Measuring Wellbeing

5. How are the wealth and productivity of a nation usually measured, and what other factors must be considered when evaluating the well-being of a nation’s people?

Middle-class workers can no longer compete for the those positions of high rank as the education becomes too expensive and too strenuous, therefore they must maintain their current position or risk falling victim to poverty. Following generations are further affected by such a cycle; those born into wealth inherit the private property, but those who are born into the low-income family have less opportunity to overcome the existing gap.

14. Explain why a nation’s GDP is both a good and poor measure of its economic well-being and progress?

The extremes of income are the main cause of class related conflicts. The presence of a middle

For example, the cost for medical service in each field has skyrocketed, health insurance has been raised, taxes have increased, and house mortgages have practically doubled. The desire for more money has created a social force that combats the very existence of a middle class. (What is the importance of a strong middle class as far as social norms and values?) However, considering the middle classes position in society we can see that they contribute, in a very irreplaceable way, to societies stability tremendously. The middle class helps establish the set norms and accepted values by everyone. The upper class has the advantage over other classes regarding their amount of money, but the middle class holds the key components that enforce societies way of interacting with one another. Having a strong middle class ensures the continual existence of a society because without socially accepted behaviors and values a society will fall apart. (What happened to the middle class when Rome began to decline?) If we look at the Roman Empire and its decline, we can see that the desolation within Rome’s society completely destroyed the middle class, leaving the remembrance of this great nation as a fragmented piece of history; once beheld as the world’s most

Income inequality has been a major concern around the world, and it mainly links to how economic metrics are distributed among individuals in a country. Economists generally categorise these metrics in wealth, income and consumption. Wilkinson and Picket (2009) showed in their studies that inequality has drawbacks that lead to social problems. This is because income inequality and wealth concentration can hinder or delay long term growth. In 2011, International Monetary Fund economists showed that less income inequality increased the duration of countries’ economic growth spells more than free trade, low government corruption, foreign investment or low foreign debt (Berg and Ostry, 2011).

The middle class is marching backwards, towards a worse future of no guaranteed financial sufficiency. The backward motion is pushed by the dropdown in the average income rate. Although it appears to be slow, it is going to pull the population towards the edge until it falls off to an unknown destiny. According to the US Census Bureau, the annual income of the average-middle class family has dropped down by 3.9 % over the last two decades (“American Middle Class”). The Importance of this class is not limited to the size of its population; it is about the role that individuals of the class play in today`s society. The middle class is the class of teachers, service workers, journalists, writers, and even professionals (“American Middle Class”). If that class is not supplied with the financial support it needs in order to sustain a good quality life, it will lose the ability to contribute to the well-being of the society as a whole. Other classes, even the rich class, will be influenced by the absence of the power of that class. The solution to stop deterioration of the middle class does not take one direction, it takes a careful examination of the reasons behind the core problem, the declination of income. Three major reasons lead to the struggle of the middle class: the weakness of the social fabric that needs to be treated by supporting family relationships in order to overcome individual financial difficulties, The increasing role of

I agree, the weakened middle class can be drivers of economic growth and should be a topic for economic discussion and policy change. A strong middle class creates a stable source of demand for goods and services and the economy, so the corporations need to focus on reducing financial stress on the middle class. Companies should focuses on manufacturing their products, innovate, and create jobs right here in the U.S. By creating and marketing quality products on

There are various other important aspects associated with the economy in general and community in particular that determine wellbeing of the economic agents and these aspects are totally ignored by the concept of GDP. GDP is unable to take into account the strengths of marriages, the intelligence of the public, and the integrity of the public institutions. These moral aspects of the community play significant role in its economic development too. Wisdom, courage, learning, compassion, and devotion all such factors make our lives worthwhile and therefore it is not a wise option to ignore these factors while talking about the economic

Wilson & Tyedmers (2013) discuss how recently the economic growth model has been criticized, which has lead to rethinking how economic success and social wellbeing are measured. Improved metrics have aimed to integrate social, environmental, and human-welfare in order to properly account for potential costs of economic growth (Wilson & Tyedmers, 2013). Wilson & Tyedmers (2013) discuss the attempt to improve macroeconomic metrics and indicators with focus on the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) drawing on Canadian examples. GPIs adjust the GDP model by subtracting social and environmental costs, adding the value of goods and

The two tools discuss in, Two Tools for Well-Being, are community and system spaces. System spaces are the spaces different health professional’s work in such as clinic and hospitals. This article focuses on the definition of a real community and what it means to different health professions. Several health professions are confused and frustrated when they take their treatments as well as interventions into the community and how out they are not effective. System as a tool describes an organizational pyramid that outlines the authorities as well as their responsibilities. It is designed to allow only the individuals at the top of the pyramid to control the standard outcomes and assure uniform quality. For the production of the health system

Hayden & Wilson (2016) discuss whether “beyond GDP” indictors have lived up to expectations, and if not, what obstacles they are facing. Hayden & Wilson (2016) explain that the need for alternative measures to GDP arose as a result of GDP limitations at measuring wellbeing. Alternate wellbeing indicators are either complements to GDP challenging the emphasis put on economic growth or directed at promoting “de-growth” to achieve a sustainable, steady-state economy (Hayden & Wilson, 2016). Therefore, there are two main expectations for these alternate indicators including: 1) the transformative vision that strives to shift priorities away from growth and;

As a society we care about what we measure, we use what we measure, and what we measure drives policies and society in a particular direction. We therefore need to measure progress correctly. If societies blindly accept GDP as their measure of progress, they might be trying to maximize the wrong indicator for society. Bhutan as a living example of a society that has opened a national dialogue about what progress means, and they have created the Gross National Happiness (GNH) index to reflect their understanding of progress. Furthermore, the political and economic architecture of Bhutan is structured around maximizing GNH rather than GDP. We can draw a number of lessons from the Bhutanese experiment, namely that each individual society should strive to answer the following three

The questions are raised as what and how the wealth is distributed or allocated among societies. Countries with similar average incomes can differ substantially when it comes to people’s quality of life such as social justice, access to education and health care, job opportunities, availability of clean air and safe drinking water, the threat of crime, freedom of speech, life expectancy, birth-death control, identity, culture, conservation, equal opportunities, environmental change. Development is important as it covers a wide range process involving cultural, economic, environmental, political, social and technological change of a country. Regarding goals and means of development, recent United Nations documents emphasize on human development measured by life expectancy, adult literacy, access to all three levels of education as well as people‘s average income which is a necessary condition of their freedom of choice. In other words, human development incorporates all aspects of individuals’ well -being from their health status to their economic and political freedom. The Human Development Report 1996 of UNDP focuses on development as the end and economic growth a

This research also shows that economic growth, on average, raises incomes for both the rich and the poor. It helps to lift the poorest in society out of absolute poverty and does not automatically increase inequality. More importantly, no country has managed to lift itself out of poverty without integrating into the global economy.