5 ms·

GDP per capita doesn't nearly tell the story: 1. Much of the gap is due to former Eastern-bloc countries 2. 50 million of Americans live in horrid poverty I

GDP per capita doesn't nearly tell the story: 1. Much of the gap is due to former Eastern-bloc countries 2. 50 million of Americans live in horrid poverty I guess it's hard to get the full picture when you get a cushy six-figure tech job in the Bay area.

cblconfederate 6y ago
why does it matter. if only half are rich, it's still half as rich from a business-building standpoint
- throwaway33339 6y ago
  What I mean is that most Europeans are fine, comparatively to Americans, and don't actually need to let tech giants intrude every aspect of their lives for the sake of growing their economy. Seriously, do you think everyone would be up in arms if facebook microsoft and amazon pulled out? No, people would just shrug and move on to something else.
dalbasal 6y ago
FWIW, throwaway accounts and politically inflammatory remarks are a bad mix.
auganov 6y ago
Even if you take the three biggest EU economies (Germany, France and Italy) you're still off by over $20k per capita vs the US (at over $60k). And ironically out of these three Germany has the highest per capita and they're the only one to have merged with an Eastern block country. Portugal has already fallen behind Slovenia. The only EU countries to have anything approaching or surpassing US per capita numbers have tiny populations. In which case one might mention NY state has a per capita gdp of $85k with over 8M people.
- throwaway33339 6y ago
  As multiple commenters have said already you should get acquainted with the concept of median (as opposed to mean).
offshore4432 6y ago
Western Europe is poorer than Alabama.
- bildung 6y ago
  That's not true. Median single income in Alabama is $26,846, most of Western Europe is above that. Alabama: https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/AL/BZA210218 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/AL/BZA210218 EU: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income#Median_equivalent_adult_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income#Median_equivalen...
DeonPenny 6y ago
No this doesn't tell the full picture because the gap is the same for company like germany where the GDP per capita in 2008 was 45k and now is 48k. In 2008 the US was 46k and is now 63k. The rate that these economies are diverging is the problem. Its to the point that the 50 million americans in horrid proverty are richer than the middle class in countries like spain, italy, greece.
- bildung 6y ago
  GDP per capita isn't that insightful for this topic because it doesn't tell whether disposable income actually grew. It could also be the case that i.e. only the top 1% household income grew. Median household income is a better metric to get a feeling for the live of the actual, average citizen. Median personal income in the EU grew 18.5% from 2008 to 2018 and 8.7% in the US. (It grew more in 2019 but I couldn't find the corresponding EU data for 2019). The divergence from GDP per capita means most people didn't receive the growth in productivity. US: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N EU: https://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/submitViewTableAction.do https://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/submitViewTableActi...
  - DeonPenny 6y ago
    Yeh in the EU in general it grew but that doesn't actually answer you first questions and it obfuscates the growing difference. This is because the EU as a whole because of the easter bloc country was growing from a much much smaller number. But if you actually look at disposable income germany has nearly 10k less than the US. Thats not even to mention places like greece, Portugal, and spain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_capita_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c...
    - bildung 6y ago
      German median personal income grew by 21% from 2008 to 2018, as per my original link. My overall point was that GDP per capita growth does not relate to income of actual people, though. The difference between both metrics means that mostly only inequality grew in the US from 2008 to 2018. I think you looked at mean income in the wikipedia table, not median income. Median income is "only" 7k less in Germany than the US. The difference between mean and median essentially tells the same story: GDP growths only landed in the upper few percent housholds.
dang 6y ago
Hey, could you please not post flamewar comments to HN? You've got good points here, but unfortunately the nastiness of the last sentence overrides them. Also, please don't create accounts to break HN's guidelines with. Doing that will eventually get your main account banned as well. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here, we'd be grateful.

cblconfederate 6y ago

why does it matter. if only half are rich, it's still half as rich from a business-building standpoint

throwaway33339 6y ago
What I mean is that most Europeans are fine, comparatively to Americans, and don't actually need to let tech giants intrude every aspect of their lives for the sake of growing their economy. Seriously, do you think everyone would be up in arms if facebook microsoft and amazon pulled out? No, people would just shrug and move on to something else.

dalbasal 6y ago

FWIW, throwaway accounts and politically inflammatory remarks are a bad mix.

auganov 6y ago

Even if you take the three biggest EU economies (Germany, France and Italy) you're still off by over $20k per capita vs the US (at over $60k). And ironically out of these three Germany has the highest per capita and they're the only one to have merged with an Eastern block country. Portugal has already fallen behind Slovenia. The only EU countries to have anything approaching or surpassing US per capita numbers have tiny populations. In which case one might mention NY state has a per capita gdp of $85k with over 8M people.

throwaway33339 6y ago
As multiple commenters have said already you should get acquainted with the concept of median (as opposed to mean).

offshore4432 6y ago

Western Europe is poorer than Alabama.

bildung 6y ago
That's not true. Median single income in Alabama is $26,846, most of Western Europe is above that. Alabama: https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/AL/BZA210218 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/AL/BZA210218 EU: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income#Median_equivalent_adult_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income#Median_equivalen...

DeonPenny 6y ago

No this doesn't tell the full picture because the gap is the same for company like germany where the GDP per capita in 2008 was 45k and now is 48k. In 2008 the US was 46k and is now 63k. The rate that these economies are diverging is the problem. Its to the point that the 50 million americans in horrid proverty are richer than the middle class in countries like spain, italy, greece.

bildung 6y ago
GDP per capita isn't that insightful for this topic because it doesn't tell whether disposable income actually grew. It could also be the case that i.e. only the top 1% household income grew. Median household income is a better metric to get a feeling for the live of the actual, average citizen. Median personal income in the EU grew 18.5% from 2008 to 2018 and 8.7% in the US. (It grew more in 2019 but I couldn't find the corresponding EU data for 2019). The divergence from GDP per capita means most people didn't receive the growth in productivity. US: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N EU: https://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/submitViewTableAction.do https://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/submitViewTableActi...
- DeonPenny 6y ago
  Yeh in the EU in general it grew but that doesn't actually answer you first questions and it obfuscates the growing difference. This is because the EU as a whole because of the easter bloc country was growing from a much much smaller number. But if you actually look at disposable income germany has nearly 10k less than the US. Thats not even to mention places like greece, Portugal, and spain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_capita_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c...
  - bildung 6y ago
    German median personal income grew by 21% from 2008 to 2018, as per my original link. My overall point was that GDP per capita growth does not relate to income of actual people, though. The difference between both metrics means that mostly only inequality grew in the US from 2008 to 2018. I think you looked at mean income in the wikipedia table, not median income. Median income is "only" 7k less in Germany than the US. The difference between mean and median essentially tells the same story: GDP growths only landed in the upper few percent housholds.

dang 6y ago

Hey, could you please not post flamewar comments to HN? You've got good points here, but unfortunately the nastiness of the last sentence overrides them. Also, please don't create accounts to break HN's guidelines with. Doing that will eventually get your main account banned as well. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here, we'd be grateful.