Wealth Databook, 2022, Credit Suisse, https://www.credit-suisse.com/about-us/en/reports-research/global-wealth-report.html

Public Sector Corruption: We’re Number 24

Transparency International annually publishes its list of public sector corruption. It measures 180 countries using a variety of data and formulates an index (100 being best; 0 being the worst), as perceived by experts and business executives.

Transparency International states that “corruption generally comprises illegal activities, which are deliberately hidden and only come to light through scandals, investigations or prosecutions.” Among the data captured by this Index are evidence of bribery, diversion of public funds, prevalence of public officials using public office for private gain without facing consequences, government’s ability to contain corruption, effective criminal prosecution of corrupt officials, and legal protection for whistleblowers, journalists and investigators when they report corruption. Not included in these rankings are citizens’ perceptions of corruption, tax fraud, private sector corruption, and other measures.

The United States ranked 24th. The question yet to be answered, what will be the public sector corruption score during a second Trump term as president?

Source: “Corruption Perceptions Index,” Transparency International, https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2022.

Democratic Institutions (Economist Intelligence Study): We’re Number 25

Another analysis and ranking of democratic institutions comes from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), a research group affiliated with the Economist media group. The EIU used five broad measures of democratic institutions: (1) electoral process and pluralism; (2) functioning of government; (3) political participation; (4) political culture; and (5) civil liberties. It categorizes countries according to four fields: “Full Democracies” (23 countries); “Flawed Democracies” (52 countries); “Hybrid Regimes” (35 countries); and “Authoritarian Regimes” (57 countries).

The United States is ranked 25th in the world and is labelled a “flawed democracy.” The top-ranked democracies, labelled “full democracies,” were Norway, Iceland, Sweden, New Zealand, Canada, Finland, Denmark, Ireland, and Australia.

Source: “Democracy Index 2020: In Sickness and In Health, Economist Intelligence Unit, https://pages.eiu.com/rs/753-RIQ-438/images/democracy-index-2020.pdf?mkt_tok=NzUzLVJJUS00MzgAAAGLz8pJxdvi-Ch0FU7h6gFETu8H5QZtpqwss-0_e6BkQHUswSruQE0C1atHVEw-_4ATGr6i0uZjfqQfTz6yd-D2HUzrELRpQcYQesiqGjnj_7hplA

Democratic Institutions (Würzburg Study): We’re Number 37

Since 2016, researchers under the direction of Professor Hans-Joachim Lauth at the University of Würzburg in Germany have developed the Democracy Matrix project. That research measures the quality of democracy in over 175 countries, and its most recent analysis was from 2019.

The Democracy Matrix considers fifteen fields, with countries grouped in five categories, according to their democratic characteristics: “Working Democracy” (such as all of the Europe and North America; 37 countries in all), “Deficient Democracy” (most of South America; 46 countries), “Hybrid Regimes” (such as Mexico, India, and Nigeria; 41 countries), “Moderate Autocracies” (Russia, Egypt, and Cuba; 34 countries), and “Hard Autocracies” (China, Saudi Arabia, and Iran; 21 countries). They find that, when measuring population rather than simply the number of states, that almost half of the states worldwide have democratic regimes, but only a little more than one fourth of the world’s population lives in democracies.”

Based on these fifteen measurements, the United States remains a working democracy, but is outpaced by 36 other countries. The year before, the Democracy Matrix rankings had the United States at 38th place in the world and labelled as a “Deficient Democracy.” All this is before the 2020 presidential election, the Big Lie, the “Stop the Steal” efforts, the blatant attempts of Donald Trump and his allies to discredit the election results, and the unprecedented storming of the Capitol attempting to deny Biden his rightful victory.

Then came the 2024 victory of Donald Trump. Critics feared the worst: without any guardrails, with compliant majorities in both the House and the Senate, and with an agenda suffused with revenge and retribution, how could democracy survive? Would Trump follow through on his most blatant campaign promises: jailing opponents, purging the federal bureaucracy of critics, pardoning convicted January 6th instigators, ridding the military of so-called “woke” leaders, bypassing the legislative branch, flaunting the courts, and replacing democratic decision making with autocratic fiat and his billionaire friends. Trump supporters, on the other hand, dismiss the most egregious insults and claims, as mere campaign hyperbole, and welcoming what they consider much-needed changes in how the federal government operates. The next time international rankings are published, will the United States still be classified as a “flawed democracy,” or will it be labelled more as an authoritarian state.

Sources: Democracy Matrix, University of Würzburg, https://www.democracymatrix.com/fileadmin/Mediapool/PDFs/Report/DeMaX_Report_2019_Growing_Hybridity.pdf.