[mpettitt]

From looking at the news, the US seems far poorer in day-to-day terms. For example, searching "living in cars" then "uk" or "usa" gives some results for each. The UK ones mostly talk about "hundreds forced to live in cars", while the USA ones often mention "thousands living in cars in California". The GDP of the UK and of California are pretty similar (around $2.8 trillion in 2019).

[thu2111]

That's why the guy wrote the article. California has 60% the population of the UK, possibly lower as actually nobody really knows how many people live in the UK. The official population stats are biased low by the government's own admission. Thus GDP per capita looks quite different.

How much of this is due to the distorting effects of tech firms is unclear but, according to the article, if the UK were a US state it'd be the second poorest. That's a problem. I am not entirely sure if those stats are reliable, however. Having spent quite a bit of time in the UK and USA it doesn't feel like there's an obvious wealth gap, so how are these things calculated? As a commenter observes, it's possible a lot of the difference comes from healthcare spending.

[sys_64738]

Homeless people in Britain can't afford cars.