Re: Countries with Highest Standard of Living
Stray Cat wrote:Anything surprise you? I was surprised that the US only ranks 6th!! I knew we weren't #1 on standard of living, but I thought we were at least in the top five!!
Yes -- I am surprised by the fact that
the site where I think you found this doesn't mention any source for its ranking, and does not say how it measured the standard of living. For all we know, they just made up their data.
The data looks vaguely, but not quite like the ranking from the UN's Human Developement Reports of 2003 (
PDF)and 2004 (
PDF). The Human Development Index (HDI) is measured as a function of per-capita income, life expectancy at birth, school enrolment, and adult literacy. Wikipedia
describes the calculation in more detail. The most current edition was published in 2005 (
PDF). Various non-profits, both partisan and genuinely philanthropic, have spun out variations of this index; but to my knowledge the HDI is the most respected one.