Review of the Measure of America

The Measure of America

Review of the Measure of America

Introduction

        Without a doubt there are countless ways in which we as Americans can track the way the economy is running and whether or not we are headed in the right or wrong direction. As a whole and through many knowledgeable individuals we are presented with tons and tons of data that we can refer to as the gross domestic product, the unemployment rate and the Dow just to name a few. Even with all of that we seem to missing something that something is in reality how are people actually doing in the economy. The measure of America Report takes into consideration just that by using the metric created by Mahbub ul Haq and Amartya Sen called the Human development Index.  Within in this report which so happens to be the third one put out by this group aims to answer three key questions: are we getting healthier? Are we getting richer? And are we getting smarter? All in all the report findings conclude that America is steadily making progress in the areas of health, education and crime.

Key Points

        Life expectancy is calculated using mortality data from the centers for disease control and prevention, the national center for health statistics and the population data from the CDC wonder base. Many factors are taken into consideration when looking at the life expectancy within the Measure of America report. The report focused on education, race and location. According to the report those with an education beyond high school have an average life expectancy seven years longer than those whose education stops with high school. The average life expectancy increased by more than nine years in those who obtain bachelor’s degrees. I never thought that education and life expectancy would be two things that are correlated nor did I believe there was enough supporting data to make the analysis accurate. In terms of relating race in life expectancy the data shows that over the last decade all races that were analyzed all showed increases with the exception of the Native American population. Health, the environments in which people live and work coupled with daily habits and access to health care play a huge role in life expectancy. Due to the overwhelming increase in smoking cessation attempts and the push to always wear a seatbelt are just a few minor changes made by America that has caused the increase in life expectancy.