The American Developement Project: Breaking down the HDI of the USA

[Theige]

I found some very cool interactive maps with the HDI of individual US states as well as individual congressional districts, and lots of other good stuff.

http://www.measureofamerica.org/maps/

Pretty graph from the Economist comparing selected US states to selected other countries:

Surprisingly, the worst congressional district in the US is in rural California.

The worst US state, Mississippi is still rated higher than Italy.

Britain ranks higher than only 3 American states.

If US states were countries, 23 of the top 27 would be in the US.

I live in the congressional district with the highest HDI in the US, comprising the east side of Manhattan and the western shore of Queens.

I'm not posting just to brag about that, I swear!

Anyone else find anything interesting or discussion worthy? There is really a wealth of information here, and I just thought I'd at least share it with everyone

 

[Arwon]

The new education measurement (based on years of schooling) in the 2010 list is a little ridiculous.

The replacement of literacy with years of schooling, and the tweaking of other formulae bumped the US up to third from below 10th.

 

[Bill3000]

Italy's below Mississippi

 

[Karalysia]

Best argument for secession.

 

[emzie]

Italy's below Mississippi

I gotta think GDP per capita has a really heavy weighting here.

 

[Theige]

I gotta think GDP per capita has a really heavy weighting here.

It comprises 1/3 of the index.

 

[Integral]

The new education measurement (based on years of schooling) in the 2010 list is a little ridiculous.

The replacement of literacy with years of schooling, and the tweaking of other formulae bumped the US up to third from below 10th.

Literacy doesn't convey any useful information for developed countries; it's 97% or higher across the OECD.

It does convey information for less developed countries, and indeed is extremely useful in those cases, but it reduces heterogeneity among developed countries.

Not that I expect "years of schooling" to bring much more heterogeneity to the OECD group either, mind.

 

[Arwon]

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[Arwon]

It is something which will be quite influenced by the format of the education system, by cultural expectations, and by specific policies surrounding early school-leavers, vocational training and the like.

It also assumes that a school year somewhere is equal to a school year elsewhere, which seems problematic.

 

[amadeus]

It's equally problematic in assessing literacy, isn't it? I don't know what the old definition was, but if it was "can read" as opposed to "can read and comprehend," we'd see the same problem.

 

[pi-r8]

I'm skeptical of how useful this HDI is. I know it heavily weights "average years of education" as a factor, which the US does quite well in compared to most countries. Unfortunately, the main reason we do well there is because even menial jobs these days often require a bachelor's degree, so people are forced into heavy student loan debt to get degrees that they don't want and don't really need. Then they end up as wage slaves, working multiple part-time jobs to pay the interest on the debt. Is that really a more developed country?

edit: it's also misleading to use GDP per capita, since that's so heavily weighted by a small number of super rich people. Median GDP or PPP would be better.

 

[Tee Kay]

I gotta think GDP per capita has a really heavy weighting here.

It comprises 1/3 of the index.

Which is quite ridiculous.

 

[Integral]

Which is quite ridiculous.

Definitely. It should be closer to 2/3rds.



Though I recognize and respect arguments that GDP/capita should be viewed modulo some inequality measure.

 

[Tee Kay]

Definitely. It should be closer to 2/3rds.

Sure. Modified for income inequality, that is.

Edit: damn your 1337 ninja editing skillz

 

[Camikaze]

I've been led to believe that quality of life would be a better measure than GDP per capita for HDI. Is that so?

 

[Tee Kay]

I've been led to believe that quality of life would be a better measure than GDP per capita for HDI. Is that so?

Depends on how you define the phrase "Human Development"

 

[Integral]

Sure. Modified for income inequality, that is.

Edit: damn your 1337 ninja editing skillz

It's what I do.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Man, imagine how high up we'd be if we counted only real New York.

 

[Camikaze]

Depends on how you define the phrase "Human Development"

Well the way it's interpreted seems to be 'high HDI = great place to live'. So I would've thought that quality of life would be a better measure to use than living standards. I mean, there's a correlation between living standards and quality of life, but it would seem more directly to the point to base HDI off quality of life rather than something that just has a basic correlation to it. Also, 'development' refers to the processes required for increasing GDP per capita, right? This is presumably why education and health come into HDI. But having GDP itself as an indicator of that which facilitates the growth of GDP seems a little odd.

 

[Patroklos]

All those Texas jokes, and its a better place to live than France. Suck it frogs