As a thought experiment, I sometimes ask myself if I had a magic lamp, what advice might I give to myself as a young adult. I would say explore the world and find the country that is closest to your values, learn the language if necessary, and move there. Most likely, I would be an expat because the United States is way too individualistic for the common good. Because Americans are so adverse to taxation and spend so much on being a military power, we don’t have some of the good things that other developed countries enjoy.
The United States is a land of extreme inequality with both extreme wealth and one of the highest poverty rates of the developed countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation Development (OECD). Only Costa Rica is higher.
One way to compare inequality between countries is the GINI coefficient. The mathematical formulas are complex, but in a nutshell, 0 is complete equality and 1 is complete inequality. About half the countries in the OECD have a GINI index of 0.30 or less. The US has one of the highest at 0.39. Note that several organizations such as the World Bank and the CIA track the GINI index of various countries and they use data from different years. But it’s not like comparing apples and oranges; it’s more like comparing honey crisp and red delicious.
Another ranking that I follow each year is the World Happiness Report. I looked up the ranking of the 10 happiest countries and their GINI index. Here is the list along with the GINI index provided by the World Bank:
- Finland 27.4
- Denmark 28,7
- Switzerland 32.7
- Iceland 26.8
- Norway 27.0
- The Netherlands 28.5
- New Zealand –
- Austria 29.7
- Luxembourg 34.9
- Canada 33.8
The United States came in at #18 with a GINI of 41.4 and Mexico at #24 with 45.9.
Of course, this is not enough data to draw a conclusion but it looks like the happier countries have lower inequality,
For further reading on how economic equality improves social outcomes, see The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better and The Equality Trust website.
Equity - Environment - Economic Justice 