[Wytwwww]

> "So look, you can't afford rent, you can't afford groceries due to inflation, your student loans and medical bills are crippling, but the good news is tech stocks are up 200% since last year"

You can compare the disposable incomes in Europe and the US. I mean a median American can afford a whole lot more of those things than a median European.

[skyyler]

What does a comparison of the poorest between the two look like? What's Europe's West Virginia?

[weberer]

Median household income in West Virginia is 60k USD.

Mean household income in Bulgaria is 11.5k USD.

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/real-median-house...

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1269125/bulgaria-gross-a...

Its difficult to find either the mean or median for both.

[Wytwwww]

PPP adjusted median household disposable income per capita (with social transfers like public healtchae and stuff) in US was $62k back in 2022. West Virginia is ~72% of the national median. So Sweden?

Of course, money obviously isn't everything (not /s). And income inequality is much higher in WV than in Sweden. It's actually higher than in any European country. Which makes comparisons like this rather tricky (it's not even rich vs poor but median vs poor which is the problem in the US when you compare it to Europe).

The most equal US state (Utah) is still more unequal than the EU country which has the highest income inequality ( Bulgaria).

Interestingly enough before taxes France, Finland, Italy, UK etc. have comparable income inequality to the US.

West Virginia isn't the poorest state though (e.g. it's about on par with New Mexico). Mississippi and Louisiana are.

[hollerith]

>The most equal US state (Utah) is still more unequal than the EU country which has the highest income inequality ( Bulgaria).

That can be true while at the same time the 3rd percentile of income earners in the US earn more after taxes than the 3rd percentile in Europe, ditto for the 4th percentile and so on up to the 99th percentile (since the average income in the US is significantly higher).

[Wytwwww]

It can but I don't think it is. I can't find direct stats (I mean I can find nominal but not equivalized/ social transfer adjusted figures) to compare but e.g. 1st quantile income cut-off in Sweden is 64% of the median while for first decile it's 49%

Utah on the other hand (surprisingly or not) has the highest first quintile mean (yeah.. slightly apples and oranges but gives an advantage to Utah) in the US, yet it's still only around 25% of the state median.

So if compare Utah to the national average and use: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c... to compare it with Sweden

it's 62.30 * 1.28 (Utah vs US median in 2022) * 0.25 = $19.936

Sweden:

43.9 * 0.49 = $21.51, so a 1st decile Swede has higher PPP + social transfers adjusted income that the first quintile mean in Utah.

If course it's rather convoluted since I'm too lazy to find directly comparable data. Disregards (uses US PPP + social transfers instead of just Utah's etc.).

However I think it's broadly accurate(ish), considering that Utah has higher than average median income and the highest first quintile income all other states would do even worse.

Of course Eastern European states are poorer but Sweden is closer to the EU average than Utah is to the US average (and Sweden's GINI is around average in Europe while Utah's is the lowest in the US).

[skyyler]

>The most equal US state (Utah) is still more unequal than the EU country which has the highest income inequality ( Bulgaria).

This is one of the most shocking things I've read in relation to this. I knew it was bad, I didn't know it was THIS bad. Do you have any sources for this? I need to spread this fact if it can be easily verified.

[Cumpiler69]

Average includes the Elon Musks and Donald Trumps of the country in the same bucket with homeless people.

[Wytwwww]

Median not the mean(average). So no, not mathematically..