I get tired of some politician standing there, looking into the camera, and saying that we are the greatest country on Earth. What makes a nation great? One thing I believe is that a government does not make a nation great. What makes a nation great is what that Government does for the people. What makes a nation great is what it does for the world. What makes a nation great is what it does for the least among us, not for those who have the most. There was a segment on the HBO program The Newsroom, where Jeff Daniels' character was asked what made America the greatest country in the world. In part of his speech, he cited that America was 7^th in literacy, 27^th in math, 22^nd in science, 49^th in life expectancy, 178^th in infant mortality, third in median household income, number 4 in labor force, and number four in exports. He went on to state that we were number one in three categories: the number of people incarcerated, the number of adults who believed angels are real, and defense spending, where we spend more than the next 26 nations combined, and 25 of those nations are our allies. I remember watching that segment in 2012, and it hit me like a ton of bricks. It opened my eyes to how we judge greatness. Is the toughest kid on the block that I know the greatest or is the kid that went on to be a scientist the greatest? As an adult, I will take the scientist. I was wondering how we are doing today since we are still calling ourselves the “greatest nation in the world”.

The first thing I examined was our literacy ranking, which places us 36^th globally, with an estimated literacy rate of 79% as of 2024. More than half of Americans aged 16 to 74 read at a level below a sixth-grade level. 21% of U. S. adults struggle with basic reading, which converts to over about 42 million individuals. Some may find that an alarming statistic, but it did not surprise me. What we are doing hasn’t been working. What we have been doing is calling our educated people elitists. Instead of being proud of people with an education, we demonize them. Instead of listening to those people, we have been told we can be great without an educated workforce. I am here to tell you that we can’t unless you want to be one of those robots that puts a screw in and a part moves down an assembly line. Most of those jobs will be filled with robots and not people. The people that will be needed are going to be educated people who can program and repair those robots. I see nothing in the Republican plan to raise the literacy rate of the country, and we need more from the Democrats, but we still need more. It is going to be really hard to compete in a global economy against more literate countries.

When it comes to math, it appears that we continue to drop. Now, math is what used to be called the “universal language”. Why? No matter where you are at or from, 2 + 2 will always equal 4. The numbers don’t change. Continuing to drop in math should be very concerning to the entire country. The Program for International Student Assessment was administered by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which tests 15-year-olds around the world.  The five highest-rated countries in math are all from Asia: Singapore, Macao, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, and Japan. The United States placed 34^th out of 81. We are above average but not near the top. Again, I will ask what are we doing as a nation to improve those scores? If there is a plan in place, then what is it? How can we expect to compete in a world economy?

Just like math, our science scores are also not up to par. The US placed 16^th out of 81 countries in science when testing was administered in 2022. Even with that, we are currently one of the highest countries in scientific research. One of the major reasons is the work that our Universities and Colleges do in scientific research. It is research that is being cut all over the place by DOGE, not only in our universities but in our government agencies like the CDC. School budgets and school curriculums are being cut and attacked not only on the Federal level but also on the State and Local levels. Again, the top 5 countries in science are all from Asia: Singapore, Japan, Macao, Chinese Taipei, and Korea. I see nothing that is being done to bring us up when it comes to education. I see no plan other than to give more money to those schools that believe that angels are real. I have nothing against religion, but as education is de-emphasized in the United States, our standing will fall even further.

All these relatively low scores may mean the students here in America are not prepared well enough to take the high-paying computer and engineering jobs that now are, in many cases, going to foreign workers. Eric Hanushek, an economist from the Hoover Institute at Stanford University, has estimated that the U.S. economy would grow faster if our students’ math and science skills were as strong as those of the rest of the world. This statement runs contrary to the belief of many that we are number one.

Now, let's look at life expectancy. Life expectancy in the United States ranks 48^th worldwide. That number surprised me. I knew that we were not close to number one, but I didn’t expect 48^th. Why would we be so low? The first thing that jumps out in my mind is that most of the developed world has universal healthcare. I would think that it is a no-brainer that access to medical facilities would be a thing that would not only increase life but would also increase the quality of life. Of course, our lifestyle in general doesn’t exactly encourage a healthy body. McDonalds may have a happy meal, but it doesn’t do much for the health of a nation. We work longer hours and don’t have the balance of work vs recreation that other countries have. Trump stated that one of the reasons that Canada should become our 51^st state was because of improved healthcare.  Canada ranks 19^th in life expectancy. Why would Canada want to go backward?

Of course, we are still number one in military spending and incarcerations.  We still spend more than almost the next 10 nations combined. We could cut our spending in half, and we would still be more than the next three combined.  As far as incarcerations go, we have almost a 2 million inmate jail population. We have 1 hundred thousand more than China, and China has 3 times the population. If we are such a great country, why is there so much crime?

You can say how the United States is the “Greatest Country on Earth”, but the numbers don’t show it. But if you look at the numbers, we aren’t very good at math anyway.