A look back home

I want to share some particularly striking news articles I've read recently on the social and economic state of my home country.

American Inequality Highlighted by 30-Year Gap In Life Expectancy

The United States of America is becoming less united by the day. A 30-year gap now exists in the average life expectancy between Mississippi, in the Deep South, and Connecticut, in prosperous New England. Huge disparities have also opened up in income, health and education depending on where people live in the US, according to a report published yesterday.

The American Human Development Index has applied to the US an aid agency approach to measuring well-being - more familiar to observers of the Third World - with shocking results. The US finds itself ranked 42nd in global life expectancy and 34th in survival of infants to age. Suicide and murder are among the top 15 causes of death and although the US is home to just 5 per cent of the global population it accounts for 24 per cent of the world’s prisoners.

U.S. Health Care Still Ill, Survey Finds

The United States also lags behind other countries in health-care results, Schoen said. "Even where the U.S. average improved, other countries have improved much more rapidly," she said. "As a result, we are falling further behind the leaders."

For example, the United States is now last among 19 industrialized nations in premature deaths that might have been prevented by better access to health care. In 2006, the United States was 15th on the list.

The scorecard also contended that 100,000 lives -- and some $100 billion -- could be saved each year if health care were improved in the United States.

Unfortunately, as the economy falls into recession and the housing bubble deflates, things are only going to get worse for many Americans, especially those about to retire. A recent CEPR report gives us a glimpse into this world.

Housing Market Meltdown Will Cause Massive Losses in Household Wealth

The report projects that if house prices stay the same through 2009, the median household headed by a person between the ages of 45 and 54, those in their prime earning years, will have 24.7 percent less wealth than did the median household in this age group in 2004. These households will have accumulated just $113,268 in net worth in 2009, barely $15,000 more than their counterparts in 1989, whose net worth totaled $97,600.

If real house prices fall 10 percent, the median household in the 45 to 54 cohort will see a 34.6 percent loss in wealth compared with the median in 2004 while families in the 18 to 34 cohort will lose of 67.6 percent. If prices fall by 20 percent, the most pessimistic scenario, families in the 55-64 cohort will experience a loss of 49.6 percent of their wealth compared to the same cohort in 2004.