That's nominal, severely outdated, and severely misleading. Ireland is the third richest [1] country in the world on paper as far as GDP/capita PPP measures, while in reality the household income/capita is a small fraction of that. The reason their GDP is so high is that hundreds of multinationals (including Google, Facebook, Apple, etc) filter large sums of money through Ireland in tax avoidance schemes. It's one of the best examples of how GDP is a very silly metric.

Incidentally, it's also the only country in the EU with a higher GDP/capita than the US.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...

Ireland was probably a bad example. And agree GDP is a silly metric. A lot of macroeconomic metrics seem to be :-( . But comparing GNI per captia [1] (which AFAIK excludes profits from multinationals) Ireland is at more or less the same level as US (slightly ahead in 2021 apparently but only slightly). So I think my point still stands?

As for national incomes - see my comment below but unless you are subtracting out costs for healthcare and other services offered to all citizens that are not offered by the US government you are not comparing apples to apples either.

[1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GNP.PCAP.CD?location...

Average hides things. Talk about medians AND averages: the former doesn't change if Jeff Bezos enter the room. The later will.

Also talk about ajusted PPP, to account for higher or lower local costs (and accounting shenanigans like double irish with dutch sandwich)

When not cheating, US is #2, only behind Luxembourg, even if my local observations do not support this conclusion:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income

So you are comparing the income you get in a country in the EU after taxes that for the most part will pay for healthcare, education, etc and comparing them to the US median income which famously doesn't.

Apparently healthcare in the US is something like $10k per person per year? Seems fair to take that from the US median income so we are comparing apples with apples. Looking at your wikipedia link that would put the US down around 11th... After Belgium, Norway, Austria, etc and that is before we start talking about education.

Look - your point that people in USA have more money is mostly true. But when you add in the extras you have to pay for the difference is not as big as you might think. And none of that explains why pregnancy related deaths are so comparatively high.

> healthcare, education, etc and comparing them to the US median income which famously doesn't > Seems fair to take that from the US median income so we are comparing apples with apples

No, because it's a choice.

Many people don't go to university etc and do just fine.

Likewise, healthcare is a choice: some people don't want that (ex: DNR)

You want to push your values, and say impose higher education, but the way I look at it, since the people with the more education are generally at the top of the "foodchain" in the EU, I only see that as them voting for themselves a right to paid education, in theory accessible to the poor/immigrants etc but in practice that is mostly used by those at the top of the foodchain themselves, yet and subsidized by the rest of the population.

I'm not a big fan.

> Look - your point that people in USA have more money is mostly true. But when you add in the extras you have to pay

You don't have to pay for them - it's OPTIONAL. That's freedom.