UN Human Development Report 2004

What, you mean it’s possible to juggle criteria to make Sweden and Norway look better than the US and the UK? Really?

Such a neat idea. Surprised it hasn’t been done before. I wonder what other fun could be had with statistics…

I decided to take a closer look at the table to work out why this was in the UK. Two things stand out. The life expectancy figures are slightly lower in the Anglosphere countries (for which we can blame health service problems and obesity), and the huge number of people under the $11/day poverty line. That figure really surprised me, so I tried to figure out what the minimum income from benefits was. It’s not at all clear from the various government websites, and is complicated by the NI system (some benefits are relative to your pre-unemployment income). The basic state pension is £77/week, which is
clearly above that line, and is a useful proxy for the amount of money the government thinks is a minimum.

I’d really like to know who those 9.5 million people on below $11/day are, and why they don’t show up in politics demanding more.

That’s $11/day in 1994 PPP-adjusted dollars, if I read the notes right. I don’t know how that converts to 2004 UK pounds.

If you’re looking for what the government thinks is a minimum, then the benefit to look at is Income Support, which is what you get if you’ve not made enough National Insurance contributions to qualify for Unemployment Benefit. That comes to £42.70 a week but isn’t intended to cover rent, which is paid by local authorities as Housing Benefit.

I agree. I’m not sure that this tells us very much, except that Nordic welfare regimes are probably better at reducing relative levels of poverty – which we already knew.

Norway and Sweden win by virtue of their vastly superior heavy metal bands.

“What, you mean it’s possible to juggle criteria to make Sweden and Norway look better than the US and the UK?”

Since Norway also has a higher level (and growth rate) of GDP per capita, it might be a challenge to juggle criteria so as to push it below the US and the UK.

Zizka’s putative defences of poverty are distinctly odd, at least in making comparisons between countries. They require some system-independent account of how much the lazy and irresponsible should get relative to the hard working and responsible, which conservatives have a hard time providing. (Not accusing you of this, zizka, obviously, just your putative conservatives). Since the only country in the list with notably greater relative social mobility than the others is Sweden, that is the only country in which we have any reason to believe that the kinds of traits conservatives want to reward and punish are better rewarded than in the other countries. But even that may be deceptive because sociologists measure relative social mobility NOT by reference to the social distance travelled, but by reference to the movement relative to others. Since Sweden is more equal than most other countries, the socially mobile don’t move as far as in, say, the US, at least in some intuitive sense of ‘distance’.

The other argument for poverty/inequality is that it’s good for growth. This turns out to have no empirical support (within the domain of rich countries), as Goodin et al show in *The Real Worlds of Welfare Capitalism*. And even if it did, economic growth, above a certain level that the coutnries on the list have already passed, has very little relationship with human wellbeing.

I agree with Andrew Boucher that any index like this is highly subjective — reducing relative poverty isn’t the only good thing (although it is, in fact, an enormously good thing, and would get very heavy weighting in any sensible index for rich coutnries). But what, exactly, do the anglosphere countries do better than the Nordic regimes that really matters for the wellbeing of their citizens? Not at all clear to me that there’s any serious contender for an index on which they’d come close.

I suspect that the number of folks in the U.S. below the poverty limit given in the report is due to counting people who are in the U.S. illegally – since the minimum wage and pretty much any form of government assistance would put a person above that line, even in the U.S. If that’s true, it’s horribly unfair – you might as well mark down the U.S. for all the poverty in Mexico, or France for Africa.

That said, the numbers are misleading, because they’re only one component of the HDI. If I remember the news reports, overall, the U.S. was #8, right in the middle of the pack.

It just isn’t trooo!

How can someone so smart regurgitate such utter bilge?

The HD poverty index is based on 50% of income. Those making less than 50% of some income level are considered poor.

So in the US GDP per capita is 35,400 and in Spain GDP per capita is 14,580.

So in the US 50% of GDP per capita is 3,400 more than Spain’s GDP per capita.

So using that income level someone poor in the US has an income 20% above the average Spanish income.

Now I don’t want to shovel my own load of crap.

So, yea, the HDPI is measured at 50% of median household income and for a cross country measure it would probably make sense to adjust for PPP.

I have always wanted to actually do this, it’s easy and it makes sense, but can never find the data, raw household income numbers by country, the numbers used by the HD, and PPP adjusters for the given year, free and easy on the internet.

(I have no idea what the results would be, maybe the US would still rank 17, maybe all the results would pretty much stay the same, meaybe this has been considered and I am being a little harsh by using the term bilge, but I doubt it.)

If anyone knows where I could find the data, free or otherwise, please post a comment.

That would be great.

In the meantime it might or might not be troooo but I says the measure stinks.

harry,

Thanks. I will check it out.

I can see measuring poverty in a relative(or semi-relative) manner within a country. Especially with some goods and services like health care.

But across nations? No way. As I noted above the results become absurd.

Poverty as mostly or soley a psychological phenomena? Hmmmmm.
Conservatives have been making that claim for years. I don’t think the general public is all that interested in eliminating such poverty.

Ratings like these remind me of the New York Times ratings of best movies. They’re actually the movies that the critics like best and not the ones that people like best. While I tend to prefer the critics’ views over the average person’s, the result is skewed toward the views of UN bureaucrats and CT readers.

So what are the people’s views? Where do people emigrate to? Are they dying to go to the Scandinavian countries, and do our perfect blond cousins welcome them with open arms? Apparently not. They go to those nasty old anglo-saxon countries.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/imm_for_pop

There are 4 factors in the HPI-2 I will take them individually.

1. Probability at birth of not surviving to age 60. This, like life expectancy statistics, is influenced by the fact that the US is much more agressive in treating premature births, and does not count them in the miscarriage statistics. This is also influenced by US lifestyle choices (unhealthy compared to many) and by high rates of immigration (immigrants often come from countries with poorer nutrition in formative years, which cannot entirely be made up later.)

2. Literacy Rates. See very high levels of immigration.

3. Long term unemployment. Hey we score well here. Which is interesting considering our very high levels of immigration.

4. Poverty rates. We score worst on %of people below 50% of median income. Which in a rich country stikes me as a very poor indicator of poverty. Ohh, and also see our very high levels of immigration.

Now I don’t want you to come away from this thinking that I’m anti-immigration. I’m not. I’m actively pro-immigration. Anyone who wants to become an American in ethos and citizenship should come here. I’m just saying that it isn’t surprising that we have a slightly lower literacy rate when we absorb so many people who don’t speak English as their first language. Same concepts apply to the other statistics.

“BUT, it doesn’t matter, because relative, not absolute, poverty is what matters in a rich society, even adjusting for PPP. ABove a certain level of material wellbeing, how well off one is depends enormously on how well off others are. SO many goods — from self-respect and social status to access to political power — are strongly connected to one’s position relative to others. The HDI is flawed in many ways, but on this it is absolutely right.”

This is a political judgment, not an ‘indicator’ of poverty. It is a political judgment not shared by a majority of the US population, therefore it is not surprising that the US does ‘worse’ than countries where it is a political judgment that is shared.

If the “poverty level” is being set at half of median income then all you are measuring is inequality, which due to cultural factors is higher in Anglo countries. You haven’t demonstrated anything negative or positive about those countries relative to others unless you come up with a measurement that is absolute for all countries involved.

If D^2 is right about the number of foreign-born inhabitants in the USA then there is something wrong with Bull’s “Nationmaster” chart which shows 10.4% foreign population.

With regard to Sebastian Holsclaw’s comment: life expectancy for African Americans is very low – lower than in some extremely poor countries. Surely that is what drags the average down.

Actually my immigrant hypothesis for life expectancy is just flatly wrong . On average US immigrants live longer than those born here. I’m not sure how that interacts with the live to 60 stat, but unless something shocking happened it seems that it would be similar.

Point still stands about immigrants and literacy and the amazing fact that we can have such low unemployment despite taking in so many immigrants. But I was wrong about the life expectancy issue (with repsect to immigrants–lifestyle choices comment still applies)

bq. Frankly, I and many Americans do not see relative poverty (at least as expressed in the US) as much of a problem at all.

I’m sure you are right. Oddly, though, it has always seemed to me that in the US more than anywhere else I know (which is really just the UK, Ireland, and France) the (relatively) poor are at a greater disadvantage; i.e. more socially excluded. Partly because of the lousiness of public services, partly because the population sparsity makes it easier to exclude them, partly because race is so significant, and partly, probably, because I’ve lived here 1986 on, in a time when the poor are so unself-consciously despised in the public culture.
The first 3 probably account more than the apparently spectacular wealth of the lower middle classes for people not caring much about it.
But this is all anecdotal, conjectural, and strictly inadmissable in formulating indices.

Of course, it doesn’t help to alleviate poverty in anglo-saxon Britain when this sort of thing happens:

“The former head of the National Local Government Forum Against Poverty has been charged with fraud following police investigations into allegations that money had gone missing from the fund.

“Garvin Reed, former national convenor and finance chair of the organisation, was charged on Friday with conspiracy to defraud following a two-year investigation, codenamed Operation Fear, by fraud officers from South Yorkshire police. . . ” – from: http://society.guardian.co.uk/localgovt/news/0,8368,467435,00.html

“The former deputy leader of Rotherham Council has been sentenced to three years in prison for plotting to steal £172,000 from a charity. Garvin Reed, a Labour councillor, admitted spending thousands of pounds of a charity’s cash on prostitutes, lavish hotels, meals, and outings. . ” – from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2511047.stm

“A council at the centre of a police fraud inquiry has been criticised in an independent report for blatant junketing which cost the taxpayer hundreds of thousands of pounds. . . ” – from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/40990.stm

Any reason why I should pay this index any more attention than I pay to the US News college rankings?

Current foreign-born population of the US is estimated at 32.5 million, representing 11.5% of the population.

There is in all this, I think, a serious risk of the abuse of the descriptive qualifier: “anglo-saxon.”

While it is certainly intended to be pejorative in parts of mainland Europe – as when the Belgium finance minister in 1996 said that European monetary union was about “preventing the encroachment of Anglo-Saxon values in Europe” – it is none too clear what the intended connotations were. Personally, I believe the expression relates to an embedded preference for common law systems over the code Napoleon and for empiricism over rationalism. And that it also represents the antithesis of political traditions often labelled “dirigisme” or “statism” or what Edouard Balladur, a Conseravtive prime minister of France, meant when he said in 1993, “What is the market? It is the law of the jungle, the law of nature. And what is civilisation? It is the struggle against nature.” – quoted at: http://yoz.com/wired/1.01/features/culture_war.html
http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=719888

It can be seriously argued that the distant historic roots of governmental welfare provision for the poor and needy go back to the Elizabethan poor laws in England: http://www.victorianweb.org/history/poorlaw/elizpl.html

What I do not believe is that there is anything necessarily inherent in anglo-saxon traditions to explain this:

“The Department of Defense, already infamous for spending $640 for a toilet seat, once again finds itself under intense scrutiny, only this time because it couldn’t account for more than a trillion dollars in financial transactions, not to mention dozens of tanks, missiles and planes. . . A GAO report found Defense inventory systems so lax that the U.S. Army lost track of 56 airplanes, 32 tanks, and 36 Javelin missile command launch-units. . . ” – from: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/05/18/MN251738.DTL

In any event, Europeans, anglo-saxon or otherwise, have no special reason to feel smug:

“[Britain’s] National Audit Office has vowed to increase its scrutiny of EU spending after Europe’s own financial watchdog failed to approve euro accounts. The NAO stressed that problems in the management of the EU’s funds were a matter of concern, especially in view of worries over enlargement costs. . . The EU’s Court of Auditors failed to approve the EU’s accounts in November for the NINTH year in a row.” – from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3688241.stm

Excellent point, Andrew.

I had a quick look at the OECD figures on unemployment and the Euro zone as a whole does have a higher rate of unemployment compared to the US – 9.0% for the Euro zone versus 5.6% for the US.

However, the UK, despite a considerably stronger social safety net in fact has a lower unemployment rate than the US at 4.7%

First, I’d be wary of making too strong a connection between the so-called ‘anglo-saxon’ nations since UK social welfare policy does still seem to be substantially different from that practiced in the US.

Second, I’d also be wary of drawing too strong a correlation between unemployment levels and social welfare.

Of the three countries at the top of the poverty list given above the figures are as follows:

Norway, had unemployment figures of 4.3% at the last measure, Sweden of 6.7% and the Netherlands 4.9%.

It seems these countries are managing to do well on the poverty index AND maintain unemployment levels lower than or only marginally higher than that of the US.

On unemployment figures — different countries do them differently. And the US imprisons a staggering percentage of its working age population, which might just result in artificially low unemployment rates compared with other countries that incarcerate less.

Andrew — I did in my defence point out that the relatively poor in many other OECD countries are less absolutely poor than the relatviely poor in the US. That’s without even adding in the considerations you adduce, which seem absolutely right. There’s probably something to say about pension rights, too, which vary a lot in their generosity, and probably don’t count as income, although they should (though its hard to figure out how). Similarly (to the US’s advantage, this time) differences in upfront costs of goods like higher education.

The OECD report I quoted on unemployment claims (as far as I can see) to use the same standardised measure of unemployment so the direct comparison of figures seems fair.

Quote –

“he OECD standardised unemployment rates, compiled for 27 OECD member countries, are based on definitions of the 13th Conference of Labour Statisticians (generally referred to as the ILO guidelines). Under these definitions, the unemployed are persons of working age who, in the reference period, are without work, are available for work and have taken specific steps to find work.

The uniform application of the definitions results in estimates that are more internationally comparable than those based on national definitions”

If the claim re: imprisonment holds true (and I have no reason to think it doesn’t) then the US is in fact doing rather worse than most of the countries ranked higher on the poverty list.

If one begins – as does the UN (cp. the Universal Declaration of Human Rights), and, apparently, Harry – from the premise that the Welfare State and its moral underpinnings are the expression of the most fitting or humane society, then the ranking in this report is not surprising. To pretend that the report somehow leads to – vs. from – that view is unwarranted.

As to the question “But what, exactly, do the anglosphere countries do better than the Nordic regimes that really matters for the wellbeing of their citizens?” …
It’s obvious what’s being asked, but a linguistic ambiguity – the referent of “their” – can be exploited to address a different question besides; the question could be read as either “what have the anglosphere countries done for their own citizens that is better than what Nordic countries have done for their own citizens?” (the natural and intended meaning), or “what have the anglosphere countries done for the citizens of the Nordic countries that is ‘better’ than what the Nordic governments have done?”

The Anglosphere countries (well, the U.S., and Britain to a point) provide their citizens with a military that is truly efficacious – able to forward-deploy and project credible force. So, for their own citizens, they offer genuine protection from foreign threats and adveraries. They – espec. the United States – also have implicitly and explicitly provided a defensive perimeter for other countries – ironically, facilitating the development of the welfare state in Europe, which for some is now emblematic of Europe’s moral-social superiority.

To answer the question that wasn’t intended: the Anglosphere has provided the citizens of Europe – including the Nordic countries – with something that their own goverments didn’t provide: a genuine security umbrella.

Re the measurement of poverty using relative vs absolute income, I’ve never forgotten my university economics professor’s comment.

“Defining ‘poor’ as ‘less than 50% of the mean income’ means that if you discover an oil well in your back yard and nothing else changes, poverty in your town goes up.” The same would be true if you use the ‘50% of median income’ figure, although the effect would be less pronounced.

Bloatware. That’s what I have to say about Adobe Acrobat Reader. I’m trying to download it at the moment to read the report – all 16 M of it! How the hell did it grow from 5 Megabytes – the size of the last version I downloaded? Grumble aside, let’s get to the meat of the matter…

All the whinging about Anglo-Saxon Capitalism versus Continental Capitalism misses the point: the HDI seems to like Capitalism, period. If you jump to the meat of the matter, there’s a lot of capitalism at the top end – and pretty damned little of it at the other end.

Some of the people here appear to be whinging that the United States was relegated to a honorable eighth place in the ranking. Out of 177, that ain’t bad. Take your compliments like a man, you sons.

(What gets me is that Viet Nam – where I’m living – is ahead of South Africa despite having a fifth of the income. That’s very odd.)

I wonder how it varies across the USA?

Texas vs California vs Minnesota vs Illinois vs Colorado.

If you can’t afford to heat your home in Minnesota, you’ve got a problem. Less so in California.

No one in the absolout vrs. relative poverty dispute has said anything about cost of living. Where I live in the US the median home cost is $200K. A gallon of milk is $2. A trip to the doctor is about $150. Etc.

The way poverty should be figured is at what percentage of the population in terms of earnings do you have to be at to afford the basics.

Depending on where you live in the US you can make $1500 a month and not be able to afford the basics. That same $1500 a month is a kings ransom in, say, india.

Paul Craddick: if I had a dollar for each time I heard that security-umbrella argument, I’d be beating Norway to the top of that list.

It’s a cliché, like all clichés where politics come into play, it has one part truth and three parts ideology and myth, and maybe it’d be nicer to separate the two things.

Also, that so-called “security umbrella” didn’t come for free. And it was primarily in the interests of the US to be a global military power. It wasn’t done out of sheer generosity so the Swedes and Dutch could enjoy their generous state subsidies.

Besides, the expense needed to maintain the military in the US would be ridiculously out of proportion in any European country. So what’s the point of comparing that?

I mean, there’s a whole lot of other factors and differences involved if you want to make a comparison at all, you’ve got to take them into consideration. I would think this sort of lists have some usefulness as indicators of what they’re supposed to reflect, but they’re hardly contest results. They leave out so many aspects and they abstract and generalise too much.

I don’t even think a higher/lower poverty and class divide depends entirely on the welfare model. But even the welfare model itself relies on a certain culture and mentality rather than just economic factors. I don’t think every country has to embrace it, just like, say, Europe doesn’t have to embrace certain peculiarly American mentalities and social models. It’s different countries, different histories, etc.. There’s not one absolutely best solution. It’s all relative, and how each country organises itself doesn’t all revolve around America and its superpower status that certainly no one forced upon her, no matter how the myths on that would have it.

Bob,

I’m wondering at how you defined the criteria for success: “successful counter-insurgency campaign in an asymmetric war leading to a benign outcome.” That seems overly restrictive to me, but even in the case of Vietnam, surely it’s at least arguable that the failure was one of (political) will, not some military deficiency. To simplify, I’m thinking of necessary conditions (troop numbers, hardware, organization, military culture, etc.), not sufficient ones.

MC,

I guess you think my thesis is nearly below rational engagment – since your reply, in essence, was merely a proclamation to the contrary.

That the U.S. has extended the “umbrella” for self-interested reasons is irrelevant to my point, as is the relative cost of running a viable military in the U.S. vs. somewhere in Northern Europe.

I answered the question that Harry had posed – what do “Anglosphere” nations do for their own citizens that is “better” than what the Nordic governments undertake for their populations? My answer: fulfill the first, primary function of government – protect from enemies within AND without.

The irony I noticed is that the U.S. has essentially provided that benefit – yes, at a “price” – to the nations of Europe too; yet it is roundly criticized for not running a – take your pick of descriptors, “more generous” or “more indulgent” – welfare state, which would likely have prevented it from providing the security that contributed to the efflorescence of the welfare state in Europe.

Paul,

Britain’s counter-insurgency campaign in Malaysia was successful in that the country did not succumb to the (Communist) agenda of the insurgents. The outcome was the creation in 1963 of an independent state, which has maintained the practice of regular contested elections since and which withstood, without violent conflict, the secession of Singapore in 1965. In both military and political terms, the campaign was successful.

It’s perhaps important to recognise that in asymmetric wars, what matters is which side eventually achieves its aims and objectives, not upon whether the outcome depended on failing political will on the part of the powerful combatant or its military failure on the battlefield. Military prowess is much less important than the capability to win hearts and minds. Consent is what matters in the end.

Paul,

In asymmetric wars and wars against terrorism, conventional military defense capability is unlikely to be effective. That was the lesson from Vietnam and the Soviet experience in Afghanistan.

Winning hearts and minds is more likely to do better, as well as, sad to say, pervasive and intrusive intelligence gathering with covert operations. We need to re-focus on the threatening ideologies and the capabilities of their adherents.

…I left out a “not” in “The whole culture behind welfare that prevails in Europe is just _not_ the approach in the US”…