Ranking countries by nominal GDP [1] gives a lopsided view of the world's economy as you can have countries with very large populations of poor people that rank highly, such as China (#2) or India (#9).
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...
Yeah, I was going to make a similar comment. Listing the wealth of nations based on nominal GDP will result in a list that's similar to ordering them by population size.
You've got to be kidding me.
The US has a massive GDP per capita but there are 30 million people struggling to survive without even healthcare.
GDP per capita tells you nothing about how much each person has, it just tells you how much there is and how many people. How's it's split among them is another story.
It's true that it's not doing the best in the world, or that it has no problems -- especially when you compare it to a narrowly cherry-picked set of countries in Western and Northern Europe[1], or island/pseudo-island megalopolises in East Asia like Japan and South Korea. But its massive GDP per capita lines up well with other measures of development, like its HDI.
[1]: As an aside, it's probably more fair to compare Europe as a whole to the US as a whole, and places like Norway and England to places like California and Washington.
Relatively few people personally need healthcare at any given time.
In comparison to, say, clean water, food, shelter, education, and physical security, which actual third world countries seem to still have serious problems with.
If you're comparing the US to actual third world countries, you've already lost.
And for the median household income, they aren't in the top 35, either. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income
25 Israel $1,804 26 Russia $1,800