I believe I gave enough information for the basis of my position.  One makes a list of countries they think are good societies to live in for the average person.  Then look to see what their social welfare policies are and see if there is a correlation.  I can&#x27;t do this for you because your definition of what constitutes of good society to live in for the average person will differ from mine.  Similarly my definition of an acceptable level of social welfare will differ from yours.  Thus I can&#x27;t make this list for you.  I can only tell you how I arrived at my conclusion.<p>What other data do you want?  You ask for hard statistics but don&#x27;t specify exactly what you statistics you want.  I have no expertise in the area of social development, economics, or other social sciences.  I&#x27;m a mathematician.  The only hard data I can possibly give is to do a Google search.  But you are just as well equipped to do this.<p>This forum is not an academic journal article.  It&#x27;s a collection of non-experts giving their opinions based on their perceptions of the world.  The goal is to have a well reasoned position but the expectation for every opinion to be backed up by hard data, references, and statistics is not reasonable.  No one can possibly be held to such a standard for all opinions.<p>Many, many issues are so complex that there is no obvious statistic that can be used to settle the matter.  In such a case all one can do make a conclusion the best they can with the knowledge that they don&#x27;t have all the information.  But one is not then precluded from holding or expressing and opinion.