For better and for worse, like it or not, Americans have a reputation for sometimes (frequently?) being a little arrogant regarding their place in the world. As the Christian Science Monitor reports, new data suggests that these perceptions don’t always correlate with reality:

Many Americans - self-confident and rightfully proud of their nation’s economic accomplishments - don’t believe that other rich nations beat out the US in a number of areas. But statistics say that’s the case. In terms of the percent of its population living at or below the poverty line, for instance, the US ranks worst among 16 wealthy countries, according to the Luxembourg Income Study.

That study found that 17 percent of Americans are poor. As for child poverty, the US also sits on the bottom, with 21.9 percent. Finland has the lowest overall poverty rate, with 5.4 percent. . . . “Many would argue that it isn’t how well off the affluent are in a society that matters most of all,” the EPI study says, “but how the most vulnerable fare.” . . .

Christopher Ruhm, an economist at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, attributes the relatively poor performance of the US in many social areas to a matter of choice. Among the choices the US makes: It spends more than all other nations combined on defense. It spends relatively little on alleviating poverty. It chooses a private health system rather than a socialized, or partly socialized, system.

“The idea that we have the perfect economic model is erroneous,” says Ms. Allegretto. “We could learn something from these more interventionist economies.”

The general point of the article is that Americans (or at least American politicians, business leaders, those who run this country) have decided that our collective focus should be on a “free market enterprise” society (or least what they think is free market enterprise), rather than a society that relies on government intervention and regulation.

So what has that led us to? For the top 10% or so in this country, their lives are excellent and they are indeed on the top of the world. However, for the other bottom 90% of the American population, their standard of living is generally no better than, and in some cases, worse than other modernized countries. So there you have it -- if you are part of the elite, you’ve got it made. If you’re not, then you’re struggling to keep up with the American dream.

In a nutshell, that’s the State of our Union, plain and simple.