I find this wild as someone who has lived for years in both countries and make triple in the US what I make in the UK, factoring in my cost of living and taxes. Same for my partner and family (ranging from double to triple income, including the consideration of ‘profit’ or money remaining at the end of the month).
A colleague of my partner’s just moved to the US for a job with a major company (think Apple, Microsoft) because of how much more he’d be making and still have far more left each month.
That said, some people like my partner’s sister for instance would make more or less the same in both countries, due to lack of education/certification and her specific industry.
I simply just used Excel to compute all the calculations necessary (i.e. PPP-adjustments and percentage differences) and I also just used Excel to create the chart.
PPP might just be in the top five economic concepts that people fail to understand… and top five is saying something, because it’s a long list.
They are much more similar than I would have thought, I always hear that wages are much lower in the UK. I’m in tech though, and as someone else said, tech and med seem to be outliers. My salary is quite a few multiples of these (I wonder what the metric is for PPP between the countries) I have heard that for non-professional jobs, the UK is far superior to the US.
I’d love to see the same chart but just for professional jobs.
![Chart of US and PPP-adjusted UK Earnings for Full-Time Employees [OC]](https://www.europesays.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/9ppqjp27031e1-1920x1024.png)
4 comments
I find this wild as someone who has lived for years in both countries and make triple in the US what I make in the UK, factoring in my cost of living and taxes. Same for my partner and family (ranging from double to triple income, including the consideration of ‘profit’ or money remaining at the end of the month).
A colleague of my partner’s just moved to the US for a job with a major company (think Apple, Microsoft) because of how much more he’d be making and still have far more left each month.
That said, some people like my partner’s sister for instance would make more or less the same in both countries, due to lack of education/certification and her specific industry.
Data for the UK was taken straight from the ONS’ [Employee Earnings in the UK: 2024](https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/bulletins/annualsurveyofhoursandearnings/2024) report using data from the Annual Survey for Hours and Earnings (ASHE). Yearly PPP adjustment factors, up until 2022 as that is where the data stops, were taken from the [OECD Data Explorer](https://data-viewer.oecd.org/?chartId=6ffc580a-3284-46f3-a9dc-ea8fe529c230) where adjustment factors post-2022 were simply assumed to be equal to those in 2022 (e.g. roughly around 0.65).
Quarterly data for the US was taken from the [US Bureau of Labor Statistics](https://www.bls.gov/charts/usual-weekly-earnings/usual-weekly-earnings-over-time-total-men-women.htm#) using data from the Current Population Survey (CPS). Annual earnings figures were calculated by taking the average weekly earnings per quarter provided and annualising the figures.
I simply just used Excel to compute all the calculations necessary (i.e. PPP-adjustments and percentage differences) and I also just used Excel to create the chart.
PPP might just be in the top five economic concepts that people fail to understand… and top five is saying something, because it’s a long list.
They are much more similar than I would have thought, I always hear that wages are much lower in the UK. I’m in tech though, and as someone else said, tech and med seem to be outliers. My salary is quite a few multiples of these (I wonder what the metric is for PPP between the countries) I have heard that for non-professional jobs, the UK is far superior to the US.
I’d love to see the same chart but just for professional jobs.
Comments are closed.