Data supports this perceived reality. In 2012, the most recent full year of final GDP reports, the United States easily maintained its #1 ranking. U.S. GDP was $16.2 trillion, compared to $8.2 trillion for China and $6 trillion for Japan (when converted to U.S. dollars). However, the U.S. health care system ranked 37th in the last World Health Organization study (2000) and 46th in efficiency of health care spending in a recent Bloomberg report. The U.S. education system ranks in the middle of the pack of developed countries, ranking as low as 30th in mathematics. The life expectancy of Americans trails the average life expectancy of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. A new report even claims that the American middle class is no longer the world’s richest. As these brief examples show, the primacy of GDP arguably masks America’s current well-being compared to other countries.
More Americans are realizing that they can and should base their well-being on factors beyond annual income and the country’s economic numbers. The current public discourse on income inequality, the 99%, a living wage, health care, climate change, and corporate sustainability potentially indicate a cultural shift. This new discourse and the studies listed above create a natural opportunity to reconsider GDP as the primary measure of progress.
