Indeed. In my town center, on the weekends, the streets are full of Teslas, luxury cars and SUVs of the well off people from the suburbs with nice houses, coming to the city for shopping and indulgence in various forms of consumerism and showing off (mostly inherited) wealth.
Europeans are just poorer and more unequally wealthy than Americans, with fewer people owing most of the wealth, not more righteous.
Europeans are poorer but the US generally has higher inequality, whether you look at Gini, IHDI or mean versus median wealth. Especially the wealth comparison is jarring for the US (about 6:1, most of Europe is at 2:1 or 3:1).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_pe...
The data I've seen says the exact opposite.
Edit: Also my link has the Gini inequality index as the last column, where the US is literally sandwiched between Congo and Algeria, towards the bottom...
Also, in the GINI table on the wiki page, Netherlands and Sweden have more wealth inequality than the US.
Also, I find the GINI formula quite flawed as it puts India as being more equal than many EU states which I find hard to believe.
To me wealth inequality is how much of the country's wealth the top % own versus the bottom %, and at least in Germany and Austria it's pretty bad.
That's exactly what the GINI formula is, though. (Pedantry: the formula can be applied to any measurement, be it income or wealth or blueberries. We'll assume wealth.)
The reason some of those numbers look weird to you is that the most common form of wealth is house ownership. In Germany, Benelux and Scandinavia house ownership is quite low, while in Southern and Eastern Europe it is extremely high.
Who is better off? Someone who inherited a home, or purchased it relatively easily, but earns a weak salary? Or someone who must rent because he cannot afford a house, but earns a much higher salary and has more disposable income?
Poverty is relative. What use is it earning a high salary than someone from a poorer country if you can't afford to live in your richer country?
To simplify it to the absolute extreme:
- A earns 100 and pays 25 in mortgage, or even 0 if he inherited
- B earns 300 and pays 100 in rent, but a mortgage would cost him 250, or perhaps he can't get one at all
What does it even mean to ask "who is better off" here?
On a daily basis, B obviously lives better, that part is simple at least. (I personally moved from A-like to B-like quite recently.)
Now when it comes to long-term financial plans, A has a massive illiquid asset, while B has a smaller stream of liquid assets. A is more protected against financial catastrophes - he won't end up homeless, and can keep going with a minimal salary - however B does not have any assets tying him down, so he can more result move to a more prosperous area if needed. And so on.
But you look at a wealth map and it'll just tell you that A is "richer"; or you look at an income map and it'll just tell you that B is "richer".
It was kind of cool actually.
How much you can consume is also linked to how much space you have to use and store stuff. In 2015, 40% of the american households had three or more TV sets. I don't know anyone who owns three TVs here in Europe.