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By Stephen Brien,
D.Phil. and Shaun Flanagan
The United States
represents what it is to be a prosperous nation, a modern “City upon
a Hill.” Its democratic structures serve as an example for others;
its economy and productive capacity are world-leading; it has some
of the world’s best universities; and its medical care facilities
are among the most sophisticated in the world.
However, it is widely recognized that Americans’ well-being has not
kept pace with their wealth, and that wealth is not evenly
distributed across the country. The Legatum Institute’s U.S.
Prosperity Index, for the first time, identifies the
variation in both economic and social well-being of each of the 50
states plus Washington D.C. and highlights the differences between
regions and states. It shows, for instance, that while the overall
U.S. homicide rate is 5.3 per 100,000 people, this rate varies
massively between 1.0 in New Hampshire and 12.4 in Louisiana, and
that Maryland’s poverty rate of 9% is half that of New Mexico’s
nearly 20%.
Justice Louis Brandeis famously described the states as
‘laboratories of democracy’, in which social and economic policies
could be developed and tested without directly affecting the rest of
the country. The Index demonstrates the outcomes of those
experiments, with more than 200 indicators measuring 11 distinct
pillars of prosperity. It tracks, in short, the availability of the
American Dream to residents of every state.
While the Index’s finding that the level of prosperity enjoyed by
states in the Northeast is much higher than in the South is not a
shock, it is perhaps more surprising to see that no single state has
yet succeeded in fostering a high degree of both economic and social
well-being for its population. Contrary to the global context,
where the most prosperous countries perform well across all pillars
of prosperity, no state in the U.S. is universally strong. In fact,
every state except top-ranked Massachusetts, is ranked below 20th in
at least one pillar.
The Index reveals that there are clear opportunities for improvement
in every state, and that states can and must learn from each other.
While the necessary area of focus is different for each state,
citizens and policymakers across the U.S. should be looking to their
peers for best practices from which they can learn. For instance,
Connecticut, which is ranked 2nd for
prosperity overall but 29th for
economic quality, might look to California as an example of a state
that has improved its economic quality significantly over the last
decade. Similarly, although Nebraska is ranked just 16th for
prosperity overall, it could provide an example of how to improve in
the area of health to Maryland, which is ranked 9th overall
but just 21st for
health.
Many states have already demonstrated that improvements are
possible. For example, the District of Columbia saw the greatest
increase in prosperity over the last 10 years, having upgraded its
infrastructure through road and bridge improvements and seen safety
and security improve with reductions in burglary and motor vehicle
thefts. Residents in the capital are also healthier than a decade
ago, with falling rates of obesity and smoking, and a decreasing
prevalence of high blood pressure, diabetes, and heart attacks.
However, there are still other areas to be addressed to drive even
greater prosperity growth. Washington, D.C.’s rates of alcohol use
and illicit drug disorders are the highest in the U.S., and although
it has the best higher education ranking and most educated residents
in the country, its secondary education system is the poorest of all
states.
Although priority areas and strategic approaches will necessarily
vary, it is clear that state-level political will has much to
contribute to the development of prosperity across the U.S. But for
too long, the majority of policymakers have focused on the big
fiscal and macroeconomic policy tools at their disposal, or
separately considered the social factors. For future improvements
in prosperity, it is vital that they take a holistic view, consider
the broader implications of social, economic, and institutional
policies, and seek opportunities to learn from each other.
The long-term prospects for the prosperity of the United States are
strong. The fundamental promise of the American social contract has
stood the test of time: the success of the individual still feeds
into the success of the nation as a whole, and vice versa. The
states have a critical role to play in the maintenance of that
virtuous circle.
Stephen Brien,
D.Phil. and Shaun Flanagan are the Director of Policy and Director
of the Centre for Metrics respectively at the Legatum Institute, a
London-based think tank and educational charity with a global vision
to see all people lifted out of poverty.
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Matt
Rogie served for 22 years, half of those in the 160th Special
Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR). Matt’s first combat deployment
was in January 2002 to Afghanistan and by the time he retired in
2010 he had completed 7 combat deployments to Afghanistan & Iraq.
Matt flew countless combat missions supporting US Army Rangers,
Green Berets, Navy SEALS, and other Tier 1 special operation units.
Shaun
Flanagan spent 20 years working in the
UK Government Statistical Service, gathering
data and producing analysis for Government
Ministers and officials to inform and
monitor Government policy in a number of
departments. In 2012 he left the Civil
Service to be the Head of Statistics at The
Association of British Insurers, where he
ran a team producing a large volume of data
outputs on the UK insurance industry.
Between 2016 and 2018 Shaun was Senior
Director for Evidence and Insight at Girl
Effect (formerly part of the Nike
Foundation), where he ran a large global
team of analysts and researchers that
gathered the data to inform, monitor and
evaluate the organisations media programmes
that empowered adolescent girls in
developing countries to take control of
their lives.