Who's got the Better Life: Canada or the US?

Significant differences? Canada vs the US in the OECD’s Better Life Index
	Canada	US	OECD
Average household net-adjusted disposable income (US$)	27,015	37,690	22,284
Household financial wealth (US$)	59,479	98,440	36,808
Per cent of people 18-64 with a paid job	72	67	65
Per cent of work force unemployed for a year or longer	0.97	2.85	2.7
Per cent of occupied dwellings inhabited by their owners	65	67	67
Number of rooms per person in average home	2.5	2.3	1.6
Per cent of dwellings lacking private access to indoor flushing toilets	0.9	0	2.8
Average hours worked per year	1699	1768	1739
Per cent of mothers employed after their children begin school	71	73	66
Per cent of people 25-64 with equivalent of high-school diploma	87	89	60
Per cent of people 25-34 with equivalent of high-school diploma	92	88	80
Average PISA reading score out of 600	524	500	493
Life expectancy at birth	80.7	77.9	79
Per cent of people reporting their health as good	88	88	69
Health spending as per cent of GDP	10.4	16	9
Atmospheric PM10 (micrograms per cubic meter)	15	19	22
Per cent of people who know someone they could rely on in a time of need	95	92	91
Voter turnout (per cent)	60	90	72
Per cent of people who say they trust their political institutions	67	58	56
Per cent of people reporting they had been assaulted over the previous 12 months	1	2	4
Homicides per 100,000 people	1.7	5.2	2.2
Per cent of people who report feeling unsafe on the street after dark	17	19	26
Per cent of people who say they are satisfied with their life	78	70	59
Source:http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/canada/ and http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/united-states/

These are from the OECD's new "Better Life Index." I've indicated "winning" scores in red (very bright red, sorry!). It's hard to know how smart an idea that is. For instance, is it good that more Canadians than Americans say they trust their political institutions? Maybe we're naive and they're wisely wary. (And does anybody believe voter participation in the US is really 90 per cent?) Same with life satisfaction: Are we Canadians simply less willing to share our dissatisfactions with pollsters, are we too easily satisfied or does our objectively better situation legitimately justify greater satisfaction (especially after the emigration of those of us who are dissatisfied)?

Health spending as a per cent of GDP poses similar problems. It's better to spend less for the same service but are we getting the same service as in the US?

Is home ownership necessarily preferred to renting? Here, in any case, the differences between the two countries aren't great. (It's surprising that we have more rooms per person, on average. How big do you suppose those rooms are on average?)

Finally, though Canada comes out on top in a number of measures, there's a big difference in income and financial wealth: more than $10,000 a year per person in the former and almost $40,000 in total in the latter. Money isn't everything. But it's got to count for something.