The United States does not rank among the Top 10 countries in the world for economic freedom, according to the Heritage Foundation’s .
Instead, the U..S. ranked only 12th–after Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, Switzerland, Canada, Chile, Estonia, Ireland, Mauritius, and Denmark.
Estonia was formerly a part of the Soviet Union.
The Index rates economic freedom for countries on 10 quantitative and qualitative factors that are based on : rule of law, limited government, regulatory efficiency and open markets.
“Each of the ten economic freedoms within these categories is graded on a scale of 0 to 100. A country’s overall score is derived by averaging these ten economic freedoms, with equal weight being given to each,” according to the Index.
While the United States’ ranking in the Index has remained unchanged over the year, its score has improved slightly.
“The United States’ economic freedom score is 76.2, making its economy the 12th freest in the 2015 Index,” states the report. “Its score is 0.7 point higher than last year, with modest gains in six of the 10 economic freedoms, including control of government spending, outweighing a slight decline in business freedom.”
