The Social Hammock

Ed Philp tips me to this website comparing living standards:

Matt Yglesias says he'd rather live in the US and comments:

Not only do we have better food and music, but ... I have a fun job and I’m in good health. Under the circumstances, the “work longer hours for more money much of which is clawed back by health care costs” trade looks okay. But differently situated people will look on this differently. What’s important, I think, is that conventional American dialogue about this tends not to acknowledge how many countries there now are out there where the GDP per hour worked is at-or-near American levels and greater American output is caused by Americans working more. I’d say the Dutch seem to have outpaced us in material living conditions for the average person, for example. But the idea that it might even be possible for some other country to be more prosperous than the USA rarely seems to be considered.

Obviously, nobody should take this too seriously; many of Yglesias' comments are tongue-in-cheek. The key thing, of course, is where you end up living in the U.S. and what you do for a living. Like Yglesias, I have a fun job that gives me plenty of autonomy, and that tends to color my perception of where it's nice to live. The chart furnishes more evidence for the notion that Americans just plain work harder -- they are just as productive as Germans, but just do about 30% more producing, and get 30% higher incomes for it. Of course, for many of these people, all that extra money is going to be clawed back by healthcare costs, transportation (in the 98% of America in which owning a car is pretty much mandatory), and other costs that are much more socialized in Germany, but that are borne by individuals in the States.

As always, this sort of comparison has to be made from behind the veil of ignorance: If you couldn't control where you would end up on the social scale, would you choose to live in Germany or the U.S.? If I were going to be a supermarket cashier, I would certainly choose Germany -- not least because supermarket cashiers in the U.S. have to stand up while they work.

Comments

[Mison]

The GDP per capita is really the least useful way to measure the income. Schade! Otherwise I liked the site...

@Sebastian:
Long live the Mercator projection with it's great tradition of helping colonial powers look awesome on a map!

[Sebastian]

Unrelated to the economic discussion, I question the neutrality of "ifitweremyhome.com"; I suspect it of being a propaganda instrument of Sarah Palin's right-wing cohorts. The map that purports to helpfully show "the size of The United States in relation to Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany" (to what now?) greatly exaggerates the size of Alaska relative to the rest of the US. For shame!

[Sebastian]

Uh, guys, if you actually go to that website and click on the "make more money" bar, you get an explanation of which economic indicator it refers to: purchasing-power adjusted GDP. It is "how much money you make" in a very remote sense, but I guess technically it's pre-tax. Median household income would fit that headline better – after all, when experiencing 66.67 % more of a class divide, you might not want to go with a simple average figure ;)

[Zaungast]

I wonder whether "make more money" refers to employees' wages, or total income per person.

[Anselmus]

I think that plays into "make more money", i.e. the dollar for Euro value is increased due to lower comparative tax rates in the States. Andrew properly notes though, that a good chunk of this difference just gets plowed back into health care, education, etc.

[Adrian]

What about the taxes in the chart?