HDI is indeed a better metric than the various alternatives based on dollars.

But still. The six US states that score less than 0.9 (i.e. Kentucky, Mississippi et al) are supposedly peers of EU countries like Portugal, Estonia and Croatia, i.e. exactly the places that well-off footloose Americans are choosing to move to (Portugal is packed with well-heeled US refugees).

So apparently HDI does not fully measure quality of life, either.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Dev...