The week before last, there was an entry in the NY Times Economix blog, "Going Back in Time: Progress, or Lack Thereof, Around the Country" by Kristen Lewis and Sarah Burd-Sharps, co-directors of the American Human Development Project. Human development measures represent a more robust measure of population well-being than economic measures alone, such mean income, and thus are better measure of policy success, past, present and future. It's related in spirit to the genuine progress index I've discussed previously, as well as the opportunity maps from the OneRegion report I discussed a few months ago. It also allows us to look at a state or congressional district in terms of development in time. Thus, the authors note, three decades of development separate Connecticut from Mississippi. More broadly, they explain:
Human development is about what ordinary people can do and what they can become, about the liberty they have to exercise real choice in their lives. For most Americans, the last half-century has brought greater freedom, opportunity and well-being. But the American Human Development Index tells us that huge segments of society are being left out. And it offers a tool to hold leaders accountable for investing in an infrastructure of opportunity that better serves the next generation.
The erosion of America since the advent of Reagan is clearly visible through the lens of this measure. Although we've continued to advance as a nation, others have advanced faster, and passed us:
On the flip, we look at the authors' work on the American Human Development Index, and what it tells us about us in more detail.
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