[ernst_klim]

> The average person gets no benefit from this

You are proving the point. The avg. person gets an enormous benefit from it, even in countries like USA, Japan or Korea with far less generous welfare. The gap in standards of living of somebody in the US and somebody in Georgia or Vietnam are ridiculous.

[vinaigrette]

Poverty levels are roughly the same between Vietnam and the US from a quick search. Mean standard of living is a poor way to calculate inequality. If you have a link to a median one it would help to compare.

[joe_mamba]

>Poverty levels are roughly the same between Vietnam and the US from a quick search.

How is this an argument? A poor person in the US has a massively better standard of living than a poor person in Vietnam.

Poverty is relative. If you have a small apartment in a city of McMansions, you're poor, but if you have a goat in a village of no goats, you're rich.

[nisegami]

I always found it interesting that homeless folks in the US seem to live in tents a lot of the time, but in my country they rarely have more than a piece of cardboard. I don't know if my perception is incorrect, or if I'm ready too much into this, but my conclusion has been basically what you said: at every socio-economic level, the people at that level have higher standards of living in developed countries than in developing countries.

[bombcar]

It’s really hard to compare when you get down to it, even if you ignore “homeless” as a category.

Using money as a proxy doesn’t work perfectly because things can be more expensive, and trying to normalize with things like “living sq ft” doesn’t calculate externalities.

The best I’ve found is to track relative migration pressure - where do people want to go?

[nisegami]

Excellent points. In my small island country, prices mostly come down to being labor-dominant or material-dominant. The former is cheaper* than the developed world, whereas the latter is more expensive* than the developed world.

*compared using nominal exchange

>The best I’ve found is to track relative migration pressure - where do people want to go?

I like this approach. It's much more holistic and captures stuff that really cannot be quantified with prices and numbers, like freedoms and rights.

[TeMPOraL]

> Poverty is relative. If you have a small apartment in a city of McMansions, you're poor, but if you have a goat in a village of no goats, you're rich.

That worked before globalization. Nowadays, having a small apartment in a city of McMansions means you're upper middle class. Poor people in the west have no apartments and no goats.

[hhlevnjak2]

Not sure if up to date anymore, but if you look at some samples like here, at equivalent adjusted income levels, people across the world have similar standards of living regardless of where they live.

https://www.gapminder.org/dollar-street

[ernst_klim]

> at equivalent adjusted income levels

What is equivalent adjusted income level? PPP between Russia and USA is around 1.8. Median annual salary in the US is $57 ($1196 per week), median salary in Russia is $13200. Even if you adjust it, it's roughly two times smaller.

As someone who lived in a bunch of countries, some rich and some poor, no, living standards among the avg. Joes of the world are not even remotely the same.

[hhlevnjak2]

It doesn't say it is. It says at equivalent income. Average in US is still higher/better than the average in Russia.

[thaumasiotes]

> but if you have a goat in a village of no goats, you're rich

No, you need more than one goat if you want to be rich, regardless of what other people have. Really, you need a few dozen.

One goat can't do anything but age and die.

[graemep]

Relative poverty is real, but absolute poverty is a whole lot worse.

I choose to live in a richer country where I am relatively a lot poorer, but overall the advantages of a rich country outweigh the disadvantages.

[ernst_klim]

> Poverty levels

Poverty levels are measured relative to median. Poverty in US and poverty in Bangladesh, Russia or Vietnam are completely different things.

In the US poverty line is about $16k, while in Russia for example it is $2300. Even considering the PPP it's like 4 times the difference in living standards. I guess Vietnam or Bangladesh are far worse.

Upd: downvotes with no counterargument. Orange site is becomming more and more a reddit.