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- cross-posted to:
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Despite the US’s economic success, income inequality remains breathtaking. But this is no glitch – it’s the system
The Chinese did rather well in the age of globalization. In 1990, 943 million people there lived on less than $3 a day measured in 2021 dollars – 83% of the population, according to the World Bank. By 2019, the number was brought down to zero. Unfortunately, the United States was not as successful. More than 4 million Americans – 1.25% of the population – must make ends meet with less than $3 a day, more than three times as many as 35 years ago.
The data is not super consistent with the narrative of the US’s inexorable success. Sure, American productivity has zoomed ahead of that of its European peers. Only a handful of countries manage to produce more stuff per hour of work. And artificial intelligence now promises to put the United States that much further ahead.
This is not to congratulate China for its authoritarian government, for its repression of minorities or for the iron fist it deploys against any form of dissent. But it merits pondering how this undemocratic government could successfully slash its poverty rate when the richest and oldest democracy in the world wouldn’t.
Over 90% of Chinese households would be below the US poverty line. Their GDP per capita is only $13k.
GDP is good measurement only for rich people yacht money though
I’ve spent a good amount of time in China. Sure, Chinese household earnings would be below the US poverty line, but you also have to consider that things in China cost about 1/5 to 1/6 of what they do in the US. Their purchasing power completely blows us out of the water. They also have great public transportation, fantastic infrastructure, and free healthcare. And they are at this point more cutting edge than we are with regard to pushing the limits of medical science. The US is a failed state. China is prospering and all the US can do to defend against it is run smear campaigns that propagandize against it.
Even per capita with PPP, China is only $29k. By the same measure, the US is $60k. Also, healthcare is not free in China for most people in most circumstances. If there was any country that had a terrible way of financing healthcare as the US, it would be China. Healthcare bankruptcy is common in China. Chinese healthcare would be a bargain for me, paying with a US income. It is absolutely unaffordable for someone living on Chinese wages.
Free healthcare? When I went to a people’s hospital, I saw people paying. I think they have a public option or something that covers a portion of the cost, and even the uncovered portion is hilariously low to an American, but it didn’t look free.
Sorry, I mispoke on the healthcare. It is nearly free as they have near universal insurance coverage and their out of pocket costs are extreme fractions of what people pay in the US.
Yep, the only thing is free is entering the building. At some point decades ago, a scam like traditional natural shit that was invented in the 50th was free, but even that isn’t free now for the most part.
PR is cheap though.
Germany has a GDP per capita lower than Alabama. Yet the average German has a quality of life that is significantly higher than that of an average person in Alabama. GDP doesn’t tell the whole picture.
You are mistaken, GDP of Germany is greater than Alabama, even moreso when you account for PPP.
I got the data from this Wikipedia page. Which says that nominal GDP per Capita is greater for Alabama.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_GDP
PPP bottom 50% Chinese are more affluent than 50% USians https://wid.world/share/#0/countriestimeseries/ahweal_p0p50_z/US;CN/2019/eu/k/p/yearly/a/false/-4297.1145/8000/curve/false
PPP means how much shiet they can buy locally.
Share of national wealth is not affluence. It is a measure that gets distorted when a country has a disproportionate number of billionaires relative to their own population and to other countries.
If you adjust for purchasing power, the median individual in China is only $29k. By the same measure, the US is $60k.
I guess their point is if you exclude the upper half, China has managed to fare better.
Basically if we torture the numbers either side can get them to say whatever that side wants, by cherry picking criteria or excluding certain portions of the population.
Which is frankly a fantastic outcome for China, where in the past there was no way to make the numbers even close, now things are close enough as to each side being able to point out a way of measuring which makes them look better.
Yes, but you also need to look at Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). PPP compares the relative value of currencies by measuring the price of a basket of goods in different countries. Accounting for that, China’s GDP per capita is more like $30k. To do that in a little over 70 years, when in 1952 83% of China’s workforce was engaged in agriculture, is nothing short of amazing. They are already well on their way to reducing their dependence on non-renewable energy and seem poised to overtake the US as the technological powerhouse of the world within the next 50 years.
US cost of life has got nothing to do with Chinese cost of life though.
You need to understand that most basic stuff is cheap, in China. I can feed myself heartily for like a dollar a meal. And that’s if I don’t want to cook!
I appreciate you talk about GDP, but those $13k are more like $130k when you live there. I was earning $20k and that was a comfortable life with no worries, on par with what I have now in Europe around 40k€.
Even per capita with PPP, China is only $29k. By the same measure, the US is $60k.
When rent in city center of a T2 city is 300 USD, a meal costs 1USD, and bus/subway fare 14 cents, its easier to make ends meet.
Even per capita with PPP, China is only $29k. By the same measure, the US is $60k.
The truth is somewhere in the middle. GDP per capita is not really a good measure of quality of life on its own.
Historically the USA has brought a lot of people (most?) out of poverty by the world standard. Recent policy seems to be heading in the opposite direction. Quality of life has been declining for a long time, IMO mostly with our sense of community, the completely broken healthcare system, media consolidation, absurd levels of car dependency, high cost of having children, and a whole bunch of other location-specific factors (like cost of living in metro areas)
I think immigrant desire for relocation speaks volumes of where the greatest opportunity exists. The migration patterns vastly favor the US as being the place for the greater hope for the global poor, as evidenced by their footprints.