MIAMI (CBS4) – How good is life in the U.S.?  The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s second Better Life Index says pretty good.

The list attempts to move beyond GDP and other traditional economic gauges to factor in other things that affect our well being, including safety, education, healthcare, housing and work hours.

The U.S. took third place among the three dozen mostly-developed countries that were ranked, behind Australia and Norway.

The rest of the top ten were in Northern Europe, except for Canada and New Zealand.

Among Asian countries, Japan and Korea ranked a little below average.

Latin American countries fared poorly.  The three on the list, Brazil, Chile and Mexico, joined Russia and Turkey in the bottom five.

Americans are the wealthiest people, with the best housing, but we aren’t so happy at work, ranking twelfth, mostly because we work longer hours and have less leisure time than the average person in other countries.

We also have more concerns than others about safety and healthcare, and our life expectancy is a year less than the average of eighty.

But all in all, the good far, far, outweighs the bad, and we are very lucky to live in this great country.