Myth: The U.S. has the world's highest standard of living.

Fact: By a great many important measures, it doesn't.



Summary

The U.S. has the highest productivity per worker in the world. But how Americans spend that productivity is another matter entirely. Working with slightly less, the other rich nations of the world have built clearly better societies: better health and vital statistics, universal health coverage, smaller health costs, less violent crime, less pollution, higher home ownership, more democratic participation, greater social programs, less government corruption, less teenage sex, fewer teenage pregnancies, fewer abortions, larger middle classes, less poverty, less child poverty, greater savings, greater investment, less debt… the list goes on and on.



Argument

A long list of statistics supporting the above summary is already available at 8Comparison.htm.

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