Part of the reason you can't show a _why_ at this level is that each of these graphs have too many confounding factors. The lower level of life expectancy for e

Part of the reason you can't show a _why_ at this level is that each of these graphs have too many confounding factors. The lower level of life expectancy for example is owed partly to how the demographics of the US are different because of the more open immigration policies relative to some OECD countries (like Japan and Korea, e.g.) The greater expenditure on healthcare is owed partly to higher levels of obesity, which is a complex outcome from levels of wealth, hours worked, access to food, availability of childcare etc. One simple way of saying this is that the US is a much bigger, more diverse, country than at least some of the countries it gets compared to. So the comparisons are not entirely "fair." I'd be interested to see a comparison of the individual (US) states interspersed with the OECD countries - at least some states might break out and compete with the higher echelon of OECD countries on some of these metrics. What is "fairer" is to compare the US to itself, across generations. The work that Robert Gordon did in this regard is extremely powerful, showing how, post-1970, the US has not been able to maintain various economic equity indicators. As someone else commented, this could be attributed to a shift in buying power from the "consumer class" to the "investor class," a shift that, contrary to the myth of "trickle down economics" does not lead to more accumulation of capital. Instead, it tends to flow to financial assets and international investment which don't raise domestic demand as much as if you had put that money into individual paychecks. Then there's the gradual decline in new firm formation as well, which adds to this mess - again, this is a comparison within the US, and is "fairer" in assessing what's going wrong.