The Social Health of the Nation: How America Is Really Doing

Rating:
Summary: A Thought-Provoking Book on the Nation's Social Health
Review: The authors persuasively argue that social indicators deserve more recognition among politicians and the media, and make several useful suggestions on how to accomplish this. The authors believe a growing disparity between the country's economic growth and social conditions since 1973 is not adequately measured by economic statistics but can and should be tracked by a national social health index. For this purpose, they present the Index of Social Health developed by the Fordham Institute for Innovation in Social Policy.

Unfortunately, the authors fail make a case that their particular Index has any meaning whatsoever or a place in the national dialogue on social conditions. Despite this, the book is a worthwhile read. Its sixteen indicators of "social health" (infant mortality, child poverty, drug use, life expectance, crime, child abuse, etc.) are carefully researched and succinctly presented. Environmental, racism and quality-of-life indicators are missing, but this is possibly because they lack satisfactory statistical measures. The component data is fully referenced in extensive numerical appendices. Unfortunately, relevance of the individual measures departs when blended into the authors' single Index of Social Health. And, the authors surprisingly fail to provide the magic formula showing how these disparate statistics are weighed to produce their conclusion that social health has deteriorated manifestly since 1973.

Based on their Index, the authors assert the nation's social health peaked at 76.9 (out of a possible 100) in 1973 (during the Nixon/Ford administration), collapsed rapidly during the Carter Administration and has been bumping along around 40 ever since, with a slight upward trend towards 43 in1996, the most recent date presented.

The authors reveal an agenda early in the book with a misleading graph titled "Index of Social Health and GNP" (Chart 3.1). This shows GNP steadily climbing from $2.5 trillion in 1959 to $7 trillion in 1996 plotted against a version of their Index starting at 50 in 1959 and ending at around 40 in 1996. The two lines start at the same point in 1959, travel upward together for a while and then, of course, diverge (since GNP grows each year while the Index is constrained between 0 and 100). Miringoff states that the Index "tracked" GNP until the mid-70s, however "the relationship between the two measures has changed dramatically in the past twenty years." He calls this "growing wedge" between the always climbing GNP line and his almost horizontal Index line a trend that reflects "separate dynamics in society". I found this a misleading depiction of data by the authors on a critical point. Given the precision reflected elsewhere in the book, this is not easily explained.

Reviewing the component indicators in Part II is quite interesting. This is the real meat of the book and has many useful charts and graphs. Most of the indicators show positive and negative developments in line with common perceptions. One big exception is "child abuse." The authors chose to use data on the number of children reported for maltreatment, which skyrocketed from 10.1 to 47.0 cases per 1,000 from 1976 to 1996. As most people realize, there has been a sea change in attitudes towards reporting child abuse in the last generation that may have nothing to do with the underlying amount of child abuse occurring during the period. This indicator appears to be a major contributor to the reported decline in social health since 1973, yet the authors fail to explain how they addressed the obvious data limitation. The "poverty" percentage data (someone earning less than 1/2 of median income) is vivid, but no attempt is made to compare the actual standard of living of person living at the "poverty level" in the USA versus other countries. Disappointingly, the authors do not present data more recent than 1996/1997, which is readily available for many of the indicators. This makes the book less relevant to policymakers.

In reading the book, I couldn't avoid a gnawing disagreement over the authors' generally dark conclusion about social conditions. I perceive social conditions to be better today than the early 70's; possibly a lot better. I would like to think that efforts in our lifetime, by private groups and the government, have been worthwhile and, in part, successful. Miringoff disagrees.