The United States is not investing as much in human capital as other developed countries are. As a result, its comparative advantage is falling behind. For example, U.S. students' math skills have remained stagnant for decades.1 This means the country is falling behind many others, such as Japan, Poland, and Ireland, which have greatly improved. In fact, U.S. test scores are now below the global average.
Comparing Test Scores
The Program for International Student Assessment tests 15-year-old students around the world and is administered by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). In 2018, when the test was last administered, the U.S. placed 11th out of 79 countries in science. It did much worse in math, ranking 30th.2
The U.S. scored 478 in math, below the OECD average of 489. That's well below the scores of the top five, all of which were in Asia: Singapore at 569, Macao at 555, Hong Kong at 551, Taiwan at 531, and Japan at 527. China was not included in this ranking, since only four provinces participated.3
In science, the United States scored at 502, above the OECD average of 489. The top five highest-scorers were Singapore at 551, Macao at 544, Estonia at 530, Japan at 529, and Finland at 522. READ MORE...
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