
Britain Is Poorer Than Any US State (2014) - monort
https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2014/08/25/britain-is-poorer-than-any-us-state-yes-even-mississippi/#5cdaf1c235ef
======
HarryHirsch
There's a documentary on Netflix about physicians setting up shop on a race
track to offer treatment to the poor and indigent in Bristol, TN:
[https://www.newsweek.com/remote-area-medical-shows-what-
amer...](https://www.newsweek.com/remote-area-medical-shows-what-americas-
uninsured-go-through-health-care-287507)

You wouldn't see these scenes in even the most deprived corners of Newcastle-
upon-Tyne or the Rhondda Valley. The crowds the event attracts! This is what a
developing country looks like.

~~~
pluto9
Ahh, HN, where someone doing a good deed is an illustration of how the United
States is secretly a third-world hellhole.

~~~
lewisflude
What is the good deed you're referring to?

~~~
pluto9
Is that a rhetorical question, or did you really not read the GP comment?

~~~
lewisflude
I did read, but didn't understand the parent comment. Apologies!

------
lbriner
I think the sleight of hand here is that "Britain is poorer" reads as "the
people of Britain are poorer" even though strictly speaking in GDP terms,
Britain the _country_ has a smaller market.

GDP is not wages. You can make tonnes of money in a company and none of it
ends up as wages (just goes in the bank) so GDP is high but standards based on
wages are no different.

As an example (I could be wrong - not an economist) but a single company
making $1B more in one year would equate to a GDP/per capita increase of $10K
in a town of 100K.

There are loads of places in the USA that looks desperately poor compared to
everywhere I have seen in the UK so I can live with the headline as an
economists click-bait.

------
rasengan
So given this information as well as the UN report on US and the fact that the
US is in poverty like conditions [1] I think it’s safe to say everyone is
broke.

This post from reddit on /r/funny isn’t funny - it is the truth [2]

[1]
[https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N...](https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=22533)
[2]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/9fq5e4/the_simpsons_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/9fq5e4/the_simpsons_how_times_have_changed/)

~~~
theoh
Inequality is one thing, but the US is still a wealthy country.

~~~
tomxor
> a wealthy country

Who is the country in this context though, does GDP mean the people are
wealthier?

~~~
theoh
The wealth of a country is a question of what resources it has, public and
private, not how they are distributed. Saying that "everyone" is broke misses
the point that it's inequality that is getting worse.

------
glup
Median adult wealth in the UK is almost double the US
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_pe...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adult)).
This article is somewhere between methodologically lax economics and UKIP
drivel.

~~~
qwerty11111
You're confusing wealth and income. Americans earn more but save less.

~~~
glup
I'm not -- the article is making this mistake. Your second sentence is
precisely my point.

------
NeedMoreTea
Ahh, Tim Worstall, senior of the Adam Smith Institute and former press officer
for UKIP.

I can stop at the byline to avoid his unusual approach to economic fact.

------
greesil
GDP per capita per hour worked is a better metric to use when comparing
countries. Most Western European countries have fewer hours worked per worker,
but when they work have the same productivity. I'm not sure about the gini
coefficient, but both of the numbers given seem low. The US's was over 0.42
from what I've read in other sources.

~~~
paulddraper
> GDP per capita per hour worked is a better metric to use when comparing
> countries.

Comparing what? Wealth? Efficiency? Happiness? Athleticism?

If you are comparing economic well-being, use GDP per capita. If you worked
one hour today and $100 or eight hours and got $100, either way your
richness/poorness is $100.

If you are comparing efficiency or something, do the per hour thing.

~~~
mikeash
I’m sure we’d all vastly prefer to be the person who works an hour for $100
and has the rest as free time. If those two people have equal “richness” then
the term is not very useful.

~~~
paulddraper
If you're suggesting that wealth/income is different than quality of life, I
would have to very strongly agree.

~~~
mikeash
I’m going a bit further and suggesting that free time ought to be incorporated
into “wealth” somehow. After all, time is money.

~~~
paulddraper
The great depression had a lot of people with a lot of time. "Rich with time",
you might say.

~~~
mikeash
That’s why I want to incorporate free time into “wealth,” not replace it
altogether.

------
Sharlin
So what this article primarily shows is that "wealth" (as measured by PPP-
corrected median per-capita GDP) isn't that relevant a metric for measuring
anything except "wealth". Of course the not-so-subtle implication is that
"wealth" is intrinsically "good" and that income redistribution has not
achieved "good" (although the final remark in itself is a silly _cum hoc ergo
propter hoc_ and in itself reveals the biases of the author).

Few people disagree that the median purchasing power in the US is greater than
in Europe; the real question is "so what?"

------
lewisflude
What this shows me is how misleading comparisons like this can be. I think the
UK has been brought into US politics over the last few years, and living in
the UK it's funny how far from the truth some of the claims made can be. I'm
sure the same goes in reverse though.

------
donatj
Most of Europe actually. I was reading a piece I believe CATO put out about
this recently.

~~~
kadendogthing
Why would you read anything from CATO?

~~~
jim_bailie
I'm also curious why you wouldn't read anything from CATO.

~~~
dragonwriter
Because it's an ideological propaganda mill that is only helpful (in terms of
necessary time investment for any given level of confidence) in arriving at
the truth on any issue, compared to ignoring them completely, when dealing
with their admissions that are contrary to their overt bias, which are
infrequent enough that reading their output is a net loss.

That said, it's still better than Heritage.

------
mmastrac
"All that redistribution hasn't made the Nordic poor richer than the American
poor but it has made the rich poorer."

I'll take issue with this - the poor in Nordic countries and Britain have a
much stronger social safety net. So maybe a better conclusion is that in
Britain they are still as poor as before, but with access to similar health
care as the rich (who are slightly less rich to allow for this).

------
mikeash
It sure doesn’t seem to be reflected in how people live. Is this just using
the wrong measure for “poorer”?

~~~
dragonwriter
Yes, GDP per capita is a measure of aggregate output relevant to population,
not wealth (which is a stock and not a flow) and not living standards (which
are a flow, but not the same flow). Even with PPP adjustment it doesn't
measure common living standards, because it doesn't distinguish between broad
and narrow distribution.

Median income measures are better for standard of living comparisons.

------
dtech
My economic knowledge is lacking, how good of a metrics is PPP?

Specifically this jab:

> showing that the bottom 10% in the US have the same incomes (yes, PPP
> adjusted) as the bottom 10% in either Sweden or Finland. > While the top 10%
> have very much larger incomes than the top 10% in either country. > All that
> redistribution hasn't made the Nordic poor richer than the American poor but
> it has made the rich poorer.

If PPP is a good metric, that would mean there are about the same percentage
of people starving and lacking medical care in the US as in Nordic countries.
That is incorrect if general media portrayal is correct.

------
supernova87a
This story validates what I felt when I lived in the UK several years ago
during research. I felt the country had so much money (London) but everyone
lived so poor.

I was getting paid basically the same numerical value as I had been in the US,
but all the prices were in pounds.

And the cars were so old, like twice as old as typical cars in the US.

I wondered where all their tax money was going -- and I figured to the poor
north of the country.

Yet people in the UK generally behave so well, and are polite, and are
educated and proud. This is really impressive -- the power of social
psychology in the face of measureable economic deprivation.

~~~
point78
Or maybe it's going towards health care, education, and social services. What
a concept

~~~
supernova87a
Not even. Reading their news about NHS, all they talk about are cuts and the
controversies of having to ration service based on postcodes.

------
craig_asp
He should remove the outliers and study those separately. The gini
consideration goes a bit in that direction, but not far enough. Possibly even
split the population in 4-5 buckets: from people under the poverty line
through to the extremely rich and then compare each of those. Admittedly, this
would be way harder but would paint a much better picture.

------
toasterlovin
This Wikipedia page may also be of interest. It has two lists: 1) median
household income, and 2) median adult income.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income#Gross_median_hou...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income#Gross_median_household_income_by_country)

~~~
teamhappy
Also this list of countries by income equality:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_eq...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality)

------
tomjohnneill
It's a bit weird that the author acknowledges the difference between UK
regions and London, promptly ignores that, then continues to adjust the US
figures by the different PPP figures by state. It definitely makes the whole
thing a lot less apples to apples.

Also, the cost of goods and services being cheaper in the US might not be a
strictly good thing. If food, clothing and haircuts are only cheaper because
businesses are employing people on well below a living wage, or exploiting
cheap labour from undocumented immigrants, then it's hardly something to
celebrate.

On that last point: "the bottom 10% in the US have the same incomes (yes, PPP
adjusted) as the bottom 10% in either Sweden or Finland. While the top 10%
have very much larger incomes than the top 10% in either country. All that
redistribution hasn't made the Nordic poor richer than the American poor but
it has made the rich poorer". I'm not sure of the details, but it's easy to
see how that would be misleading if those income figures don't account for
government transfers from rich to poor, or nationalised/socialised state
services in health, transport or education.

------
_nickwhite
The question is, will Brexit help or hurt with this? Will Britain be better
off than the rest of Europe as a result of leaving the EU, and how long will
withdrawal pains last?

~~~
FranzFerdiNaN
Decades and they won’t be, unless they don’t want access to the EU market for
their goods. Best case they have to follow all EU law and have no say in the
matter.

------
Spooky23
Not surprising.

The whole place is basically a big rust belt. Industry is dead, martitime
doesn’t generate a lot of jobs, the US captured tech, and banking produces
money but not employment.

------
vkou
This article keeps talking about mean GDP.

Unless you live in a perfectly communist society, mean GDP is a poor proxy for
how wealthy the people in it are.

Additionally, if the author wants to adjust for PPP, they should also adjust
for cost of healthcare, education, median transportation expenses - all of
which are much higher in the US. (All right, median transportation expenses
may be higher in the UK. I honestly have no idea.)

Also, it's worth considering how much GDP in each country is spent on projects
that don't improve anyone's life. If half your GDP is spent on building tanks
and submarines and nuclear weapons, while your people want color TVs and
washing machines, or a health system that won't bankrupt them, it's often not
the best use of your economic output.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
>healthcare, education, median transportation expenses - all of which are much
higher in the US.

Transportation by car costs dirt in the US. Transportation by rail isn't so
much higher to make up for how dirt cheap it is to go places in the US by car
when compared to Europe.

------
rileyphone
What a load of tripe. The sheer level of hand-waving in their calculations
makes their bias pretty clear.

------
pwaivers
How do other European countries compare?

------
patatino
Off topic: What is this form of title when they add stuff like "Yes, Even
Mississippi" which doesn't add any value? Is there a term for it?

~~~
JorgeGT
I'm tempted to classify it as an instance of the logical fallacy _appeal to
emotion_.

~~~
patatino
Thank you, I think that's what I was looking for.

------
dagi3d
and Brexit hasn't arrived yet...

~~~
brink
Switzerland isn't in the EU and is doing fine.

Switzerland poverty rate - 6.6% Germany poverty rate - 16.7%

Source:
[https://www.indexmundi.com/factbook/compare/switzerland.germ...](https://www.indexmundi.com/factbook/compare/switzerland.germany/economy)

~~~
drcongo
I'm going to assume you're not British / European, but for the record
Switzerland is in Schengen and EFTA, Britain is heading for being in neither.

~~~
timoth
Britain is already in neither; it's never been in Schengen, and left the EFTA
when joining the EEC as the EU was then. Although the other 3 countries in
EFTA are part of the EEA (edit: which is how they're part of the single
market), Switzerland isn't. Instead, they participate in the single market via
a bunch of bilateral treaties:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switzerland%E2%80%93European_U...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switzerland%E2%80%93European_Union_relations)

~~~
drcongo
I know. That wasn't the point.

------
graeham
"In the US food is generally cheaper than it is in Europe, medical care
generally more expensive."

I'm not sure when medical care is cheaper in the US. Within the VA system,
maybe?

Also, the ranking does not stack up against wikipedia figures:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_GDP_per...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_GDP_per_capita)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_\(PPP\)_per_capita)
(Where PPP is already accounted for, so this guy is doing it twice).

UK would come in ~35th. Similar to Nevada or Michigan.

~~~
chrisseaton
> I'm not sure when medical care is cheaper in the US

You literally just quoted the article saying it's more expensive in the US.

> In the US ... medical care generally more expensive

~~~
graeham
generally = sometimes it is less expensive. I guess it wasn't clear, but my
point was that healthcare is on average much more expensive in the US.

