In which human rights areas does the U.S. score highest and lowest compared to OECD countries?
Executive summary
The United States scores relatively high on measures of civil and political “empowerment” compared with a small subset of high‑income OECD peers, but ranks near the bottom on economic and social rights among high‑income OECD countries — 24th of 24 in one recent analysis — and fares poorly on specific outcomes such as maternal mortality and life satisfaction [1] [2]. Available sources do not mention a single, fully comparable OECD‑wide ranking that lists every rights domain side‑by‑side for the U.S.; reporting relies on different indexes with different scopes [1] [2] [3].
1. Where the U.S. looks strongest: “empowerment” and political‑civil freedoms
Human‑rights experts compiling RightsTracker report that the United States’ Empowerment score — covering freedoms of speech, assembly, association, democratic rights, and religion — is 6.4/10 and is “close to average” compared with the five high‑income OECD countries for which that dataset provides civil‑political data [1]. Major democracy and freedom indexes such as Freedom House and the V‑Dem‑derived Our World in Data series also focus on political rights and civil liberties as distinct categories; those indices are the typical sources that find the U.S. comparatively strong on some civil‑political measures even when other social indicators lag [4] [3] [5].
2. Where the U.S. looks weakest: economic and social rights among rich democracies
Reporting by Inter Press Service finds the United States ranked last — 24th of 24 high‑income OECD countries reviewed — on measures of economic and social rights, a category that includes health outcomes, social protections and worker rights. IPS specifically flags the U.S. as having the highest maternal mortality among OECD nations and low life‑satisfaction rankings compared with Nordic leaders [2]. That article also links recent policy choices and executive actions to worsening standings on economic and social rights [2].
3. Different rankings, different emphases — understand the measurement limits
There is no single “human rights scorecard” in the provided sources that uniformly compares the U.S. to all OECD members across every rights domain. RightsTracker has a limited civil‑political comparison (five high‑income OECD countries) and gives the U.S. an empowerment score [1]. Other datasets cited — V‑Dem/Our World in Data, Freedom House, Human Freedom Index — measure overlapping but not identical sets of freedoms, mixing personal, political and economic measures and using different scales [4] [3] [6]. Reporting outlets like IPS synthesize those measures with policy analysis, which can amplify particular findings [2]. Available sources do not mention a single, authoritative OECD‑wide table that lists the U.S. rank for every human‑rights area side‑by‑side.
4. Concrete problem areas flagged by the sources
IPS and related reporting call out maternal mortality, worker and social protections, and life satisfaction as specific weaknesses for the U.S. compared with peer OECD states [2]. RightsTracker’s narrative also notes the U.S. performs “lower than average on the right to be safe from the state,” indicating concerns about security from state action in that civil‑political subset [1]. Human Rights Watch commentary emphasizes that even liberal democracies can show double standards in foreign policy and face domestic rights challenges, underscoring that strengths in electoral politics do not erase weaknesses in social and economic rights [7].
5. Competing interpretations and possible agendas in the sources
IPS frames the U.S.’s low ranking on social and economic rights as evidence of policy backsliding and links it to executive decisions; that story is advocacy‑oriented and seeks to highlight government responsibility for rights outcomes [2]. RightsTracker presents expert‑survey based scores that are narrower in coverage and emphasize civil‑political empowerment [1]. Major index compilers such as Freedom House and academic V‑Dem produce technical, peer‑reviewed measures but focus on political liberties and may not fully capture health or social‑welfare rights without complementary datasets [4] [3]. Readers should note each source’s scope and implicit agenda: advocacy outlets often synthesize multiple indicators to make a policy point, while index projects produce narrowly defined empirical measures.
6. What reporters and policymakers should ask next
To compare the U.S. to OECD peers across all human‑rights domains requires assembling multiple datasets: political and civil indices (V‑Dem, Freedom House), personal/economic freedom indices (Human Freedom Index), and social‑rights metrics (maternal mortality, life satisfaction, worker protections) — then making tradeoffs explicit [4] [6] [3] [2]. Available sources do not provide that unified cross‑domain table; constructing one would expose precisely where the U.S. leads, where it lags, and how policy choices correlate with those outcomes [1] [2].
Limitations: this analysis cites only the provided sources and therefore cannot draw on other indexes or more recent country reports that might change rankings; several datasets referenced have different coverage and methods, which affect comparability [1] [4] [3].