Book. How America Stacks Up (Edward Alden, Rebecca Strauss, CFR)

In his recent State of the Union address, President Barack Obama said, "Anyone claiming that America's economy is in decline is peddling fiction." Some of Obama's critics have countered that the United States' standing in the world is slipping and that the country is losing out to rivals like China. So how does the United States actually measure up?

A new book from the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), How America Stacks Up: Economic Competitiveness and U.S. Policy, examines how the United States has responded to global economic competition and benchmarks the United States against other advanced economies. The book is an invaluable resource in the 2016 presidential election cycle for assessing the Obama administration's economic legacy and debating priorities for the next administration.

Clear infographic charts rate the United States against its competitors in eight areas: education, transportation, trade and investment, debt and deficits, worker retraining, corporate taxes, regulation, and innovation.

Authors Edward Alden, CFR's Bernard L. Schwartz senior fellow, and Rebecca Strauss, Renewing America publications associate director, find that while the United States has lost ground in some areas, such as high school and college completion and financing transportation infrastructure, the country is well ahead of other advanced economies in other areas such as technology innovation.