America! America!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness
And every gain divine!
--Katherine Lee Bates, “America the Beautiful”
--Katherine Lee Bates, “America the Beautiful”
There’s no doubt in my mind that, of the whole glorious globe, the United States is the best place for me to live. For better or worse, I love our land, our people, our independence, our creativity, our generosity and our day-to-day decency.
But I don’t love everything that we do. Our greed is wrecking the world’s economy. Our entrenched ways of life are, more than any other nation, destroying the planet’s climate. We export violence and sex and human degradation in our media. We are, at this time, one of the most warmongering countries on earth. In our name as consumers, corporations steal, pillage, kill and manipulate the most vulnerable populations to get us the products we “need.”
None of these extremes shows the full spectrum of American life. As I think about who we are, it occurs to me that some data are in order. The quality-of-life data below carry multiple caveats, though every effort was made to find reliable sources. They represent different snapshots at different times, and much of it will be outdated in the minutes between its compilation and posting here. Credible sources (e.g. the CIA Factbook and the International Monetary Fund) differ on data. Many countries do not have the resources to collect valid information on their people. Suffice it to say, it would be dangerous to the truth to compare one data set with another, since so many differing assumptions would be involved. Please click to see the source, and weigh your decision-making carefully.
All that being said, the results are fascinating, and say a lot about our values, our perceptions and our place in the world. Here we go!
General
Population: 3rd, at 303,824,000+ people, or 4.6% of the world’s population of 6.65+ billion
Population density: 142nd, with about 80 people per square mile
Land mass: tied for 3rd with China (behind Russia and Canada) at 6.5% of world’s land mass
Gross domestic product: 1st, at $13,843,825,000,000, more than a quarter of world’s total GDP
Per capita income: 7th, at $46,000 per person
International relations
Military spending: 1st at $623 billion; rest of world combined is $500 billion
Foreign aid per capita: 15th of 21 weathiest nations for government aid; 4th of 21 for private aid
Health
Life expectancy: 45th, with average of 78 years
Health care spending per capita: 1st at $4,271 per person
Percentage of GDP that is spent on health care: 1st at 13.9%
Percent of health spending that is public: 25th, at 44.9%
Obesity: 9th in world with 74.1% of the population overweight or obese
Birth rate: 155th, at 14.2 births per 1,000 people
Death rate: 96th of 195, at 8.2 deaths per 1,000 people
Infant mortality: 163rd of 195, at 6.3 deaths per 1000 live births
Suicide rate: 43rd at 11 deaths per 100,000
Social/ lifestyle
Marriage rate: 1st of 27 selected countries at 9.8 marriages per 1000 people
Divorce rate: 1st of 34 selected countries at 4.95 divorces per 1000 people
Crime
Incarceration: 1st, with 2,078,570 prisoners
Incarceration per capita: 1st, with 714 per 1,000 people
Executions: 3rd, with 68
Corruption: 17th, with “clean” score of 7.6 out of 10
Rapes per capita: 9th, with 0.30 per thousand
Murder per capita: 24th at 0.04 per 1000 people
Murder with firearms per capita: 8th at 0.03 per 1,000 people
Democracy
Democracy: 17th by The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Index of Democracy
Human rights: Top rankings of “1” on a scale of 7 for both political rights and civil liberties
Free press: 48th of 169 countries
Education
School life expectancy: 14th, at 15.2 years
Literacy rate: Tied for 15th with numerous other nations at 99%
Unranked data on United States
Number of pets: 382.2 million
Spent on pets: $43.4 billion (estimate for 2008)
Spent on restaurant meals: $974 per capita in 2004, totaling more than $286 billion
Spent on all advertising: $149 billion in 2007
Spent on prescription drugs: $200.7 billion in 2005; 12.4 prescriptions per capita
Total U.S. public debt: $9,341,527,250,070+
U.S. trade deficit: $62.3 billion in February 2008; annualized would be $747.6 billion
Personal debt (not including mortgages): $2,460,000,000,000+
Fight to keep what makes you proud. Pray and work to change what disappoints. Join with all of us who love this nation enough to want greater discipline, greater sacrifice, greater support for the most vulnerable, greater moral strength and healthier lifestyles. Together, with God’s help, we can do it. But we must act quickly.
Copyright, 2008, Pat Grauer
Population density: 142nd, with about 80 people per square mile
Land mass: tied for 3rd with China (behind Russia and Canada) at 6.5% of world’s land mass
Gross domestic product: 1st, at $13,843,825,000,000, more than a quarter of world’s total GDP
Per capita income: 7th, at $46,000 per person
International relations
Military spending: 1st at $623 billion; rest of world combined is $500 billion
Foreign aid per capita: 15th of 21 weathiest nations for government aid; 4th of 21 for private aid
Health
Life expectancy: 45th, with average of 78 years
Health care spending per capita: 1st at $4,271 per person
Percentage of GDP that is spent on health care: 1st at 13.9%
Percent of health spending that is public: 25th, at 44.9%
Obesity: 9th in world with 74.1% of the population overweight or obese
Birth rate: 155th, at 14.2 births per 1,000 people
Death rate: 96th of 195, at 8.2 deaths per 1,000 people
Infant mortality: 163rd of 195, at 6.3 deaths per 1000 live births
Suicide rate: 43rd at 11 deaths per 100,000
Social/ lifestyle
Marriage rate: 1st of 27 selected countries at 9.8 marriages per 1000 people
Divorce rate: 1st of 34 selected countries at 4.95 divorces per 1000 people
Crime
Incarceration: 1st, with 2,078,570 prisoners
Incarceration per capita: 1st, with 714 per 1,000 people
Executions: 3rd, with 68
Corruption: 17th, with “clean” score of 7.6 out of 10
Rapes per capita: 9th, with 0.30 per thousand
Murder per capita: 24th at 0.04 per 1000 people
Murder with firearms per capita: 8th at 0.03 per 1,000 people
Democracy
Democracy: 17th by The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Index of Democracy
Human rights: Top rankings of “1” on a scale of 7 for both political rights and civil liberties
Free press: 48th of 169 countries
Education
School life expectancy: 14th, at 15.2 years
Literacy rate: Tied for 15th with numerous other nations at 99%
Unranked data on United States
Number of pets: 382.2 million
Spent on pets: $43.4 billion (estimate for 2008)
Spent on restaurant meals: $974 per capita in 2004, totaling more than $286 billion
Spent on all advertising: $149 billion in 2007
Spent on prescription drugs: $200.7 billion in 2005; 12.4 prescriptions per capita
Total U.S. public debt: $9,341,527,250,070+
U.S. trade deficit: $62.3 billion in February 2008; annualized would be $747.6 billion
Personal debt (not including mortgages): $2,460,000,000,000+
Fight to keep what makes you proud. Pray and work to change what disappoints. Join with all of us who love this nation enough to want greater discipline, greater sacrifice, greater support for the most vulnerable, greater moral strength and healthier lifestyles. Together, with God’s help, we can do it. But we must act quickly.
Copyright, 2008, Pat Grauer
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