Rankings by socprogress indicate that countries that have made great progress in some areas, such as meeting basic needs, let their citizens down in others, especially in protecting and expanding their freedoms
off is humanity? Which countries’ citizens are thriving and which are languishing? Where are people making progress and where are they sliding back? Often the answers to such questions come from examining their economies. GDP per person, however, can only show so much. More important is how prosperity translates into well-being. A dataset published on May 24th by the Social Progress Imperative, a non-profit organisation, aims to show that.
The results still suggest a link between wealth and well-being: the richest countries are often the ones where citizens thrive. Conditions are worst in the poorest. But the data also show that countries that have made great progress in some areas, such as meeting basic needs, let their citizens down in others, especially in protecting and expanding their freedoms.
In a separate analysis, the SPI shows how scores have changed between 1990 and 2020 . After rapid progress in the 1980s and 1990s, improvements in human welfare seem to have slowed. Progress in some regions, such as Latin America, has stalled. The United States, meanwhile, is going backwards. The covid-19 pandemic has probably hurt global progress even more since.