For the living decision (a 5-10 year read on where a person might choose to

be), the United States ranks 173rd of 193 UN members in this dataset, with a

composite of -5.29 and a negative skew. It sits between Equatorial Guinea

and Belarus, just above Russia (#175), and below China (#157), Pakistan

(#165), Iraq (#169), and Zimbabwe (#171). On assets it is #173 (-4.78); on

currency #171 (-4.10). This is the single most counter-intuitive result the

framework produces, so it deserves the most careful explanation. The short

version: the model scores trajectory and trustworthiness for a specific set of

decisions, not current prosperity, and on those axes the US is now being

marked down hard.

This is not a quality-of-life index. American median incomes, consumer choice,

research universities, and the depth of its capital markets remain among the

best on earth, and nothing here disputes that. The framework asks three narrower

questions: if you were deciding where to live, where to hold assets, or

which currency to hold over the next decade, how much would you trust this

state to remain stable, lawful, and predictable? It rewards durability and

penalizes volatility and erosion, and it scores observable actions, not

stated values or reputation. A high starting point earns no credit on its own;

the slope matters.

That design is why a rich country can score like a fragile one. The number is a

directional risk read, not a verdict on how good life is today.

The composite is a confidence-weighted average across five categories. Four of

the five are deeply negative, and they reinforce each other.

Institutional (-5.8, the heaviest weight for living). This is the core of

the result. 'statistical_integrity' scores -7: a BLS commissioner fired over

a jobs number, 20-25% agency staffing cuts, the USDA food-security survey

eliminated, proposed consolidation of statistical agencies under political

control. The American Statistical Association called it a "deepening crisis."

'civil_service_capacity' is -6 (politicization), 'rule_of_law' and

'press_freedom' both -5 (courts pressured and selectively defied; outlets

under ownership/board pressure). When the institutions that produce a country's

own numbers come under political control, every other official figure inherits

that doubt.

Political & social (-5.3). 'treatment_non_citizens' is the lowest single

sub-score at -8: ICE detention peaking near 70.8k, ~540k deported, ~70% of

detainees without convictions, a $100k H-1B fee, court review of visa

revocations curtailed. For a relocation decision, how a state treats people

who are not its citizens is directly load-bearing.

Geopolitical (deeply negative). 'alliance_reliability' is -6 (allies

visibly hedging and diversifying away from dependence on US commitments) and

'conflict_involvement' is -7 near / -5 long. The US is now the lead

belligerent in the 2026 Iran war, enforcing a Gulf naval blockade with documented

munitions strain.

Economic (-3.1). Two mechanics do the work. First, US official data from

2025 onward is discounted as partially entangled. Inflation and fiscal

confidence are lowered because the agencies producing them are no longer clearly

independent, not because the numbers are assumed false. Biden-era data through

2024 was produced by independent agencies and is treated as reliable; the discount

tracks the administration that compromised them, not the calendar. Second, trade is scored on

actions, not tariff levels: a volatile, unpredictable tariff regime manufactures

hostile trade relationships and pushes long-standing partners to diversify away

from US supply and demand, a structural long-term cost layered on the near-term

shock.

The one genuinely split factor is the dollar. 'reserve_currency' scores +5

near-term, -3 long-term: the USD reserve share is 56.9% (Q3 2025 IMF COFER), a

31-year low, with central banks net-selling. The reserve privilege is a large

cushion today that erodes as the institutions it shielded are exposed,

which is precisely what produces the negative skew.

The most instructive comparison is China (#157), which ranks above the US on

living. They arrive near each other from opposite directions: China is an

authoritarian baseline that was never high, with a negative tail of its own;

the US is erosion from a very high baseline. The framework prices the

direction of travel rather than rewarding the high baseline retroactively. An

American reading this will find the China comparison provocative; that is the

point of scoring actions over reputation. (China's own assets/currency scores

sit below the US's near-term, because the dollar cushion is real today.)

Both decline across the horizon, from the near-term currency lens (1-3y) to the

long-term living lens (5-10y). China sits above the US at every

step, but its long-term read falls more steeply (-2.70 near to -4.07 long),

narrowing toward the US's -5.29: two negative slopes, the US's simply lower.

United States █▅▁

China ██▁

┌───────────────┬─────────────────┬──────────────┬───────────────┐

│ Country │ Currency (near) │ Assets (mid) │ Living (long) │

├───────────────┼─────────────────┼──────────────┼───────────────┤

│ United States │ -5.04 │ -5.18 │ -5.41 │

│ China │ -3.05 │ -3.11 │ -4.11 │

└───────────────┴─────────────────┴──────────────┴───────────────┘

• The institutional and data-entanglement discounts do most of the work.

They are the framework's most aggressive assumptions. If you believe the

statistical agencies will re-stabilize and the courts hold, the US score

should be materially higher, and the model says so via the negative skew and

the lowered confidence, not via a hidden hedge.

• It is decision-specific. "Don't live there" is a far stronger claim than

the data supports; "treat US institutional and currency risk as elevated and

rising" is what the numbers actually say.

• Confidence is ~0.71, not 0.9, and capped, because the US now reads as

mixed-declining on transparency: a free press still surfaces the truth, but

the state's own data has been compromised. This is a contested, fast-moving

call, and the framework flags it rather than asserting precision.

• This is a model, not a measurement. The ranking is the output of explicit,

arguable scoring rules. The value is that you can audit and disagree with every

input on the assessment itself.

A restoration of statistical-agency independence; courts holding and being

obeyed; a predictable, rules-based trade posture; and a softening of

non-citizen treatment would each move a heavily-weighted sub-factor by several

points. Because four categories are correlated here, a credible reversal on

institutions would pull several of them at once, which is exactly why the skew

is negative rather than terminal. The floor is not locked in; the trajectory is

what is being priced.

Start with the US assessment, then compare it to China or

Norway (https://themildtake.com/ratings/compare/) to see the mechanism side by side.