A report released by the Legatum Institute on Thursday showed that the COVID-19 crisis has weakened the prosperity of the United States, but even before the pandemic, mass shootings, rising obesity levels and mental health problems have already caused Americans’ quality of life. Influence.

The United States remains one of the most prosperous countries in the world, ranking 18th out of 167 countries. This conservative London think tank stated in its report. 2021 U.S. Prosperity Index.

The index is released annually by Legatum and uses 11 pillars to measure the prosperity of the United States: safety and security, personal freedom, governance, social capital, business environment, infrastructure, economic quality, living conditions, health, education and natural environment.

The Legatum report found that although the prosperity of the United States has been rising for more than a decade, it is still unevenly distributed. Stephen Brien, Legatum’s policy director, wrote that “even before the pandemic, other factors hindered progress”, noting that “increased suicides, drug overdose deaths and self-reported poor mental health “Causes the U.S. economy to decline in the health ranking of the index.

In addition, “the increase in mass killings and injuries in the past decade has destroyed many communities” and has led to a continuous decline in the index’s ranking in the safety and security pillar.

The report found: “The United States ranks 122nd globally in terms of mass killings and injuries (including terrorism), slightly lower than Eritrea and slightly higher than Iran,” the report noted, noting that “more than half of the 50 states have suffered at least There has been a mass shooting. Every year since 2013.”

The report also examines property disparities related to race, ethnicity, and geographic location.

According to the report, even before the pandemic, one in two adults in white households had a college education, compared with less than one in four in black households.

Among those without a college degree, black Americans are almost twice as likely (15.4%) as white Americans (8.4%) to be unemployed.

The report found that the coronavirus pandemic has affected many different aspects of American lives, including social well-being, mental health and economics.

The report cited data from the Center for Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University’s School of Social Work, stating that the poverty rate in the United States jumped from 15% in February 2020 to 16.7% in September 2020.

The report cited data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and found that between 2019 and 2020, the homelessness rate increased by 2.2%. By 2020, 18 out of every 10,000 Americans will be homeless—the equivalent of 550,000 or approximately the entire population of Wyoming.

Researchers from the Legatum Institute said that the pandemic has caused a widespread shutdown of the US economy and caused 20 million non-agricultural workers to lose their jobs. Although the situation has rebounded in many ways, there are still 8 million fewer jobs in April 2021 than in 2021. February 2020. Their report found that some of the hardest-hit states, including Nevada, had unemployment rates as high as nearly 30% and Michigan at 24%.

According to the report, urban counties have been hit harder than rural areas. The unemployment rate in rural areas rose by two percentage points, while in cities it rose by 3.4 percentage points.

Although the federal government has injected nearly $6 trillion into the economy to help the country recover and rebuild after the pandemic, “the full impact of COVID-19 on state and county prosperity has not been fully understood and measured,” the report added.