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"It shows that the median family income in Canada is $76,000 -- generally higher in the West than the East -- while the median individual income is just $27,600. That means just as many individuals earn less than $27,600 as earn more."
The numbers look exactly the same! Don't forget a few things
1) It is Canadian dollars
2) almost everything is more expensive in Canada (15% on average I'd say?)
3) Canadians pay more taxes.
Doesn't seem Canadians are doing better, maybe worse, even for the average Joes.
Correct. The argument that a few rich people in the US greatly alter the median income in the US is erroneous. Not only is it statistically incorrect, but one can easily travel from one country to another and see the difference. Canada and US appear similar for the Average John Doe. And the North American Average John Doe whether American or Canadian has much more 'stuff' than the Average Johann or Juan in Europe.
The arguments drro is putting forth are the same ones that the USSR put forward to dismiss the American economy. We have seen these arguments before, and they are hyperbole. Drro also admits to have never visited Canada, a country which she has also claimed is cold all year round.
Drro also admits to have never visited Canada, a country which she has also claimed is cold all year round.
cold all year round?
LOL. I was sweating walking outside just now and I am only wearing a shirt We had a relatively cool summer but half of this September feels like July!
It is 30C in Regina today by the way.
Correct. The argument that a few rich people in the US greatly alter the median income in the US is erroneous. Not only is it statistically incorrect, but one can easily travel from one country to another and see the difference.
I don't know how you jumped to that conclusion but it is not true. The US has a less equal income distribution than any other Western country, including Canada and is on par with third world countries: map. The US has a lot of poor people making less than $27.5k a year and a few very rich people who make most.
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Canada and US appear similar for the Average John Doe. And the North American Average John Doe whether American or Canadian has much more 'stuff' than the Average Johann or Juan in Europe.
Germany is the country with the highest amount of consumption per capita. More than the US or Canada. That was discussed recently in another forum.
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The arguments drro is putting forth are the same ones that the USSR put forward to dismiss the American economy. We have seen these arguments before, and they are hyperbole. Drro also admits to have never visited Canada, a country which she has also claimed is cold all year round.
It is he, no idea how you got the idea I am female.
I don't get why people can't just admit that there is considerably less income inequality in Canada. It's obvious even from just wandering around in either country. Obviously it helps that we have a way more manageable population size, but it's still true. The only people who argue against this are the Americans who live on the Canada forum trying desperately to make you think differently about whatever for some reason. And then Botticelli, who I have long suspected is an immigrant frustrated about not being able to live in the USA.
I don't know how you jumped to that conclusion but it is not true. The US has a less equal income distribution than any other Western country, including Canada and is on par with third world countries: map. The US has a lot of poor people making less than $27.5k a year and a few very rich people who make most.
Germany is the country with the highest amount of consumption per capita. More than the US or Canada. That was discussed recently in another forum.
It is he, no idea how you got the idea I am female.
Drro, no one is arguing that the US is more "equal" in income distribution than other first world countries.
Incomes in the US are more unequal than in other developed western countries. Period.
However, your argument that the US median household income only "appears" so high is due to a tiny minority with fabulous wealth is statistically incorrect. If we take the top 1% out of the picture completely, the "average Joe" in America is still significantly wealthier than his Swedish, Dutch, or English counterparts. To add to that, his cost of living is much lower as well, which further inflates the difference. And even still if we take white Americans and compare them to their European counterparts, the comparison becomes completely one-sided.
If Americans with Swedish ancestry were to form their own country, their per capita GDP would be $56,900, more than $10,000 above the income of the average American. This is also far above Swedish GDP per capita, at $36,600. Swedes living in the USA are thus approximately 53 per cent more wealthy than Swedes (excluding immigrants) in their native country (OECD, 2009; US Census database). It should be noted that those Swedes who migrated to the USA, predominately in the nineteenth century, were anything but the elite. Rather, it was often those escaping poverty and famine. …A Scandinavian economist once said to Milton Friedman, ‘In Scandinavia, we have no poverty’. Milton Friedman replied, ‘That’s interesting, because in America, among Scandinavians, we have no poverty, either’. Indeed, the poverty rate for Americans with Swedish ancestry is only 6.7 per cent: half the US average (US Census).
In this case you are using "inequality" as a means to all ends. It just doesn't work that way. The poorest person in the US is still richer than about 70% of the worlds population. We can also say that Britain is more "unequal than Kazakhstan (which it is). Where would you rather live? Are you going to argue that the "average" income in Britain only appears to be so much higher due to it's richer 1%? We can apply this logic to a number of countries. But when even when we take away the richest elites, the average Briton is still significantly richer than the average Kazakh, much like the average American is still richer than the average Dutchman.
And remember states like Hawaii, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Delaware (among others) have inequality that is less or equal to the most equal European countries. Yet, people don't flock to these places "income equality".
I don't get why people can't just admit that there is considerably less income inequality in Canada. It's obvious even from just wandering around in either country. Obviously it helps that we have a way more manageable population size, but it's still true. The only people who argue against this are the Americans who live on the Canada forum trying desperately to make you think differently about whatever for some reason. And then Botticelli, who I have long suspected is an immigrant frustrated about not being able to live in the USA.
Jesse, who has argued that Canada has more income inequality than America?
Drro, no one is arguing that the US is more "equal" in income distribution than other first world countries.
Incomes in the US are more unequal than in other developed western countries. Period.
However, your argument that the US median household income only "appears" so high is due to a tiny minority with fabulous wealth is statistically incorrect. If we take the top 1% out of the picture completely, the "average Joe" in America is still significantly wealthier than his Swedish, Dutch, or English counterparts.
GDP per capita, a measurement from your statistic, puts the US barely in the top 10 of the world. You are not the richest country at all. Several Europeans countries are richer than the US.
I don't know why you keep on coming up with that OECD statistic. You know very well there are plenty of statistics that put the US below Canada and Western Europe in every aspect like health-care, crime rates, education, income, employee rights, working hours, etc.
You still failed to explain why half of your country is working class poor with a salary lower than $27.5k per year(based on data from the US social security administration).
I'd like to see a ranking like above in hobbesdj's post that includes all the countries and their states/provinces/counties. not just US states vs countries.
GDP per capita, a measurement from your statistic, puts the US barely in the top 10 of the world. You are not the richest country at all. Several Europeans countries are richer than the US.
I don't know why you keep on coming up with that OECD statistic. You know very well there are plenty of statistics that put the US below Canada and Western Europe in every aspect like health-care, crime rates, education, income, employee rights, working hours, etc.
You still failed to explain why half of your country is working class poor with a salary lower than $27.5k per year(based on data from the US social security administration).
The US in the top 10 of 180+ countries in the world in terms of income. You consider that bad?
The other countries are micronations and tiny countries that stumbled upon oil. You seriously are saying this is a bad thing to be in the top 10 considering we have 300 million people? We have single states that are richer than any country in the world. If we take a place like New Hampshire it would perform in all of those categories equally or better than the tiny European nations, including in the category of crime and equality. The US is a huge diverse nation, not a small homogenous nation of >10 million.
27k is a very manageable income in the US, especially considering the large numbers of people who are in their 20's or 30's and the fact that the cost of living is the lowest in the developed western world. An income of 27,000 in the US is worth an income of something like 36,000 Euros in the Netherlands considering the cost of living. The OECD DOES NOT put the US below any country in the world in terms of income. Where did you get this?
I am not sure how else to explain that 27k is worth much more than in Sweden for example. In addition, about half of Canadians also make less than 27k, yet the cost of living is higher. What do you say about that? 27k in the Netherlands is worth even less than in either North American country, due to sky-high taxation and high cost of living. There is no Alberta to move to in the Netherlands.
- According to the OECD the average US household has about 40,000 USD in disposable income.The average household in the Netherlands has about 25,000 USD in disposable income. The US has by far the highest amount of disposable income in the world, the Netherlands has the 14th highest.
- Household financial wealth - About 132k (highest in world) in the US vs. about 71k in the Netherlands (5th highest in world)
- On a scale of 0-10 rating household income and financial wealth, with Brazil being a .1 and the US being a 10, the OECD ranks the US as a 10 and the Netherlands as a 5.3.
- The OECD also shows the US cost of living as significantly lower than that of any other major developed western country. The Dutchman needs 120 USD to buy what an American can buy with 100 USD. In other words, the day-today COL in the Netherlands is statistically about 20% more expensive than in the US.
^ And that's really all I'm going to say on the matter.
Last edited by hobbesdj; 09-26-2014 at 02:13 PM..
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We had a relatively cool summer but half of this September feels like July!
