It is hard to imagine a business or a government operating without answers to such questions about the effects of its programs. Nonetheless, it is still often unclear to both citizens and public officials how much progress, if any, we are making toward quality-of-life goals, and what effects, if any, major programs have on a sense of individual and collective well-being. In sum, although significant steps have been taken in the past 10 years in devising noneconomic means of assessing progress toward national goals, the development of such indicators is still at a relatively primitive stage. From experience, we know that the nation has tended to emphasize what it can measure best; this in itself is a substantial reason for developing indices of what is most important to the quality of American life. Accordingly, the Panel recommends that a National Social Report, in which a series of indicators of progress toward quality-of-life goals are assembled and evaluated, be created. There are, we believe, several substantial reasons for expanded efforts to compile and disseminate information about progress toward a variety of quality-of-life goals. The first, as we have already noted, is that national policy is not currently guided by any comprehensive procedure for assessing the nation's social condition. The President and his Council of Economic Advisors are required by statute to make an annual report to the nation on its economic health. Statistics on national income and its components—such as employment and unemployment, the balance of payments, wholesale and retail prices—are gathered on a monthly basis, and watched closely by citizens and government officials. However, no such procedure exists for social reporting, for charting changes in the factors that affect individual and collective well-being. A second reason for developing better social reporting procedures is that it would make certain concerns more visible, thus providing a more sensitive barometer of problematic trends and issues. Whereas such problems as natural disasters, urban riots, or overcrowding are immediately apparent and compel attention, other concerns that are at least as important-such as the effectiveness of the schools, the changing needs of families, or feelings of alienation from public leaders-are not nearly so visible and thus are unlikely to receive the kind of attention they should. It is essential that policy makers have a set of social indicators that reveal which segments of the population are experiencing the greatest distress and which types of living environments have deteriorated most. Third, a better system of social reporting would allow more accurate evaluation of what public programs are 19 accomplishing. What we really need to know is not how many dollars are spent in certain areas, but what is accomplished by those expenditures. If millions of dollars are spent to create special programs to educate children from poor families, does their performance in school eventually improve? If we mount a "war on poverty," does it succeed in reducing the ranks of the poor? It is by no means easy to answer such questions, since all major problems are affected by many factors in addition to public programs. But we must have a system of social reporting that will allow us to relate changes in social conditions to public initiatives, and to understand the interrelationships among trends. It will be particularly important to have a comprehensive system of social reporting in the 1980s. In a time of stiff competition for resources, accurate and persuasive data will be needed to show which conditions are improving and which are deteriorating and should be addressed by public policy makers. In a society where there is increasing emphasis upon quality-of-life objectives, a comprehensive social report might reflect progress that economic indicators do not accurately represent. No single index or measure of quality of life is either plausible or feasible. A more fruitful approach toward a comprehensive system of social reporting would consist of specifying "intolerability thresholds" in various areas, and periodically conducting studies to determine which segments of the population fall below those minimal standards. It would also monitor demographic trends and examine their implications. 1. Report of the President's Research Committee on Social Trends, Recent Social Trends, Vol. 1 (New York: McGraw-Hill Co., 1933), p. 1xxv. 2. Survey by Louis Harris and Associates, 1977. 3. Overholt, William H. and Herman Kahn, "Perceptions of Quality of Life: Some Effects of Social Strata and Social Change: The Erosion of Social Levers," Critical Choices for Americans (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1976), p. 139. 4. Maslow, Abraham, Toward a Psychology of Being, 2nd. ed. (New York: Van Nostrand, Reinhold, 1968). 5. McHale, John and Magda C. McHale, Basic Human Needs: A Framework for Action (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1977), p. 24. 6. Moynihan, Daniel P., "The Third Generation and the Third Century: Choices Concerning the Quality of American Life," Critical Choices for Americans, Vol. VII (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1976), p. 409. References Chapter 3 TOWARD A Social Report If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do and how to do it. -Abraham Lincoln efore we look ahead to anticipate those factors most likely to influence the quality of American life in the 1980s, let us consult the research on social indicators to get a perspective on what has happened over the past two decades. What factors appear to have had the greatest impact on the public's sense of well-being? What progress has been made toward goals that most people would regard as improvements in the quality of American life? What appear to be the chief sources of dissatisfaction? It is no easy matter to get a fix on so multifaceted a phenomenon, and it is not surprising that different indicators point in different directions, that the nation's mood-as summarized by pollsters and social commentators-often seems to bear little relation to objective changes. Perhaps, as Aaron Wildavsky concludes, "we are all, in fact, doing better and feeling worse." To Wildavsky, the evidence that we are doing much better than most people recognize is undeniable. "Every standard of well-being," he writes, "shows that every sector of the population... has improved its lot in past decades."1 Like most general assertions about the direction of social change, the validity of Wildavsky's judgment depends upon one's standard of comparison. If we are to make statements about change over time, are we talking about changes over the past 20 or 30 years or more, or about the events and trends of the past few years? With regard to a great many phenomena that affect well-being, the long-term perspective suggests a rather optimistic, even self-congratulatory judgment. In the postwar generation this nation made impressive advances not only in its level of economic achievement, but also in health, education, housing, and general welfare. But if we consider a more recent timespan, such as the changes that have taken place 23 |