Oops! Do you mean that America is not No. 1 in every category?

It seems conventional wisdom has been turned on its head: This from Alternet.org, “Americans enjoy less economic mobility than their peers in Canada and much of Western Europe. The mobility gap has been widely discussed in academic circles, but a sour season of mass unemployment and street protests has moved the discussion toward center stage.

Former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, a Republican candidate for president, warned this fall that movement “up into the middle income is actually greater, the mobility in Europe, than it is in America.” National Review, a conservative thought leader, wrote that “most Western European and English-speaking nations have higher rates of mobility.” Even Representative Paul D. Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican who argues that overall mobility remains high, recently wrote that “mobility from the very bottom up” is “where the United States lags behind.”

Liberal commentators have long emphasized class, but the attention on the right is largely new. “It’s becoming conventional wisdom that the U.S. does not have as much mobility as most other advanced countries,” said Isabel V. Sawhill, an economist at the Brookings Institution. “I don’t think you’ll find too many people who will argue with that.”

Paul Krugman says it this way, “Americans are much more likely than citizens of other nations to believe that they live in a meritocracy. But this self-image is a fantasy: as a report in The Times last week pointed out, America actually stands out as the advanced country in which it matters most who your parents were, the country in which those born on one of society’s lower rungs have the least chance of climbing to the top or even to the middle.”

The elusive American dream is becoming more elusive. Many of those so-called “socialist” European countries have higher economic mobility rates than we do. Provoked by this information, I decided to check quality of life rankings in developed countries. I found a report based on several variables commonly agreed as good measures of quality of life. They are: Healthiness, Family life, Community life, Material well being, Political stability and security, Climate and geography, Job security, Political freedom, Gender equality. The study included 111 countries and territories. Here are the top 15 countries 1. Ireland,  2. Switzerland 3. Norway 4. Luxembourg 5. Sweden 6. Australia, 7. Iceland, 8. Italy, 9. Denmark, 10. Spain, 11. Singapore, 12. Finland, 13. United States 14. Canada, 15. New Zealand.

The questions remain, why are we number 13 in quality of life and why are we lower in economic mobility than Canada and much of Western Europe? The studies point to the most important single factor: deep poverty at the lower economic levels cause a lack of equal educational opportunities, gainful employment, basic health care, decent housing and proper nutrition.

“The United States maintains a thinner safety net than other rich countries, leaving more children vulnerable to debilitating hardships.”

So we are back to the most fundamental argument in our political discourse: “whose responsibility is it to fix this problem?” The right says, the poor should pull themselves up. The left says, government has a responsibility to aid in the solution. So while we argue this point, we continue to slip behind other developed nations.

Taxing the mega-rich to death to create revenue to continue inefficient government spending isn’t the answer. Blaming the poor for their plight isn’t either. So if we can agree that neither extreme offers an answer, maybe we can begin a reasonable dialogue that might bring about solutions. Unfortunately, I don’t hold out much hope. Instead of looking our problems in the face, we cover them up an illusion: We are all millionaires-in-waiting. Sorry, but our chances are better in Canada or Europe. Having written that I now expect to get emails telling me that if I love Canada and Europe so much I should move there. Let the emails begin.

Robert DeFilippis