[nabla9]

Usually rich and poor means net wealth, not income.

Median net wealth per adult, in US dollars is relatively good measure. US is ranked 22 globally. Source: "Global wealth databook 2019" (PDF). Credit Suisse. https://www.credit-suisse.com/media/assets/corporate/docs/ab...

European countries ahead of the US: Luxembourg, Belgium, Ireland, France, UK, Spain,Austria, Italy, Malta, Norway. Interesting how many countries (France for example) is ahead of Germany in both mean and median net wealth per adult.

In the US 34.5% of population has wealth between 100,000 USD and 1 million, In UK 44.8%, France: 46.3%. US has significantly more people with wealth over 1 million. German Gini index is 81.6, France 69.6. USA 85.2.

EDIT:

Table 3-3 is super interesting. Membership of top wealth groups for selected countries, 2019. (absolute number of people).

Over USD 100,000; Number of adults (thousands)

   China           113,410  
   United States   103,198
   Japan            55,370
   Germany          26,012
   United Kingdom   25,388
   France           25,110
   Italy            23,284

China already has more people with wealth over 100,000 USD. (20.8% of total) than any other country. No wonder why US companies want to stay in Chinese markets.

[gshdg]

And yet more than half of Americans don’t have $400 to cover an emergency. I wonder how the US would stack up in 25th percentile wealth against European countries?

Also, there are measures like food insecurity that I suspect would be very telling.

[jandrewrogers]

Per the government, the median American household has >$1000 remaining every month after all ordinary expenses, far more than enough to cover a $400 emergency. The "can't cover $400" trope doesn't imply what you think it does, it is pulled out of context from a survey about how people would cover an emergency, not whether they could. Many popular financial stats used in the media are misleading in service of a narrative.

As another example, you'll see many articles stating some large percentage of Americans don't have any savings, which is only true because they define "savings" as having a savings account, which many Americans with plenty of money don't even have (myself included). And then there is the one about Americans having no retirement savings, where "retirement savings" excludes any real estate investments, taxable brokerage accounts, etc which is where many Americans have the majority of their retirement savings.

The "food insecurity" surveys are a similar story. Same with "food deserts". If you dig into the underlying studies none of them imply what the media tries to imply with them. It is a hazard to uncritically accept statistics from the media. They have an incentive to paint the most dire story possible.

[ianleeclark]

> Per the government, the median American household has >$1000 remaining every month after all ordinary expenses

Could you link the source? I'd like to see what is included in "ordinary expenses." Is it just CPI associated things?

[jandrewrogers]

The term of art for this is "discretionary income". I think it is a more informative than disposable income, but it is much harder to find for many countries. The US Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) publishes surprisingly detailed statistics on consumer expenditure at decile resolution which allows it to be easily computed.

Discretionary income is defined as disposable income after you subtract housing, utilities, food, clothing, healthcare, and transportation costs based on actual survey data. Roughly speaking, discretionary income is the amount of money available for saving or spending on fun. If you want to know the mean and distribution of how much a person spends on eggs or fresh vegetables in each decile, the BLS can tell you that. It also tracks a lot of non-essential expenditures. It is a great resource.

Here is the combined report from BLS for 2018:

https://www.bls.gov/cex/2018/combined/decile.pdf

[mdorazio]

I don't like wealth comparisons because they do a poor job of accounting for usable vs. locked up wealth. What I mean is that you could easily live in California and have $200k in counted wealth, but virtually all of it is in your home's equity and more or less inaccessible to you while someone living in a cheaper country with $200k in wealth likely has a lot more of it in liquid form.

Disposable Income is a better indicator of "money you get and can actually use" than total median income or wealth. The US is easily #1 in this category by PPP mean [1], and only drops to #3 by median.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c...

[nabla9]

What you mean locked up??

You can sell your house in France within a month, than land California with that wealth in your bank account.

Net wealth is good measure precisely because you can't transfer it into money and move around with it.

[mdorazio]

If you have a sudden $1000 expense, you can't magically sell your house to pay it off next week. Also if you sell your house, what are you going to do then? Live on the street with all your belongings in shopping carts? Magically find another job paying the same amount somewhere cheaper?

Home equity is not liquid. It's locked up. There's a reason finance distinguishes between liquid and fixed assets - they are different classes with different dynamics.

[nabla9]

So you want to compare incomes, fine.

If we want to compare wealth. As in being rich or poor, then net wealth is the proper way to compare stuff.