Social report card:
U.S. gets a failing grade

Mar 21, 2005

The 2004 "Report Card on World Social Progress" came out with the yearly figures on how the world's populations are doing, according to the statistics published in each country or from world agencies like the World Bank.

The study concluded that "The last decade has seen a sharp deterioration in overall life quality for vast segments of the world's population, especially for people living in the poorest nations of Africa and Asia."

If the growing world poverty isn't shocking enough, the U.S. is getting poorer faster than other nations, since it went down from 18th place to 27th in just one year! "Chronic poverty" threatens the lives of some 36 million people in the U.S. The world's wealthiest country, the United States, is in 27th place of nations when measured by such social statistics as infant mortality, literacy of women, safe drinking water, income, wars and political expression.

27th place?! These facts put the U.S. on a social level comparable to Poland and Slovenia.

Poland and Slovenia! The economies of these two countries together are only one thirtieth the size of the ten trillion dollar U.S. economy. The American ruling class may not provide decent medical care and pensions for everyone, or good schools and adequate education. But there's one thing the capitalists in the U.S. excel at – squeezing profit out of the increasing misery of the population.