🇺🇸 How Does the U.S. Compare?
A quick look at American life compared with other developed countries
The United States is one of the wealthiest and most innovative countries in the world.
But national wealth alone doesn't tell us how people are doing.
Looking at other countries gives us something valuable:
A chance to learn from what works.
This page compares the United States with other developed countries across:
🏥 Health • 💰 Economic Security • 👶 Families • 🎓 Education • ⚖️ Justice • 🌎 Environment
The goal isn't to decide which country is “best.” It's to understand what works, why it works, and what we might learn from each other.
🏥 Healthcare
We spend considerably more.
The United States spends approximately:
🇺🇸 U.S. — $14,885 per person
🌎 OECD average — $5,967 per person
That means the United States spends roughly 2.5 times the OECD average per person on healthcare.
But higher spending doesn't automatically produce better outcomes.
In the Commonwealth Fund's 2024 comparison of 10 high-income healthcare systems:
🇺🇸 United States — 10th of 10 overall
The U.S. performed comparatively well on some measures of the actual care people receive, but struggled with areas including access, equity, administrative efficiency, and health outcomes.
All nine other countries in the comparison had universal health coverage. The United States did not.
Why?
Researchers point to a combination of:
High healthcare prices • Administrative complexity • Fragmented insurance • Affordability barriers • Unequal access • Primary-care challenges
Sources
OECD — Health at a Glance: United States
Commonwealth Fund — Mirror, Mirror 2024
https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/2024/sep/mirror-mirror-2024
💰 Income, Poverty & Inequality
The United States has high household income compared with many developed countries.
🇺🇸 U.S. — $46,600
🌎 OECD comparison — $
But high national income doesn't mean everyone experiences the same economic security.
Relative Poverty
🇺🇸 U.S. — 18.0%
🌎 OECD average — 11.8%
Income Inequality
🇺🇸 U.S. — 0.395
🌎 OECD average — 0.316
A higher Gini coefficient means income is distributed less equally.
How can America have high incomes AND high inequality?
Because these statistics measure different things.
A country can generate enormous wealth while still having large differences in who receives that wealth, the cost of basic needs, and what support exists when someone's income is low.
Countries also make different choices about:
Wages • Taxes • Healthcare • Housing • Childcare • Education • Unemployment support • Social programs
Source
OECD — Economic Survey of the United States
https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/oecd-economic-surveys-united-states-2024_cdfff156-en.html
👶 Families & Paid Leave
Here's one particularly clear international difference.
🇺🇸 Federally Guaranteed Paid Maternity Leave
0 WEEKS
The United States is the only OECD country without a national paid maternity-leave guarantee.
That doesn't mean no American receives paid leave.
Some workers receive paid leave through their employer or state programs.
Federal law also provides eligible workers with up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act.
Other developed countries organize their systems differently, but nationally guaranteed paid leave surrounding childbirth is standard throughout the rest of the OECD.
Sources
OECD — Economic Survey of the United States: Family Policy
https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/oecd-economic-surveys-united-states-2024_cdfff156-en.html
U.S. Department of Labor — Family and Medical Leave Act
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fmla
🎓 Education
American education isn't simply “good” or “bad.”
International testing shows a much more interesting picture.
The OECD's PISA assessment compares the skills of 15-year-old students internationally.
📖 Reading
🇺🇸 U.S. — 504
🌎 OECD average — 476
American students scored above the OECD average.
🔬 Science
🇺🇸 U.S. — 499
🌎 OECD average — 485
Again, American students scored above the OECD average.
➗ Mathematics
🇺🇸 U.S. — 465
🌎 OECD average — 472
Mathematics was slightly below the OECD average.
What can we learn?
Instead of asking:
“Are American schools failing?”
We can ask:
Where are students succeeding?
Where are they struggling?
Which education systems are getting strong results?
What are they doing differently?
Source
OECD — PISA 2022 Results: United States
⚖️ Incarceration
This is one of America's clearest international differences.
🇺🇸 U.S. Incarceration Rate
≈614 people per 100,000 residents
The United States incarcerates people at a substantially higher rate than most comparable democracies.
There isn't one simple explanation.
Researchers study the combined effects of:
Sentencing laws • Drug policy • Pretrial detention • Policing • Probation and parole • Violent crime • Economic inequality • The historical development of the U.S. criminal-justice system
Understanding the difference doesn't require choosing a political position.
It means asking:
Why is our outcome so different?
What approaches reduce crime while also reducing unnecessary incarceration?
What can we learn from places producing better outcomes?
Source
Prison Policy Initiative — States of Incarceration: The Global Context 2024
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/global/2024.html
🌎 Environment & Consumption
Americans also use more resources per person than the OECD average.
⚡ Energy Use
🇺🇸 U.S. — 6.4 tonnes oil-equivalent per person
🌎 OECD average — 3.8
🌫️ CO₂ From Fuel Combustion
🇺🇸 U.S. — 13.6 tonnes per person
🌎 OECD average — 7.8
🗑️ Municipal Waste
🇺🇸 U.S. — 0.8 tonnes per person
🌎 OECD average — 0.5
Why?
Individual choices are only part of the picture.
The United States has:
Long transportation distances • Extensive car-dependent development • Large homes • High consumption • Substantial freight movement • Historically fossil-fuel-intensive infrastructure
That means solutions aren't only about telling individuals to consume less.
They can also involve improving:
🏘️ Community design
🚆 Transportation
⚡ Energy systems
♻️ Waste systems
🏠 Housing
🌳 Local infrastructure
Source
OECD — Economic Survey of the United States
https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/oecd-economic-surveys-united-states-2024_cdfff156-en.html
🧭 The Bigger Picture
These comparisons don't tell us that America is succeeding at everything.
They also don't tell us that America is failing at everything.
They show something much more useful.
🇺🇸 Areas of Strength
💵 High household disposable income
📖 Strong international reading performance
🔬 Strong international science performance
💡 Major research and innovation capacity
🏥 Strong performance on some measures of healthcare delivery
🌱 Areas Where We Can Learn
🏥 Very high healthcare spending without correspondingly strong overall outcomes
💰 Higher relative poverty and income inequality than the OECD average
👶 No national paid maternity-leave guarantee
⚖️ Exceptionally high incarceration
🌎 High per-person resource use and carbon emissions
➗ Mathematics performance below the OECD average
💡 Why Compare Countries?
Countries aren't identical experiments.
Every country has different:
History • Geography • Population • Economy • Culture • Government • Infrastructure • Challenges
So when another country gets a better result, the lesson isn't:
“Copy everything they do.”
The useful questions are:
🔎 What are they doing differently?
📊 Is there evidence that it works?
🧩 Which part seems responsible for the result?
🏘️ Could that idea work in our communities?
🧪 Could we test or adapt it?
📈 Could we measure the results?
🌎 A World Full of Solutions
We don't have to solve every human problem from scratch.
Another country may have learned something useful about healthcare.
Another may have developed a successful approach to education.
Another may know something about transportation, housing, families, public safety, or sustainability.
And an American school, neighborhood, nonprofit, city, or community may be doing something that the rest of the world should learn from.