The United States remains unmatched by any other large economy when measured by per-person income, but by a new measure of “social progress,” it’s way behind – No. 16 – in delivering a high-quality life to its citizens. That’s the message of the Social Progress Index, a barometer released this month that offers a window into the well-being of people in 132 nations.
There's the problem right there: ranking nations based on how much the state does to deliver a high-quality life to its citizens. When you measure how closely a state resembles an ideal Euro-Socialist cradle-to-grave state, Euro-Socialist-style states will be measured higher.
I'm of the opinion that citizens are responsible for that and the state's role should be more limited in the providing high quality of life role and better in the providing opportunity to achieve high quality of life role.
And how good is this index anyway when the SPI score matches the per-capita GDP so closely? Most countries--including the United States--fall very close to the comparison curve in their report (summary here).
Perhaps you can say some of the outliers have lessons for success or failure, but for most countries just knowing their per capita GDP will tell you as much as the SPI.
