[jntvjnvutnuvt]

It wasn't meant to be snarky and I apologize if it came off that way. Median income doesn't account for federal and state benefits and other non-income compensation like food stamps, housing assistance, medicare, medicaid and child tax credits. GDP/capita (PPP) is what economists use to compare wealth.

[runnerup]

> GDP/capita (PPP) is what economists use to compare wealth.

I agree this makes sense if you're comparing "What could a nation do with its wealth?", which is a question that economists are often tasked with. But it makes less sense to use GDP if you're comparing "What is the economic outcome of a typical individual in that society?"

GDP (total, possibly adjusted for PPP) makes sense if you'd like to know roughly how much a nation could contribute in war materiel to an existential crisis.

GDP (per capita, usually adjusted for PPP) makes sense if you'd like to know roughly how much infrastructure (schools/healthcare/etc) a nation could choose to build out for its citizens.

For me though if I'm asking the question "how comfortable are hypothetical young adults going to be in a nation?" (how comfortable would my children be?) I still feel like median income, adjusted for purchasing power parity, makes a lot of sense towards answering that question. Otherwise, to "economists", is median income just a useless metric which offers no insight at all? Why do they spend so much effort tracking it for so many different geographies? This could be interpreted as an "appeal to authority" fallacy but I'd like to know -- if I'm using the metric wrong, how should I be using it?

[jntvjnvutnuvt]

Median income only makes sense if cost of living is the same but it's not. The median house price in Germany is $410,000 and the median one in Mississippi is $254,900. It would be easier to afford a home in Mississippi with a $24.5k income than one in Germany with a $32.1k income. This is not accounting for other subsidies too like I mentioned.

[runnerup]

Meanwhile the average rent in Germany is roughly $900/month while it's over $1,000/month in Mississippi. Personally I thought that Purchasing Power Parity attempted to adjust for regional differences in costs - obviously it heavily depends on your "personal" basket which is why I'm focused on "the typical citizen growing up in this area".

What am I supposed to be using median income for? If "GDP/capita (PPP) is what economists use to compare wealth", as you say, then what do those same economists that you're talking about use median income metrics for? I accept that I might be using median income wrong, but I'm curious what using it "right" looks like.

[jntvjnvutnuvt]

Good catch. You're right that rent is cheaper in Germany than Mississippi, which I did not know.