America ranks 23rd on the Perception of Corruption Index. Australia, Canada and the UK are 12th, and New Zealand 1st. [1]

[1] https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi

The name of this index is like clickbait gone awry... Couldn't they have gone for something more like the Perception of Integrity Index since being #1 means "least corrupt"?

I never thought about it that way, haha, good call-out.

How much did it pay for that privilege?

One group that measures corruption (I'm sure there are many) is freedomhouse.org

They rate USA 3/4 for corruption (Section C2 [0])

Comparing other similar nations for corruption

Australia 4/4 Canada 4/4 New Zealand 4/4 United Kingdom 4/4

[0] https://freedomhouse.org/country/united-states/freedom-world...

They rate USA 75% for corruption, and the (ex) British colonies as 100% for corruption. What does that mean? Is literally every single transaction in those places corrupt? "Out of 4" seems like a very poor way of doing this kind or rating.

Higher score is better. 4/4 is best.

Compare vs. China https://freedomhouse.org/country/china/freedom-world/2020

You can't just turn ratings out of 4 or 5 or 10 into percents like that. It doesn't mean the same thing. So no they don't rate those countries that.