Reply #65: For people who don't know what OECD is:

[Political Heretic]

It stands for Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development and it consists of 30 member nations, all western "developed" economies. These are usually referred to as "peer nations" because the are participants in western market-economy.

It makes sense to compare the United States to these countries and not, say, Somalia. The similarities in markets and economic culture (generally what we are talking about when we speak generically of "western" countries) make such comparisons have meaning.

If you take the top 20 OECD nations (which makes a lot of since to do because they are the biggest economies, and thus the examples have even more credibility) you actually get even worse US statistics.

Of just the top 20 countries, the US has the #1 worst income inequality, the #1 highest poverty rates, the #1 worst infant mortality rates (and these are comparing live births only between nations, #1 child poverty rate, #3 elderly poverty rate of all countries.

SOURCE for the Top 20 comparisons:
http://www.stateofworkingamerica.org/
State of Working America Report 2008/2009