Human Development in the United States
On July 16, 2008, Oxfam America released its report on Human Development inside the United States. Oxfam, along with other organizations, compiled statistics on longevity, educational attainment and enrollment, and earnings to calculate the first intranational human development index. The human development index is a metric which the United Nations uses to measure the well-being of people in different nations and is derived from a population's education, income and health. The nations with the highest HDIs are typically in Western Europe, North America and Japan, while those with the lowest are in Africa and southern Asia. For example, the United States as a whole has an HDI of 0.95, which is the twelfth highest in the world. According to Oxfam, the purpose of this study is to "stimulate fact-based public dialogue and debate about human development here at home." This study provides a detailed look at the standard of living within the US, and provides strong arguments for why we should invest in our country more. Using the results of this study, a strong case can be made for why Republicans should vote for liberal candidates.
As one can see from Oxfam's map of HDI, there is a wide variation in human development across the nation. The states with the highest HDI are in the Northeast, and those with the lowest are in the South. Specifically, Connecticut has the highest HDI and Mississippi the lowest. Oxfam states in its report that this gap in HDI translates into a gap of 30-50 years in living standards. The map can also be broken down by congressional district, revealing that Manhattan's district has the highest HDI, at 8.17, and the San Joaquin Valley has the lowest, at 2.64.
Since this is a California-based blog, let us examine the statistics on Southern California more closely. Looking at the map of So Cal, one can see some striking differences in human development, especially within the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The most developed congressional district, CD 48, in which Irvine is located, has an HDI of 7.89 which is twice that of the least developed congressional district, CD 34, in Central Los Angeles, which has an HDI of 3.6. If you have ever traveled around Los Angeles, this will not come as a surprise, as the neighborhoods in LA are highly segregated with regards to health care, education and income. Another interesting note is that Riverside has an HDI of 5.33, and most of San Bernardino County has an HDI of 4.75. Compared with the more posh areas of Southern California which have HDIs of 6.5 to 8, this is somewhat lacking. However, these HDIs are comparable to Oregon (4.9), Ohio (4.79) and Maine (4.86). Based on this, the derogatory comments reserved for the Inland Empire by many people on the coast are undeserved. Riverside and the Desert Cities are not Podunk hick towns, but are actually on par with the rest of the nation.
The fact that the San Joaquin Valley has the lowest HDI in California, and in the nation, at 2.64 has significance that is not covered in Oxfam's report. California is the most agriculturally prolific state in the union, growing more than half of the nation's fruits, nuts and vegetables. California is the leading dairy producer in the nation and grows almost all of the almonds, artichokes, figs, olives, persimmons, pomegranates, prunes, raisins, and walnuts in the US. The Oxfam report confirms what many people already know, that our farm workers have a shoddy standard of living. The Central Valley's HDI value of 2.64 indicates that many in our agricultural workforce, mostly immigrants from Latin America, have limited education, inadequate access to health care and paltry income. Since so many in our country depend on the output of the San Joaquin Valley, their plight behooves us to raise their standard of living.
Fortunately, Oxfam has surveyed problems in the US has a whole and has provided a blueprint of how we should solve them. Here are some interesting factoids that are listed on Oxfam's website:
Health
-One in six Americans goes without health insurance (around 47 million people).
-The U.S. infant mortality rate is on par with that of Croatia, Cuba, Estonia, and Poland; if the U.S. infant mortality rate were the same as that of top-ranked Sweden, 21,000 more American babies would live to celebrate their first birthdays every year.
-More than half of all personal bankruptcies in the U.S. are related to an inability to pay for illness or injury.
Access to Knowledge
-More than one in five Americans – 22 percent of the population – have “below basic” quantitative skills, making it impossible to balance a checkbook, calculate a tip, or figure out from an advertisement the amount of interest on a loan.
-Nearly one in six American children lives in a family whose head didn’t graduate high school.
-Only three-fourths of American public high students graduated on time (within four years) with a regular diploma in 2003-2004.
Standard of Living
-The top 1 percent of U.S. households possesses a full third of America’s wealth.
-In 1980, the average executive earned forty-two times as much as the average factory worker; today, executives earn some four hundred times what factory workers in their industries earn.
-The real value of the minimum wage has decreased by 40 percent in the past forty years.
Other Domestic Issues
-More families with children are homeless today than at any time since the Great Depression (this was written before the economic downturn).
-The U.S. has 5 percent of the world’s people – but 24 percent of the world’s prisoners.
International Comparisons
-A poor child born in Germany, France, Canada, or one of the Nordic countries has a better chance to join the middle class in adulthood than an American child born into similar circumstances.
-The U.S. infant mortality rate is on par with that of Croatia, Cuba, Estonia, and Poland.
-If the U.S. infant mortality rate were equal to that of first-ranked Sweden, twenty-one thousand more American babies would have lived to celebrate their first birthdays in 2005.
Examining all of these issues is beyond the scope of this post, but their main thrust that we should invest more in the infrastructure and well-being of our nation as a whole, like Western European countries did 50 years ago. Here are the specific recommendations from Oxfam:
1. Promote prevention in public health efforts
2. Make health care affordable for all Americans
3. Modernize K-12 education
4. Invest in at-risk kids, the earlier the better
5. Strengthen and support families through public and private sector efforts that allow working families to better balance their work and family responsibilities
6. Boost incomes and aid asset-building
7. Launch a Marshall Plan for the Gulf
8. Take responsibility for the most vulnerable
All of these measures are good ways to improve the livelihoods of many in our country. Although Obama has received a lot of heat for his economic recovery plan; honestly, he is not doing enough. Of course, he is still receiving considerable criticism from the Right and many in the mainstream for running large deficits. However, even though most Republicans tend to favor a laissez-faire system, in which the government stays out of economic matters, many of them would benefit from the plan recommended by Oxfam.
One can clearly see that, on average, the HDI of the Blue states is significantly higher than that of the Red states. If we were to follow Oxfam's plan, Red states would disproportionately benefit. This may remind of you of the fact that although many Republicans hate 'big government', Red states still take significantly more money from the federal government than Blue states. Perhaps if voters in Red states were better informed about the facts in Oxfam's report, they would vote for Democrats or other liberal candidates. Howard Dean, are you listening?
You lost me at "Desert Cities are not Podunk hick towns".
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