Probably want to use median. Guessing there might be some contrary opinions in this thread – healthcare guns cars etc etc etc.
I’ll consider us poorer when education and healthcare bankrupts people.
Does it account for that we get a lot less USD for EUR in 2022 than in 2008?
People aren’t gonna like this one
Cost of LIVING (emphasis on living because it’s literally like a fight for your life) in American is higher, I don’t think you’re reading this correctly… it’s cheaper for us in Europe to SURVIVE… ofc we earn less
No comparison possible if you don’t take benefits like health insurance, education, pensions etc in account.
Except that a million Americans die of that wealth every year.
Until you have to put 6 figues down for your kids education. After you paid your own student loan of. Not mention potential medical debt.
A higher wage is really only a small part of the picture. (Not saying the US economy isnt more dynamic overall)
But we have healthcare
Cost of Living and median wages would make this look different I’d assume
USA was richer than Europe and it keeps being richer. Where is the news?
Data for Italy and Greece is sadly true. If you add some other EU countries, you will notice their wages grew more than in the USA, as a percentage of course (like Ireland or eastern countries).
Also, wages in Europe adapt to inflation in a slower way than in the US, because of the way workers get their raises (negotiations are done at national level by unions).
Finally, we still have a war right after a pandemic. The recovery from 2019 to 2022 was not complete…
I have an Idea. European countries should increase taxes and made more regulations. Is what european goverments told me that it works.
Without comparing to cost of living this doesn’t mean anything…
I’ve noticed a lot of these posts in the past few days about this specific topic. Did something happen?
I got 38 days of paid holidays this year, paid sick leave and a great pension scheme and I work for a charity. Also free health care and education for everyone. I don’t feel poor at all and wouldn’t swap if I had the opportunity.
Christ the cope in here, go and look at median income. We’ve been falling behind for well over a decade now since our terrible austerity response to the 2008 financial crisis and we’ve missed the tech boom and now we are very quickly losing the EV race. I don’t know why people are surprised.
Life expectancy in the US fell by 2 years since 2019, I’m fine with less money
It does not reflect wealth of people, because it doesn’t take into account the cost of living : if you get a 10% increase of your income, but all your expenses (rent, food …) are 2x as much as before, you’ll get poorer even if your income increased.
Poor is not defined by how much one makes but how much one has to spend.
Yawns in 25 days paid holiday…
Might be, but we don not go bankrupt when we get ill
Sure. Show me the differences, the average is useless for comparing how poor people are.
Those 6 countries aren’t Europe and the effects of the war were felt hardest here. The source of this graph from the wsj article uses data from oecd. That same
Some explanations i can think of why USA is growing compared to the EU.
European population is older and getting older.
Europeans on average work fewer hours and have more vacation.
The euro is not as strong (because the overall economy is under performing).
Cooperation among EU members are not as good. Some member states sabotage reforms and trade deals, and that limits growth potential.
Political decisions in the EU reduces growth by choice (reducing productivity agriculture, fishing, foresting, mining, factories, pollution…..) in order to improve nature.
EU “forgot” to be frontrunner on new technologic adventures. Computer chips, robots, space explorations, EV….
I don’t know guys, I just relocated to my home country (Italy) after some years in the US. It’s so much better here in terms of quality of life that I don’t give a sh… I feel like these numbers are not consistent with the real life
I thought it was common knowledge that Americans generally earn more. The downside is the work ethic, lack of social security, job security, affordable healthcare, etc. Plus the increased cost of living in most areas.
I’d rather earn a little less with some piece of mind in Europe, than grind myself to oblivion for some more $$$ in America.
Why is this, or some version of this, a constant point of discussion? Americans have always had a higher average annual salary than most major countries in Europe but there are a lot of reasons why Europeans may not want to adopt such a system. Americans are generally at a higher risk of being laid off or fired, typically have education debt, may need to pay for health insurance if the job does not supply it, usually have less time for vacations/holidays. These all get factored in. And it’s not wrong to say that American companies have been more profitable and often spend more on research and development, which can lead to more opportunities. (I say all these as an American, I’m happy with my situation but I wouldn’t say everyone would be happy with it).
yet everyone struggles to pay rent
Different systems can’t be compared with this metric alone. I know people that prefer to live in Germany (now Austria in fact) with a lower wage than in California.
For example, US have a higher healthcare costs (private insurance + copays and what not) than Europe (Spain, Germany… almost “free” system paid via public system). For example, now the US is capping diabetes meds to 50$/month in some states, being 500$/month in others. In Europe is free or almost free because is considered a basic living need. Also, healthcare products usually are cheaper.
Utilities (except energy) usually are cheaper meanwhile of better quality, because high competition. The US only has 3-4 big players on consumer ISP/Telecom, so US have data caps (even on fixed lines!), require pay extra to not have it, and they pay 80-100$/month for it. On Europe is not strange to have fiber unlimited with 500Mbps or 1Gbps for 30-50€/month (France, Spain, Italy…). In Mobile, all unlimited (calls, data) for 30€ is possible. Both things for 50€.
In the US you need to pay your tuition and usually debt yourself to have a high education, so you can end in your first job with a 50k$ debt or more. In Europe is easy (in some countries) to study a degree on university for free or almost free (no more than 10k€ for all the 4/5 years)
In Europe the wages usually are more “distributed”, so a “poor person job” like a cashier have a wage of, as least 50% of a engineer (“normal” engineer: 3.000€/month, cashier: 1.500€/month, for example). In the US the differences are high sometimes between professionals.
In Europe people usually live on high condensed cities where they also work, or at least there is a strong public transit system (buses, trains…). In the US is usual to have a car (also, big car or nothing) and drive every day long distances.
In Europe people usually live on flats (in some countries more than others) (high condensed cities again, maybe with a second house on a village if you can allow it). In the US people are more common to live on houses or very expensive flats in like NYC, California, Miami…
This data set does not show that there’s a huge wealth imbalance in the us where the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. And that makes this diagram wildly misleading. The average European is far ‘richer’ and better off than the average American still.
The coping by the Euros here is hilarious
Can’t believe the cope on this ducking thread
Poorer but still there die less people from treatable diseases in Greece than in the USA.
If you calculate preventable causes which calculates also external reasons (car crashes, accidents, gunshots) there are less deaths in Slovenia, Turkey and Colombia.
33 comments
Probably want to use median. Guessing there might be some contrary opinions in this thread – healthcare guns cars etc etc etc.
I’ll consider us poorer when education and healthcare bankrupts people.
Does it account for that we get a lot less USD for EUR in 2022 than in 2008?
People aren’t gonna like this one
Cost of LIVING (emphasis on living because it’s literally like a fight for your life) in American is higher, I don’t think you’re reading this correctly… it’s cheaper for us in Europe to SURVIVE… ofc we earn less
No comparison possible if you don’t take benefits like health insurance, education, pensions etc in account.
Except that a million Americans die of that wealth every year.
https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/2/6/pgad173/7185600
Its nice to have a higher wage.
Until you have to put 6 figues down for your kids education. After you paid your own student loan of. Not mention potential medical debt.
A higher wage is really only a small part of the picture. (Not saying the US economy isnt more dynamic overall)
But we have healthcare
Cost of Living and median wages would make this look different I’d assume
USA was richer than Europe and it keeps being richer. Where is the news?
Data for Italy and Greece is sadly true. If you add some other EU countries, you will notice their wages grew more than in the USA, as a percentage of course (like Ireland or eastern countries).
Also, wages in Europe adapt to inflation in a slower way than in the US, because of the way workers get their raises (negotiations are done at national level by unions).
Finally, we still have a war right after a pandemic. The recovery from 2019 to 2022 was not complete…
I have an Idea. European countries should increase taxes and made more regulations. Is what european goverments told me that it works.
Without comparing to cost of living this doesn’t mean anything…
I’ve noticed a lot of these posts in the past few days about this specific topic. Did something happen?
I got 38 days of paid holidays this year, paid sick leave and a great pension scheme and I work for a charity. Also free health care and education for everyone. I don’t feel poor at all and wouldn’t swap if I had the opportunity.
Christ the cope in here, go and look at median income. We’ve been falling behind for well over a decade now since our terrible austerity response to the 2008 financial crisis and we’ve missed the tech boom and now we are very quickly losing the EV race. I don’t know why people are surprised.
Life expectancy in the US fell by 2 years since 2019, I’m fine with less money
It does not reflect wealth of people, because it doesn’t take into account the cost of living : if you get a 10% increase of your income, but all your expenses (rent, food …) are 2x as much as before, you’ll get poorer even if your income increased.
Poor is not defined by how much one makes but how much one has to spend.
Yawns in 25 days paid holiday…
Might be, but we don not go bankrupt when we get ill
Sure. Show me the differences, the average is useless for comparing how poor people are.
Those 6 countries aren’t Europe and the effects of the war were felt hardest here. The source of this graph from the wsj article uses data from oecd. That same
Those 6 countries aren’t Europe and the effects of the war were felt hardest here. The source of this graph from the wsj article use data from oecd. That same [data](https://data.oecd.org/chart/78Xd) shows real wages declined in the US in 2022 as well and from [eurostat](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/tepsr_wc310/default/line?lang=en) we can see real wages in the EU as a whole were growing steadily before 2022.
https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/denmark/usa?sc=XEAB
Some explanations i can think of why USA is growing compared to the EU.
European population is older and getting older.
Europeans on average work fewer hours and have more vacation.
The euro is not as strong (because the overall economy is under performing).
Cooperation among EU members are not as good. Some member states sabotage reforms and trade deals, and that limits growth potential.
Political decisions in the EU reduces growth by choice (reducing productivity agriculture, fishing, foresting, mining, factories, pollution…..) in order to improve nature.
EU “forgot” to be frontrunner on new technologic adventures. Computer chips, robots, space explorations, EV….
I don’t know guys, I just relocated to my home country (Italy) after some years in the US. It’s so much better here in terms of quality of life that I don’t give a sh… I feel like these numbers are not consistent with the real life
I thought it was common knowledge that Americans generally earn more. The downside is the work ethic, lack of social security, job security, affordable healthcare, etc. Plus the increased cost of living in most areas.
I’d rather earn a little less with some piece of mind in Europe, than grind myself to oblivion for some more $$$ in America.
Why is this, or some version of this, a constant point of discussion? Americans have always had a higher average annual salary than most major countries in Europe but there are a lot of reasons why Europeans may not want to adopt such a system. Americans are generally at a higher risk of being laid off or fired, typically have education debt, may need to pay for health insurance if the job does not supply it, usually have less time for vacations/holidays. These all get factored in. And it’s not wrong to say that American companies have been more profitable and often spend more on research and development, which can lead to more opportunities. (I say all these as an American, I’m happy with my situation but I wouldn’t say everyone would be happy with it).
yet everyone struggles to pay rent
Different systems can’t be compared with this metric alone. I know people that prefer to live in Germany (now Austria in fact) with a lower wage than in California.
For example, US have a higher healthcare costs (private insurance + copays and what not) than Europe (Spain, Germany… almost “free” system paid via public system). For example, now the US is capping diabetes meds to 50$/month in some states, being 500$/month in others. In Europe is free or almost free because is considered a basic living need. Also, healthcare products usually are cheaper.
Utilities (except energy) usually are cheaper meanwhile of better quality, because high competition. The US only has 3-4 big players on consumer ISP/Telecom, so US have data caps (even on fixed lines!), require pay extra to not have it, and they pay 80-100$/month for it. On Europe is not strange to have fiber unlimited with 500Mbps or 1Gbps for 30-50€/month (France, Spain, Italy…). In Mobile, all unlimited (calls, data) for 30€ is possible. Both things for 50€.
In the US you need to pay your tuition and usually debt yourself to have a high education, so you can end in your first job with a 50k$ debt or more. In Europe is easy (in some countries) to study a degree on university for free or almost free (no more than 10k€ for all the 4/5 years)
In Europe the wages usually are more “distributed”, so a “poor person job” like a cashier have a wage of, as least 50% of a engineer (“normal” engineer: 3.000€/month, cashier: 1.500€/month, for example). In the US the differences are high sometimes between professionals.
In Europe people usually live on high condensed cities where they also work, or at least there is a strong public transit system (buses, trains…). In the US is usual to have a car (also, big car or nothing) and drive every day long distances.
In Europe people usually live on flats (in some countries more than others) (high condensed cities again, maybe with a second house on a village if you can allow it). In the US people are more common to live on houses or very expensive flats in like NYC, California, Miami…
This data set does not show that there’s a huge wealth imbalance in the us where the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. And that makes this diagram wildly misleading. The average European is far ‘richer’ and better off than the average American still.
The coping by the Euros here is hilarious
Can’t believe the cope on this ducking thread
Poorer but still there die less people from treatable diseases in Greece than in the USA.
If you calculate preventable causes which calculates also external reasons (car crashes, accidents, gunshots) there are less deaths in Slovenia, Turkey and Colombia.
https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/3b4fdbf2-en/index.html?itemId=/content/component/3b4fdbf2-en
Everything has its cost.