When as a young man, Prince Gautama, later known as Buddha, left his royal home in the foothills of the Himalayas in search of enlightenment, he was moved by the physical sight of mortality, morbidity, and disability, and was distressed by the ignorance he saw around him. Buddha did not lack wealth or status or authority, but his focus was on the priority of life and death, of health and illness, of education and illiteracy. He felt overwhelmed by the deprivations that human beings suffered across the world. This was some twenty-five hundred years ago. Buddha searched for his own...

In America, when we hear the word “development,” we are likely to think either of fund-raising in the nonprofit arena or of bulldozers, cranes, and other heavy construction equipment. Yet from Africa to Asia, and from Latin America to parts of Europe, development is not fund-raising or construction, but strategies and action to fight poverty and create dynamic, growing economies.

For many decades, development focused exclusively on economic growth, trade, and investment. Over the last three decades, a new concept has gained traction, positing that while growth is absolutely necessary for development, it is not sufficient. The human development approach...

Economists, politicians, journalists, and ordinary citizens have many ways to track how America is doing. Monitoring the stock market, watching real estate prices, keeping an eye on interest rates—to follow these figures is to see how the country is progressing in one way or another. But we all have a harder time when trying to look at the big picture: on the whole, are things getting better or worse, and for whom? To answer these questions and to gauge how they stack up compared to their neighbors, countries worldwide have embraced an idea that captures key dimensions of national...

Countries worldwide have embraced an idea that captures key dimensions of national well-being in one framework: human development. The human development concept was developed by economist Mahbub ul Haq. At the World Bank in the 1970s, and later as minister of finance in his own country, Pakistan, Dr. Haq argued that existing measures of human progress failed to account for the true purpose of development—to improve people’s lives. In particular, he believed that the commonly used measure of Gross Domestic Product failed to adequately measure well-being. Working with Amartya Sen and other gifted economists, in 1990 Dr. Haq published...

The American Human Development Index shows great variation among states and congressional districts, among racial/ethnic groups, and between women and men. Today, some groups experience levels of human development typical of the whole country ten, twenty, even fifty years ago. At the other end, if present trends continue, the country as a whole will not catch up to high-performing groups for many years. Income is an important part of the story, but not the only part. Health and education are critical factors in determining how much freedom people have and the quality of the lives they lead.

This first American...

The best gauge of human development is the capacity of ordinary people to decide who to be, what to do, and how to live, and the degree to which real freedom and possibility are open to them as they seek to realize their vision of a good life. We have argued that the way to promote human development is to invest in people, particularly in people’s capabilities—the tools required to lead lives of choice and value. Capabilities enable people to capitalize on opportunities, invest in their families and communities, and contribute to society.

In this first American Human Development...

The following indicator tables were prepared using official U.S. government data to the maximum extent possible. In the case of the cross-country comparisons, all data are from international organizations recognized as data providers for those indicators, and all data are standardized in order to ensure comparability.

This process of standardization is time consuming, and there is typically a delay of two to three years. For every indicator, we have tried to present the most updated data. In some cases, one column will contain a mix of years due to problems with data availability....