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GDP per capita isn't that insightful for this topic because it doesn't tell whether disposable income actually grew. It could also be the case that i.e. only the top 1% household income grew.

Median household income is a better metric to get a feeling for the live of the actual, average citizen. Median personal income in the EU grew 18.5% from 2008 to 2018 and 8.7% in the US. (It grew more in 2019 but I couldn't find the corresponding EU data for 2019).

The divergence from GDP per capita means most people didn't receive the growth in productivity.

US: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N

EU: https://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/submitViewTableActi...

[DeonPenny]

Yeh in the EU in general it grew but that doesn't actually answer you first questions and it obfuscates the growing difference. This is because the EU as a whole because of the easter bloc country was growing from a much much smaller number.

But if you actually look at disposable income germany has nearly 10k less than the US. Thats not even to mention places like greece, Portugal, and spain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c...

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German median personal income grew by 21% from 2008 to 2018, as per my original link.

My overall point was that GDP per capita growth does not relate to income of actual people, though.

The difference between both metrics means that mostly only inequality grew in the US from 2008 to 2018.

I think you looked at mean income in the wikipedia table, not median income. Median income is "only" 7k less in Germany than the US. The difference between mean and median essentially tells the same story: GDP growths only landed in the upper few percent housholds.