From the Heritage Foundation, I'm Michelle Cordero, and this is Heritage Explains.

Wealth, success,

Ritches,

stability for ourselves and our loved ones.

We all want it.

And around the world, each day, we go to work in hopes of attaining it. Unfortunately, in certain countries, even if their citizens work equally as hard,

they won't be able to reach the same type of stability or success as others. This is because of something called economic freedom.

So what is economic freedom? In an economically free society, individuals are free to work,

produce, consume, and invest in any way they want to. Did you know that if you live in an economically free society,

you're more likely to be healthier, happier,

more educated, live longer, and take better care of the environment?

Sadly, nearly half of the world's countries are considered mostly unfree or repressed.

How do we know this?

Because for 25 years, the Heritage Foundation has been ranking almost every country by its degree of economic freedom on a scale of zero to 100.

You know, there was a time when the United States actually ranked in the top 10, but that all changed in 2014.

America's freedom is slipping away, literally.

Take a look at this.

When President Obama was sworn into office, the U.S. was sixth in economic freedom worldwide.

Now we've fallen out of the top 10 to 12th place behind countries like Chile, Estonia, Mauritius.

The reason the report says we're being taxed more and regulated to death.

And Michelle, you say President's policies are to blame.

Absolutely. You know, the countries that are beating us are beating us because they're implementing policies that America used to have.

...