Rich is always rich, but poor is relative in many cases. Having a poorly paid job in a cheap place to live can be as good as a well-paid job in a big city when you are spending 90% of your income just to exist.
No way I earn as much as I used to in the city but I'm a 1000% happier.
Which is why we use PPP metrics (parity purchasing power). It aims to answer: "with the amount of local currency I make, how many goods and services can I get?"
It's not perfect, but it's definitely something present in considerations of whether a country is rich or poor (country X can be poorer than Z in nominal terms, but is richer in real terms -i.e. PPP terms- than country X)
OTOH, having a poorly paid job in a rich country can be better than being rich in a poor country..
Read one of the Reddit threads about "What did you notice most when you moved from a poor country to a rich country?" It's pretty eye opening. Some stuff that I remember:
- Stuff that breaks (vending machines, bathrooms, etc.) usually gets repaired instead of just being broken from then on
- Government officials don't demand bribes everywhere you go
- You have rights, you can't just be jailed or worse for no reason, even if you criticize the government
- Buildings are well constructed and aren't in danger of collapse / burning down due to electrical faults / gas explosions
- Police, fire and ambulance come reasonably quickly and do their jobs reasonably well
- No matter how poor you are, you're not just left to fend for yourself, there are some safety nets
The best life hack is to live in places off the beaten path in a rich country, e.g. the Rust Belt in the US. Bonus points if you can work remotely for a company that pays big-city wages.
That is similar, but mildly different, to how I feel when returning to (or visiting, respectively) the UK or US after living elsewhere in the first world.
I think the point is that the US and UK are kind of basket cases among the first world countries.
Every time I go home to the UK from South Korea, the UK has less and less there:
- Bus routes to nearby major cities have been removed
- You're on your own with COVID, gas bills, climate change, etc.
- Roads are unmaintained, hard shoulders have been converted in to lanes
- You walk through a crowded city centre, nobody wears masks, not even on the bus, and people walk around with sandwich boards saying "MASKS SPREAD FEAR" (which seems a strange thing to be afraid of, since nobody wears them anyway??)
- Even the road maintenance vehicles are unmaintained and sit rotting
- Climate deniers occupy government, and the government avoids even minor action on the most immediate issues
Then I go back to south korea and there are:
- New train lines
- New bridges over the han river
- The infrastructure is constantly being maintained, upgraded, recreation facilities added
- People wear masks, there are free COVID test/vaccination centres on every corner
- Utilities are nationalized and price controlled
- There is a state response to the climate emergency
In the UK it is increasingly clear that the political system has collapsed and is unable to address itself to crises, and increasingly unable to address itself to the basic maintenance of its own deployed capital. It is a wealthy failed-state in which some high quality public institutions still manage to function despite the failure of the central government.
You’re really bought into a single view on masks and a single view on climate change. Infrastructure is newer in South Korea.
I’m not sure that’s super indicative of political collapse in places that don’t conform to your views or have older infrastructure? The UK still plays a quasi-religious role in mediating interactions between people, same as any other functioning state.
Couldn't find now but years ago (~10) there was a long article/essay here about China pretty much lamenting about the same question that China is a poor country with a lot of rich people or a rich country with a lot of poor people.
> On present trends, the average Slovenian household will be better off than its British counterpart by 2024, and the average Polish family will move ahead before the end of the decade.
FT is using "better off" and "richer" as synonyms, and yes they have overlaps but you still use the same roads, government services and yeah, breath the same air like poor people. The US is good at diving them.
TLDR - PPP adjusted disposable income is much lower than the average of developed countries for people in lower income percentiles in the US and UK.
Anecdotally speaking, I have observed that it is a much harder existence to be poor in the US compared to Europe. I spent a few months in Germany when I was a student and a couple years in the US a student. It was much, much, harder to do even basic things in the US (like grocery shopping) without a car compared to Germany.
As someone on a visa myself, I asked a US citizen why there was such a stark inequality in living standards between rich v/s poor for the richest nation in the world, and was told it was a necessary condition for US prosperity. I didn't get it, but also didn't want to push it further because usually it ends up with "if you dont like it here, why are you still here ?"
> and was told it was a necessary condition for US prosperity
That's an interesting perspective. I live in Europe, and I don't reckon anyone thinks that way here (which doesn't mean it isn't true). On a flight once I got talking to a rich-looking businessman from Hong Kong and I explained anyone who's ill can go to the doctor where I live, even if they're poor. The HK guy was really surprised, he basically explained to me society couldn't work like that, if there was no fear of being poor what reason was there to put in the hard work needed to avoid poverty, and to elevate the society? He'd obviously really bought into that, he basically didn't really believe me that you could have a rich functioning society where the poor e.g. get basic needs met like healthcare.
It was interesting to me - if his whole worldview led him to believe the place where I lived couldn't really exist, what other beliefs do the rest of us have which are completely wrong?
Not a big fan of PPP adjusted income because it’s such a hard thing to accurately measure a “equivalent basket of goods”.
It’s like the online “cost of living” calculators. I’ve found them hilariously off usually because the data isn’t great.
People saying living in the Bay Area is way more expensive. But having lived in a few US cities, it’s pretty much housing that is more and if you live like the locals (smaller homes) the cost difference is much less than you’d think.
Saying “SF has 500% higher housing costs” is silly if you’re comparing a $300,000, 2,000 sq ft single family home in the mid-west to the same single family home in SF where the homes are much smaller and much rarer.
Same with other countries - how do you compare food costs in SE Asia where buying at a local food stand is common, to the US where buying and preparing your own food at home is common?
It's a very similar problem as measuring inflation with a basket of goods. A "basket" doesn't stay the same. Is a new iPhone 7 in 2016 equal to a iPhone 14 in 2022? And things you'd expect to be easy to measure like food, aren't, because can you compare ground beef in 2000 with organic ground beef in 2020? Are they the same?
Probably the easiest way is to measure some "average" expenditure on say housing and although it buys "less", call them equivalent. So a large 3-bedroom condo in San Francisco might be equivalent to say a single family home in Chicago.
I think that if you have to ask questions like the iPhone equivalence then 1) you have inflation that is higher than officially reported and 2) inflation is not a problem for you or most of the people in your country.
These are important questions that economists try and answer through a careful study and discussion. What you're saying is: a) their method skews inflations numbers and b) inflation is not a problem because they measure it?
It works ok for comparable cities, but I think it loses a lot of nuance.
Like my example of housing costs. It will say "you need $50,000 more to live in San Francisco". But that's assuming you get comparable housing, which nobody actually does.
If you go from typical "middle class" housing in say St. Louis, to San Francisco, then the COL difference isn't as steep.
people writing these articles have no idea of reality, come live in a tier-2 city in India where I live (I have been fortunate to live in US for 6 years)
To me the funny thing is that why is this worth bring up in the first place like ppl don't know about it. It's not like communists where they state equality as the goal (how they fare is another topic and you all know how it's like).
We live in capitalism. Isn't this the expect outcome? What else do you expect?
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 43.5 ms ] threadThe UK is approximately equal to Slovenia all the way up to the median.
The US is approximately equal to Slovenia at the 10th percentile, but much higher at the median.
No way I earn as much as I used to in the city but I'm a 1000% happier.
It's not perfect, but it's definitely something present in considerations of whether a country is rich or poor (country X can be poorer than Z in nominal terms, but is richer in real terms -i.e. PPP terms- than country X)
Read one of the Reddit threads about "What did you notice most when you moved from a poor country to a rich country?" It's pretty eye opening. Some stuff that I remember:
- Stuff that breaks (vending machines, bathrooms, etc.) usually gets repaired instead of just being broken from then on
- Government officials don't demand bribes everywhere you go
- You have rights, you can't just be jailed or worse for no reason, even if you criticize the government
- Buildings are well constructed and aren't in danger of collapse / burning down due to electrical faults / gas explosions
- Police, fire and ambulance come reasonably quickly and do their jobs reasonably well
- No matter how poor you are, you're not just left to fend for yourself, there are some safety nets
The best life hack is to live in places off the beaten path in a rich country, e.g. the Rust Belt in the US. Bonus points if you can work remotely for a company that pays big-city wages.
Basic stuff like “is this medicine my doctor prescribing counterfeit or not”.
Or “if I touch this light pole will I be electrocuted because it was never wired up correctly”.
Or “is this really the law or are the police just shaking me down for bribes”.
I think the point is that the US and UK are kind of basket cases among the first world countries.
Every time I go home to the UK from South Korea, the UK has less and less there: - Bus routes to nearby major cities have been removed - You're on your own with COVID, gas bills, climate change, etc. - Roads are unmaintained, hard shoulders have been converted in to lanes - You walk through a crowded city centre, nobody wears masks, not even on the bus, and people walk around with sandwich boards saying "MASKS SPREAD FEAR" (which seems a strange thing to be afraid of, since nobody wears them anyway??) - Even the road maintenance vehicles are unmaintained and sit rotting - Climate deniers occupy government, and the government avoids even minor action on the most immediate issues
Then I go back to south korea and there are: - New train lines - New bridges over the han river - The infrastructure is constantly being maintained, upgraded, recreation facilities added - People wear masks, there are free COVID test/vaccination centres on every corner - Utilities are nationalized and price controlled - There is a state response to the climate emergency
In the UK it is increasingly clear that the political system has collapsed and is unable to address itself to crises, and increasingly unable to address itself to the basic maintenance of its own deployed capital. It is a wealthy failed-state in which some high quality public institutions still manage to function despite the failure of the central government.
I’m not sure that’s super indicative of political collapse in places that don’t conform to your views or have older infrastructure? The UK still plays a quasi-religious role in mediating interactions between people, same as any other functioning state.
FT is using "better off" and "richer" as synonyms, and yes they have overlaps but you still use the same roads, government services and yeah, breath the same air like poor people. The US is good at diving them.
Anecdotally speaking, I have observed that it is a much harder existence to be poor in the US compared to Europe. I spent a few months in Germany when I was a student and a couple years in the US a student. It was much, much, harder to do even basic things in the US (like grocery shopping) without a car compared to Germany.
As someone on a visa myself, I asked a US citizen why there was such a stark inequality in living standards between rich v/s poor for the richest nation in the world, and was told it was a necessary condition for US prosperity. I didn't get it, but also didn't want to push it further because usually it ends up with "if you dont like it here, why are you still here ?"
That's an interesting perspective. I live in Europe, and I don't reckon anyone thinks that way here (which doesn't mean it isn't true). On a flight once I got talking to a rich-looking businessman from Hong Kong and I explained anyone who's ill can go to the doctor where I live, even if they're poor. The HK guy was really surprised, he basically explained to me society couldn't work like that, if there was no fear of being poor what reason was there to put in the hard work needed to avoid poverty, and to elevate the society? He'd obviously really bought into that, he basically didn't really believe me that you could have a rich functioning society where the poor e.g. get basic needs met like healthcare.
It was interesting to me - if his whole worldview led him to believe the place where I lived couldn't really exist, what other beliefs do the rest of us have which are completely wrong?
It’s like the online “cost of living” calculators. I’ve found them hilariously off usually because the data isn’t great.
People saying living in the Bay Area is way more expensive. But having lived in a few US cities, it’s pretty much housing that is more and if you live like the locals (smaller homes) the cost difference is much less than you’d think.
Saying “SF has 500% higher housing costs” is silly if you’re comparing a $300,000, 2,000 sq ft single family home in the mid-west to the same single family home in SF where the homes are much smaller and much rarer.
Same with other countries - how do you compare food costs in SE Asia where buying at a local food stand is common, to the US where buying and preparing your own food at home is common?
Probably the easiest way is to measure some "average" expenditure on say housing and although it buys "less", call them equivalent. So a large 3-bedroom condo in San Francisco might be equivalent to say a single family home in Chicago.
These are important questions that economists try and answer through a careful study and discussion. What you're saying is: a) their method skews inflations numbers and b) inflation is not a problem because they measure it?
I'm just confused.
Like my example of housing costs. It will say "you need $50,000 more to live in San Francisco". But that's assuming you get comparable housing, which nobody actually does.
If you go from typical "middle class" housing in say St. Louis, to San Francisco, then the COL difference isn't as steep.
We live in capitalism. Isn't this the expect outcome? What else do you expect?
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264378242_Poverty_T...