Is most of Europe poorer than the U.S.?

Angela

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See:

https://fee.org/articles/most-of-europe-is-a-lot-poorer-than-most-of-the-united-states/
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Clearly, some countries are more variable, of course.

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In England, the high GDP seems to be the counties around London. How much of that is related to the financial markets? The same is true for southern Ireland, I think, i.e. financial markets.

France, it's just Paris, yes?

Scotland, Norway, oil?

Belgium, perhaps to some extent, the EU headquarters?

"As a quick caveat, it’s worth noting that there’s not a one-to-one link between gross domestic product and actual living standards. Some of the economic activity in energy-rich states such as North Dakota, for instance, translates into income for shareholders living elsewhere in America.But if you look at the US average ($54,629), it obviously is higher than economic output in European nations. And if you prefer direct measures of living standards, then data on consumption from the OECD also shows that America is considerably more prosperous.
ici-oecd.png

None of this suggests that policy in America is ideal (it isn’t) or that European nations are failures (they still rank among the wealthiest places on the planet).
I’m simply making the modest — yet important — argument that Europeans would be more prosperous if the fiscal burden of government wasn’t so onerous. And I’m debunking the argument that we should copy nations such as Denmark by allowing a larger government in the United States (though I do want to copy Danish policies in other areas, which generally are more pro-economic libertythan what we have in America)."

He obviously has an axe to grind. Is there another side of the story?
 
Yes, in GDP per capita term, that is correct. But the US has such blatant inequalities that if you ignore the top 1% (who own 35% of the country's wealth), the average West Europeans are in fact richer than the average American. If you check the median wealth by adult, the USA ranks 25th worldwide. And that does not even take into account the generous social security, free or cheap healthcare and tertiary education in most of Europe. So statistics alone can be very misleading.

1280px-Median_Wealth_per_adult_by_Country_2017.png
 
Good point. We do have a very large underclass, much larger than in Europe, some of it native born and some of it from immigrants.

This is interesting. Is there similar data available for Europe that could be converted to dollars?

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This is gross income, as well. Americans keep a lot more of their income because their taxes are much lower. Anyone* making under 50,000 pays no federal income tax, and payroll or withholding taxes for social services type things are quite low by European standards, as are sales taxes in comparison to VAT.

I think to prove his point he'd have to do a much more in depth analysis, taking all these things into consideration, plus cost of living and on and on.

Ed. * A family of four...refers to effective tax rate.
 
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People making less than $50,000 do pay federal income tax. Individuals earning less than $10,000 are still paying federal income tax. People making millions from the stock market don't pay federal income tax, but the vast majority of those actually working do.

2017 Federal Tax Rate Schedules
https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/irs-tax-return/current-federal-tax-rate-schedules/L7Bjs1EAD
I suggest, you make money on stock market too. What is holding you? Then, don't pay taxes on it and we'll see what happenes...
 
I suggest, you make money on stock market too. What is holding you? Then, don't pay taxes on it and we'll see what happenes...

Basic necessities is what holds back most Americans from playing the stock market. Most wage earners are barely meeting their basic needs of shelter, food, utilities, security, medical, and transportation for work. A large percentage of people don't have the intellectual capacity and education to go about wisely investing in the stock market. Meanwhile, politicians and their puppeteers, like a pack of ravenous hyenas, want to privatize social security, so they can rob wage-earning Americans. I predict they will be successful doing this, and then the insatiable beasts will look for whomever's savings they can then consume.
 
You do indeed pay tax on money you make on the stock market. It's taxed twice, effectively, once when I earn the income, and then when whatever I've invested makes a profit. Then if it goes into my estate for my children it's taxed again. It's highway robbery.

I was speaking of income for a family of four. I have gone back to correct the sloppiness.

Table 1
Maximum Income a Married Couple with Two Children Can Earn
and Yet Pay No Federal Income Tax, Assuming No Unusual Tax Situations
(Nominal and 2010 Dollars)



Including the 2008 stimulus checks;
maximum $1,200 for married couples,
plus $300 per child.
$55,583$56,715
2009Making-work-pay credit introduced;
maximum $800 for married couples
$50,233$51,439
2010(assuming no retroactive changes
made during 2010)
$50,250$50,250


For individuals:
Table 2
Federal Individual Income Tax Returns with Zero or Negative Tax Liability

Then there are all the people who make so little they don't file.

2006138,394,75445,681,04733.0%
2007143,030,46146,655,76032.6%
2008142,350,25651,631,91736.3%
https://taxfoundation.org/record-nu...llion-nonpayers-include-families-making-over/
See also:
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You'd have to factor in state and local taxes, payroll taxes, property taxes, etc. to get a real picture, and then purchasing power for that amount of money. Health insurance could be added in for everyone who has it? Medicaid for a lot of those who don't?

This one is interesting too. No wonder so many multi-millionaires move to Switzerland. I wonder if New Zealand has the same policies as Australia. A lot of those people do that. I started hearing about that ten years ago. I also think that supposedly the wind currents mean it wouldn't be as affected in case of some disaster.

tax%20rates%20ranking%20100k.jpg
 
Basic necessities is what holds back most Americans from playing the stock market. Most wage earners are barely meeting their basic needs of shelter, food, utilities, security, medical, and transportation for work. A large percentage of people don't have the intellectual capacity and education to go about wisely investing in the stock market. Meanwhile, politicians and their puppeteers, like a pack of ravenous hyenas, want to privatize social security, so they can rob wage-earning Americans. I predict they will be successful doing this, and then the insatiable beasts will look for whomever's savings they can then consume.

indeed, making big money on the stock market is for the happy few who have the right capacities and mindset
the same goes for top sporters, movie stars and entertainers

if you don't make it on the stock market, maybe you could try top sport or to become a movie star
good luck


I think those on the stock markets pay the most taxes of all these categories
 
it is hard to compare US with EU incomes

EU has a big social and medical security system - sometimes to big - which America lacks
Americans work many more hours than the average European
and then there are regional differences inside EU and inside US
 
Good point. We do have a very large underclass, much larger than in Europe, some of it native born and some of it from immigrants.

Looking at this chart, the American underclass appears to be really huge.

1280px-Wealth_distribution.png


50% of American households have a total wealth (including house, cars, savings, etc.) of less than $100,000. That's close to poverty as it means they most probably do not own their own house/apartment. In contrast 96% of Romanians own their home, despite having low income. In fact, the USA has one of the lowest home ownership rate (64.5%) in the developed world.

25% of American households own less than $10,000. That's pretty much destitute.

I found a similar chart for the UK (figure 3), which has one of the most unequal wealth distribution in Western and Northern Europe, and it shows that at the 50th percentile people have a household wealth of £259,000, which is $340,000 at the current exchange rate due to the unusually low value of the GBP at present, but more like $400,000 in normal times. You have to go up the 70th percentile in the US to reach this level of wealth. Similarly, at the 90th percentile American households own $1,186,000, which is approximately £625,000, what in the UK is found at the 75th percentile. Where Americans catch up is at the 99% percentile, where household wealth shoots up above $10 million, against "only" about $4 million in the UK. So it's really the very rich who pull up all the wealth data upward in the USA. Otherwise most of the population is poorer than in Northwestern Europe.

OECD stats also show that the USA has the highest ration of people living in poverty (17.8%) among developed countries. In Central and Northern Europe it is between 5 and 10%.


This is interesting. Is there similar data available for Europe that could be converted to dollars?

Pew Research compare the share of lower, middle and upper classes by country in a very comprehensive study (13 pages) last year. They found that the USA had the smallest middle class and the largest lower and upper classes in all countries surveyed.

ST_2017.04.24_Western-Europe-Middle-Class_0-04.png



Even when taking the US median income to define middle class boundaries, West European countries (except Italy, Spain and oddly Britain) still had larger middle classes than the US.

FT_17.05.22_EuropeMiddleIncome.png
 
See:

https://fee.org/articles/most-of-europe-is-a-lot-poorer-than-most-of-the-united-states/
aLw6SEY.png
[/IMG]


Clearly, some countries are more variable, of course.

ARIciuN.png
[/IMG]

In England, the high GDP seems to be the counties around London. How much of that is related to the financial markets? The same is true for southern Ireland, I think, i.e. financial markets.

France, it's just Paris, yes?

Scotland, Norway, oil?

Belgium, perhaps to some extent, the EU headquarters?

"As a quick caveat, it’s worth noting that there’s not a one-to-one link between gross domestic product and actual living standards. Some of the economic activity in energy-rich states such as North Dakota, for instance, translates into income for shareholders living elsewhere in America.But if you look at the US average ($54,629), it obviously is higher than economic output in European nations. And if you prefer direct measures of living standards, then data on consumption from the OECD also shows that America is considerably more prosperous.
ici-oecd.png

None of this suggests that policy in America is ideal (it isn’t) or that European nations are failures (they still rank among the wealthiest places on the planet).
I’m simply making the modest — yet important — argument that Europeans would be more prosperous if the fiscal burden of government wasn’t so onerous. And I’m debunking the argument that we should copy nations such as Denmark by allowing a larger government in the United States (though I do want to copy Danish policies in other areas, which generally are more pro-economic libertythan what we have in America)."

He obviously has an axe to grind. Is there another side of the story?
iTs obvious! USA is a lot richer than any separate country of Europe, or Europe in general. As it stands right now USA with 320 people, produces the same as EU with 520 million people, roughly 21 trillion dollars each. So for every dollar one makes in European union, in USA the person makes 2. I THINK Usa will remain the wealthiest country for at least 100 years to come.
 
Another thing to take into consideration is that a large part of millionaires and billionaires in the USA are actually foreigners or at least foreign-born. That applies to plenty of Hollywood stars, singers, athletes who reside and pay taxes in the USA, but also lots of CEO's (think of Satya Nadella as CEO of Microsoft, Sundar Pichai as CEO of Google or Indra Nooyi as CEO of PepsiCo, just to mention a few Indians) and other top business people.

According to this Quora discussion, 1 in 3 millionaire in the US is either foreign-born or first-generation migrant.

This article explains that 42 of the Forbes 400 billionaires (i.e. 400 richest Americans) are foreign born. That includes Sergey Brin (Russian Jew), George Soros (Hungarian Jew), Elon Musk (South African) and Rupert Murdoch (Australian), eBay founder Pierre Omidyar (French of Iranian descent) and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel (German).

So the USA has more multi-millionaires and billionaires than Europe, but many of those counted in the stats for the USA are in fact foreigners.
 
hmmm

I wonder if we compare the USA state by state,
and EU state by state
what results we also get?

and offcourse prices/cost for life,
for example the price of bread in N Orleanes and NY, and in London and Talin
 
hmmm

I wonder if we compare the USA state by state,
and EU state by state
what results we also get?

and offcourse prices/cost for life,
for example the price of bread in N Orleanes and NY, and in London and Talin
There was such a comparison in 2015. England the richest country in Europe had incomes as much as Mississippi, the purest state of USA.
 
Another thing to take into consideration is that a large part of millionaires and billionaires in the USA are actually foreigners or at least foreign-born. That applies to plenty of Hollywood stars, singers, athletes who reside and pay taxes in the USA, but also lots of CEO's (think of Satya Nadella as CEO of Microsoft, Sundar Pichai as CEO of Google or Indra Nooyi as CEO of PepsiCo, just to mention a few Indians) and other top business people.

According to this Quora discussion, 1 in 3 millionaire in the US is either foreign-born or first-generation migrant.

This article explains that 42 of the Forbes 400 billionaires (i.e. 400 richest Americans) are foreign born. That includes Sergey Brin (Russian Jew), George Soros (Hungarian Jew), Elon Musk (South African) and Rupert Murdoch (Australian), eBay founder Pierre Omidyar (French of Iranian descent) and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel (German).

So the USA has more multi-millionaires and billionaires than Europe, but many of those counted in the stats for the USA are in fact foreigners.
STILL, all the foreign rich people in USA dont have a quarter of what Bezos have. Jeff as we speak right now t stands at 164 billion dollars. And thats rich
 
indeed, making big money on the stock market is for the happy few who have the right capacities and mindset
the same goes for top sporters, movie stars and entertainers

if you don't make it on the stock market, maybe you could try top sport or to become a movie star
good luck


I think those on the stock markets pay the most taxes of all these categories

That's not how it works here. Corporate pension funds and pensions for government employees are invested in the equity markets (i.e. teachers, police, as well as bureaucrats). Even small companies, service companies, provide pensions with funds invested in the markets, usually not individual stocks, but mutual funds, government bonds etc., for safety). Then, people who save even small amounts of money invest in mutual funds. Banks offer them. That's not to mention that many companies offer stock options to their employees.

A very large percentage of the American population is invested in the market either directly or indirectly. Basically, if you have a decent job you're invested in the market, even if not directly.
 
Another thing to take into consideration is that a large part of millionaires and billionaires in the USA are actually foreigners or at least foreign-born. That applies to plenty of Hollywood stars, singers, athletes who reside and pay taxes in the USA, but also lots of CEO's (think of Satya Nadella as CEO of Microsoft, Sundar Pichai as CEO of Google or Indra Nooyi as CEO of PepsiCo, just to mention a few Indians) and other top business people.

According to this Quora discussion, 1 in 3 millionaire in the US is either foreign-born or first-generation migrant.

This article explains that 42 of the Forbes 400 billionaires (i.e. 400 richest Americans) are foreign born. That includes Sergey Brin (Russian Jew), George Soros (Hungarian Jew), Elon Musk (South African) and Rupert Murdoch (Australian), eBay founder Pierre Omidyar (French of Iranian descent) and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel (German).

So the USA has more multi-millionaires and billionaires than Europe, but many of those counted in the stats for the USA are in fact foreigners.

I don't think 42 out of 400 is such a large number. The vast majority are native born Americans.

The size of the underclass is indeed large, and it's never going to get smaller, I fear. Most of these people just don't have the skills to prosper in modern America and I don't believe the happy talk that they can be "trained" or re-trained. The introduction of even more automation, driverless cars and trucks, etc. is just going to make things worse.

If, however, you have an education and real skills, and are willing to work, I think it's clear that economically you're much better off in the U.S. in terms of real after tax income and purchasing power.
 
USA is a dynamic society, opportunities are there for the taking if you really want to.
A driven INDIVIDUAL can easily prosper, re-invent him/herself when needed, and is able to live a dignified life.
imo 50% of the poor in the US, are poor for being static (Lazy), unwilling to move where the jobs are and afraid of change. The other 50% have health issues, addiction or mental problems.
If you expect Social Perks don’t come to America, you’ll be disappointed.
If you are a driven Individual: You’ll Love it here! :)
 
I don't think 42 out of 400 is such a large number. The vast majority are native born Americans.

The size of the underclass is indeed large, and it's never going to get smaller, I fear. Most of these people just don't have the skills to prosper in modern America and I don't believe the happy talk that they can be "trained" or re-trained. The introduction of even more automation, driverless cars and trucks, etc. is just going to make things worse.

If, however, you have an education and real skills, and are willing to work, I think it's clear that economically you're much better off in the U.S. in terms of real after tax income and purchasing power.
cant say they all can't be trained to land a good job.
 
USA is a dynamic society, opportunities are there for the taking if you really want to.
A driven INDIVIDUAL can easily prosper, re-invent him/herself when needed, and is able to live a dignified life.
imo 50% of the poor in the US, are poor for being static (Lazy), unwilling to move where the jobs are and afraid of change. The other 50% have health issues, addiction or mental problems.
If you expect Social Perks don’t come to America, you’ll be disappointed.
If you are a driven Individual: You’ll Love it here! :)

You don't have to be a superstar to have a better life economically here: a teacher, a cop, someone with a good job in tech, a nurse, a good electrician or plumber, etc.

The problem is that all kids are shoved into college prep courses, and they're not all capable of succeeding at those kinds of courses. I don't care how much you torture them with after school time, year long school etc. they're not going to be up to it. That's why you have this big bloc of recruited students in colleges and universitites who are still there six or seven years later, still incapable of graduating. They form a big percentage of the idiots making a mockery of our higher education system with their protests about cultural appropriation, triggering and associated insanities.

America has to come to grips with the fact that all people should be and are equal in front of the law, but all of them are not equal in terms of IQ. A European type system of technical schools would help immensely, get them off welfare, and raise their standard of living.

As it is now, a lot of people aren't capable of more than minimum wage jobs in fast food restaurants etc.

That would still leave those who really don't have the mental capacity to do the jobs that will be left after automation really takes hold, the ill, the addicted to drugs or alcohol and, as you say, the lazy.

As to the last thing, that's why so often foreign born people do better than some native born Americans. Look at the Haitians, or the South Asian farmers and fishing folk who were brought here after Vietnam etc. They haven't gotten used to being on public assistance generation after generation.
 

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