Let’s Look at the International Rankings

The ranking agencies show how poorly the United States has ranked in many important areas of domestic public policy.

Here’s a quick run-down of where the US stands in comparison to other OECD countries and in some cases, other countries throughout the world.

WERE NUMBER ONE! (good rankings we should be proud of):

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Nuclear Power Generation: We’re Number 1
Higher Education: We’re Number 1, but . . .
Size of the Economy: We’re Number 1

But . . . .

WERE NUMBER ONE!? (Not good, in fact embarrassing)…

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Gun Violence: We’re Number 1
Incarceration Rate: We’re Number 1
Homeless: We’re Number 1 in Total Number of Homeless; We’re Number 7 per Capita

Let’s look at the Top Ten in all the international rankings.

WE’RE NUMBER 2 THROUGH 10 (good rankings)

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Broadband Performance: We’re Number 9
Semiconductor Manufacturing: We’re Number 5
Global Innovation: We’re Number 3

Note that most of these achievements are in the fields of technology and renewable energy.

But here are the Top Ten rankings that we should not be proud of:

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Energy from Wind Power, New Capacity: We’re Number 2
Total Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions: We’re Number 2; Per Capita Emissions: We’re Number 2
Violence Against Women: We’re Number 2

Looking further, American policy leaders and lawmakers should be very uncomfortable with our world rankings:

WE’RE NUMBER 11-30:

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Electric Vehicles Market Share: We’re Number 21
Road Quality: We’re Number 17
Life Expectancy: We’re Number 27

It gets worse:

WE’RE NUMBER 31-50:

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Child Well-Being: We’re Number 36
Lowest Child Poverty (OECD countries): Number 31
Gender Equity in Wages (OECD and selected other countries): Number 38

WE’RE NUMBER 51-100: