Fact (B)- Poverty in the Developed World
Friday, January 14, 2005 - 08:59 AM
As noted in the last entry, the "fact" that the United States is the only industrialized nation with "appreciable" poverty is harder to confirm, but appears to have some truth to it.
A correspondent notes that the 2004 CIA World factbook puts the USA at 12% living in poverty, a lower percentage than the UK's 17% but far more than Belgium's and South Korea's 4% or Austria's 3.9%. America is not exactly alone, but with jolly little company.
The UN Development Programme gives the United States the highest Human Poverty Index value among a selection of wealthy nations. It also puts the USA at place 8 in terms of overall development, which is measured not only by poverty and infant mortality, but also by factors like literacy, life expectancy, unemployment, and number of telephone lines.
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