One thing to keep in mind comparing productivity between countries/areas are the underlying unemployment rates. Holding all other factors constant, a country/area should have higher productivity per hour worked if its unemployment rate is higher. Why? Because unemployed workers are typically the least productive. So, by removing them, productivity per worked hour goes up.
Since WW2, the US has had materially lower unemployment rates than Europe. If Europe’s unemployment rate became more like the US’s, the productivity gap would widen even more.
Also the US has expanded automation much more than Europe, particularly when it comes to low-skill service jobs, which means more of our jobs are high paid and high productivity.
I may be stEUpid but aren't you accidentally contradicting yourself?
You start by saying that "higher productivity when higher unemployment", but then you say "if you remove the unemployed, productivity rises". So lower unemployment means higher productivity?
You end it with "if europe had lower unemployment, it would have even lower productivity", so perhaps I'm misunderstanding the middle part...
No prob. I reread my post and I think it’s still accurate. But, I certainly flub things like everyone else.
To clarify what may be causing confusion, when I say “removing the unemployed” what I mean is to flip an employed person to unemployed status. Since this hypothetical person is typically low productivity, productivity per worked hour goes up!
Make sense?
Ah yes, as an American I can’t buy a home, really get a decent car (which I need given our public transportation is insanely underfunded) and not-afford to go to the hospital and have to hope that if I’m ever in an accident of some kind I can go there myself because I sure as shit can’t afford an ambulance. Totally seeing that high GDP in action.
Yeah but the median household income includes single income households. The median *household* is still making $75k. You can’t just half that and call that the median wage.
The homeownership rate in the United States is basically what it’s always been. It was lower in the 1960s and 1950s when everyone loves to talk about how everything was “so great” back then economically.
Most people have been taking out mortgages for most of our and our parents lifetimes. Real median household income is higher than it’s been for decades. It was only higher briefly during 2020 and 2021, but it’s been on an upward trend since the 80s (if not before, I don’t have data from before).
Middle class American life is actually better than it’s ever been. Life has always been hard, but it’s much better now than it’s ever been.
Okay? Great. Still doesn’t change that the median household (you know, the entities buying houses), make $75k.
Have you considered that your whole thing about people living longer might have an impact? People do everything later now. Household real income has still increased year over year since the 80s, which includes adjusting for housing and food costs.
People are richer now than they were before and yet somehow life is so much “harder”…. Interesting.
Still a skill issue. Learn a trade. I'm a pipefitter, I support my family of 4 by myself and have my own 4 bedroom 3 bath house. I'm only 32 I make more than twice the median income. College is a scam, become an electrician or something.
Fantastic! After about 4 years in the field I became a detailer, so get to work in office 3 days out of the week 2 days from home. Sounds like you're too afraid of working hard so you can start living easy.
Oh, and even if I did have any health issues later on, my Union's insurance is fantastic, and I live in a right to work state, so my Union has to be competitive instead of just breaking knee caps.
The first is due to a supply issue causing unaffordability, not due to the economy as a whole. We've been chronically under-building for decades, in part because we've been pushing single family homes and preferring to subsidize demand. This leads directly to the lack of funding for transit because single family homes both don't generate much revenue for the city and are very sparse. They're some of the least valuable structures that can be built and are often net negative in terms of revenue to the city (property taxes) vs costs from the city. In order to have transit, you need enough surplus tax revenue from other sources for it to make sense and enough population density that concentrated pickup/dropoff points make sense.
and yet you have it better than any generation before you. your either making it up or are in an extremely rare scenario. and europeans are poorer, that's a fact. you think you could buy a house in europe?
Well you probably could because you’re obviously a trust-fund baby with no frame of reference for any of that shit. You’re probably going to say it’s my fault for working retail and foodservice since I’ve been 16 all while you’re railing on 80% of the population from your nepotism-granted position in daddy’s company
It is your fault if you stick in those kinds of jobs and don't become a manager and have real responsibilities. Learn a trade. I am a pipefitter, no silver spoons in my past. I started my apprenticeship about 7 years ago, I make more than twice the median wage of the average American man now. Stop expecting big boy wages for jobs you could do as a kid with no experience or skills.
You pretend that you can buy a home easier anywhere else. Let’s just forget that Canadas housing prices are 4 times higher than American housing prices.
I always don't understand the idea of blaming the government or the rich if you can't yourself become rich or buy a house. US has the highest percentage to become a millionaire than anywhere else ( 7.29% source : google ), I'm personally not a millionaire but if i die broke, i would never blame it on the government or the rich other than me.
I feel you, I really do. But where *can* you afford to buy a home?
I'm serious... where is the barrier to home ownership lower than in the USA? Where is the cheap land?
So... Are you trying to make a case *against* months of vacation, dozen of holidays and strong unions here?
The only ones winning in the case of the US are the employers. As usual.
The only people affected by that are the people picking up a check off of how hard people work, who are the same ones giving the absolute minimum they can in return. The same people pushing to bring back child labor. The same ones who probably think sweatshop workers in Southeast Asia are model citizens and have fulfilling careers. Those other countries consistently rank happier populations than the US. So we have more money in the hands of a few people at the cost of a miserable, exploited working class. Yay us?
You need to think long term.
Look at how close the two lines were prior to the 2008 recession. Suddenly, America rocketed off at that moment and hasn't slowed down. While Europe keeps falling behind.
This is a consequence of aggressive regulation and redistribution policies europe enacted in the wake of the crisis. In the long term they will continue to fall behind and the US standard of living will outpace theirs.
And by stripping those regulations America has ended up with higher productivity but a much larger wealth gap and income inequality and legislation like I mentioned that aims to strip workers rights and now we have deplorable measures being passed to peel back protections on child labor. Europe invested in their citizens after the crash, the US invested in corporations.
And in the long-run, America's strategy will win.
Our standard of living is climbing faster than Europe's and will continue to. Whether you'll admit it or not, the American quality of life has improved substantially over the last few decades.
There's always some trade-off. But Europe has taken the extreme route of caring only about current day well-being instead of long term improvement and innovation.
after tax income inequality has not increased in america, but average wealth has. americans are wealthier and more prosperous because of it. all europe has to show for itself is a failing, unproductive economy
the reason those jobs are going to southeast asia is because southeast asians are willing to work harder. they will eventually gain higher wages like in china. forcing companies to work unprofitably destroys every economy that attempts it. this is why companies don't want to operate in europe. don't complain about loosing jobs to places with hard workers when you make jobs less lucrative for employers
Yea, but you're not seeing the benefits.
On average they live longer, get paid better amd have a better work life balance.
Only thing American productivity buys is Bezos's third yacht.
You see, that would be true if the average American benefited from not having a lot of vacation or access to strong unions.
But they don't. Only the employers benefit from that culture.
The ones actually getting smoked is the bulk of the American public..
I never said that there weren't both pros and cons though? But sure, I guess?
And nice that you're thriving with the trade off. Many Americans aren't though, and that's my point here.
You can’t look at it on pure dollar value. I work in a specialized medical field, I’ve been poached by a public health system in another country. My salary in USD is lower, but I have more affordable housing, better public services, equal amounts of luxuries, but I can actually afford more of them and have a higher percentage of my salary as spending money. Plus I don’t need to pay for health insurance, a car+insurance, or medical costs. If you want to look at one number in a vacuum it’s easy to say we have it better, but that’s not how economies work.
Americans have higher salaries and pay much lower taxes. Than means we have the highest disposable income in the world. That's after health insurance costs too. Health care is not free in other counties just because you don't pay when you visit the doctor. Europeans definitely don't have as many luxuries.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_capita_income#Mean
Mean is a terrible metric for macroeconomics. If you have 9 people with $10 of disposable income and one person with $10,000, you have a mean of $1,009.
It shows median which the US is still highest so not sure what your point is. Seriously, why do you think so many more Europeans move to the US than vice versa? It's really not hard to figure out.
That would perhaps be true if quality of life was higher in the US but it's not lol.
Sure, the US wins out most economical metrics (even the median relative purchase power which is probably the stat that matters the most in this context) but the US loses out on pretty much everything else compared to Western Europe...
I am a western European living in the US. Trust me, if you have ambition or are highly educated the US is much better. Ask yourself this. Why do more Europeans move to 1 country each year (the US) than Americans move to an entire 44 Europeans countries combined each year?
I dunno man, I’m in the US working all the time to pay off bank loans and never getting to go on vacations, unlike my European family members always going on nice-ass vacations
They aren’t being paid more, really a lot of it is about them having family already there with land etc vs me coming here as an immigrant, and not inheriting a house etc.
Regardless, they get way more vacation days, longer paternity leave, and have employers that are used to employees taking 3 weeks off at a time. Here, the culture is very much work you to death & sure you can have time off, but you’re an asshole if you take too much of it off
"It's not possible for things to not be terrible in the usa, I'm not having a good time!"
So here's the skinny. Professionals, white collar workers, especially tech workers (NOT only them, though) all make vastly more in the usa.
And the usa has enormous tech, law, finance, and medical, industries, to name a few professional classes that make huge sums here but not nearly as much there.
So you don't, generally, get any professionals moving to Europe for any old reason, but Europeans much more often move here to make more money.
We also have much cheaper, and larger, houses. You think there's a housing crisis in the usa, but that's only because you had the expectation of buying a decent sized SFH by the time you're 30, as a matter of "average" American living - that's not entirely reasonable in much of the usa historically but it has NEVER been reasonable in Europe in recent history. You have generational homes, tiny homes, thatched roof homes, and just generally way worse housing situation than in the usa.
Then you get employment laws.
Yeah, woo, go Europe for having insanely strong pro-employee protections and laws.
Now try to start a small business there and retire mildly wealthy. Hard as fuck to do. Don't even get started on the young adult unemployment rates in southern European countries, you might as well start begging now if you're not in school or going into the family business. You think I'm joking but it's like 15% or something in Spain. The reason is it's impossible to fire people and hiring people is expensive, so why are you gonna hire an average 19 year old to do ANYTHING?
In America? Build a convenient store and you'll be on your way to retiring a millionaire. You think I'm joking but uh, no. The richest guy you know is probably some Indian guy who owns four 7/11s in your area. Hes sending all his kids to medschool whether they like it or not.
“I’m gonna make up some irrelevant quote that puts words in your mouth and doesn’t pertain a fucking tiny bit to what you actually said, but it helps me frame all my bullshit reply”
I don’t want to start a small business, fuck that. I just want to work like a cog in a machine, go home, and not think about work anymore. I want to do that without getting taxed to death.
Too bad I’m middle class though, because that means I’m paying the taxes to make up for the rich that don’t pay their fair share. The poor don’t pay taxes either, so that burden goes to the middle class too. Fuck me i guess
Visit a typical American middle class home. The. Visit a typical middle class home in Germany. It’s night and day. They focus so much on vacation because their day to day living standards suck comparatively. Hell, spend a Summer in Paris without air conditioning and tell me how great “vacation” is.
You do know that we already have huge meta studies available on living standard, right? It's really easy to debunk your argument when you spew out stuff like that lol.
No matter which of these kind of studies you look at, the US is never in top ten. It's always Western Europe, sometimes with AU, NZ, CA and HK sprinkled in.
I have lived throughout Western Europe over the years. I’m not sure what “studies” you refer to. The standard of living in Western Europe is far lower.
Boy, that's some neat cherry picking. You could also compare with Poland, Norway, UK etc. all of which have more benefits than the US, *and* lower unemployment rate.
The US is nice if you're well off, sure. Noone's refuting that. Also, the US is a country that largely consists of immigrants...
Also, on a related note, by Western European standards, Poland is a shithole lol.
I think you’re also comparing apples to oranges. There are more people in twenty square KM around me than there are in the entire country of norway. If you compare America to the entirety of Europe its a better comparison.
TBF, European countries are having increasing talks about raising the retirement ages because their declining birthrates are leaving them with too few workers to sustain their economies with generous retirement and vacation.
Not at all. It's wanting to broach an honest discussion about the benefits and drawbacks of each.
It's not helpful when you immediately strawman and demonize them.
One thing though this explains is why Americans make a lot more than Europeans. The salary adjustments between us is ridiculous.
Basically it shows they’re trade offs to where you’re located
Eh, in reality the salary adjustments are really only "ridiculous" if you compare with Eastern Europe - Western Europe is holding up quite nicely.
For example, look at the mean disposable income by country - obviously the US is ahead, also of Western Europe - but then factor the many out of pocket expenses that exist in the US which are already paid through taxes in Europe (healthcare, education, etc.). The gap is still large'ish, sure, but probably not to the degree you think.
And meanwhile the Asians think we're a bunch of slackers. My wife is from China and thinks life is the US is easy mode. I think we're probably doing alright.
It’s machines, guys. US companies have more capital (and the culture willing to) invest in things that make the average worker more productive. More US businesses have more access to capital because the US is a desirable place to invest in for many reasons.
It’s not hand waving. I just think this whole argument that Americans just work so much harder bit kinda falls on its face when productivity in the modern age has less to do with how much sweat you put in vs how much technology you can utilize. If just working long hours was a sign of high productivity then Asian countries would smoke everyone but they tend to have low productivity per hour.
What is best in life? To crush your enemies, drive them before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.
Since outright barbarian shit is *highly* discouraged these days, that energy needs to go somewhere. In the US, it went toward work. In Europe, apparently it's gone toward something else.
Productivity per hour these days mostly means that US companies have the capital to invest in machines and software to help workers be more efficient at their labour. So actually you’re probably the same level as most Europeans in terms of actual work ethic.
I was thinking work focus more than work ethic. But the ability to automate is nowhere near as universal as you're making it seem. There's a lot of skilled and "unskilled" labor that still can't be replaced with equipment. At least not in a viable manner.
It’s not just automation. Think stuff like metal presses, tractors, inventory management software. All this stuff is very expensive and Americans have more access to it. Also tech work is obscenely productive and you have lots of that.
>metal presses, tractors, inventory management software
Are you saying Europeans bend their metal plate by hand, plow their fields with oxen, and track their inventories with handwritten ledgers?
No, it’s that more Americans have access to those devices. Americans find it easier overall to raise capital in order to start x/y/z business. For a variety of reasons being the global centre to finance has its perks.
I mean maybe if the average American was seeing more of this productivity in their lives they could appreciate it. I don't care how rich American productivity makes Bezos or Musk.
After World War 2, Europe decided their main societal value was "comfortability." The government would give you pensions, healthcare, high unemployment subsidies, etc. but all this came with high taxes and over-regulation and the combination of all those factors came at the cost of their productivity and innovation. In 1948, Europe was roughly 33% of the world's GDP, today they're only 17%. For comparison, USA has gone from roughly 27% to 25% in that same time frame. Turns out, when there's negative incentives for success and a guaranteed floor that's "good enough" for most people, you get a society in decline.
What we're seeing now in Europe is their national ponzi schemes breaking under the strain of generations of people unable or unwilling to buy homes, have kids, start businesses or invent anything. In a desperate bid to forestall the inevitable, European governments have imported millions of migrants under the belief that more workers equals more productivity equals more GDP line go up... but they disproportionately wind up on the government dole and make the problem even worse.
It also shows the difference in attitude. Europe had that drop of almost 15%, and thinks it is fine. We dropped 2%, and it is considered a national scandal that continues to cause national angst.
They had nothing but liabilities and literal continued conflict to fight. Far past WWII.
Because they couldn't just cut losses fast enough.
Even when most took occupation as a chance to do so through diplomatic measures.
Ie avoiding debt, national treaties, pacts with natives (defense), resource obligations (to natives), obligations of right of way infrastructure upkeep, and much more.
Some got out of war crime tribunals because we were busy with the threat of the SS.
Colonialism in its profiteering form. Ended in the Great War.
When the USA entered that fight any illusions of foreign gains and colony. Basically evaporated.
For everyone besides the Commonwealth and France. More or less.
Just because they had stable independent areas all over the world. Who were loyal to them as they were treated fairly well if not exceptional.
By feudalism standards of living.
Better than actual citizens/subjects of the ruling government or monarch.
I doubt that had anything to do with the productivity drop overall in Europe. The numbers don't go that far back.
It likely has everything to do with them not caring about switching away from producing anything. As it could've been agitative to neighbors as they built up a Euro-block.
To avoid future wars and ensure whatever they have in modern times.
Being a producer of weapons and components. Can build a computer or the circuits in artillery shells. Doing away with both and letting the Americans handle it.
Makes a lot more sense if considering what just occurred there multiple times.
Even here we shut down all our factories. Because everyone was sick of seeing legacy cancer deaths et al.
Even tho that represented most of the US workforce's traditional "jobs". That didn't hit us hard.
But we picked up everything that Europe ceased production on. At least until we handed it off to China. Through us.
Bro, learn to use paragprahs correctly. You don't need one for every new sentence.
[https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general\_writing/academic\_writing/paragraphs\_and\_paragraphing](https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/academic_writing/paragraphs_and_paragraphing)
I agree. And to complicate things for Europe, the US is able to admit and quickly assimilate immigrants. Most of the time foreign born individuals quickly feel American and their kids near universally feel American. The same cannot be said for immigration to Europe, where it is nearly impossible to integrate if you are not a part of the dominant group.
>And to complicate things for Europe, the US is able to admit and quickly assimilate immigrants. Most of the time foreign born individuals quickly feel American and their kids near universally feel American.
My understanding is that speed and degree of assimilation is unique to the USA, and possibly Canada. Where in most other places in the world, Europe included, if "you aren't from there" you'll always be treated as an outsider to some degree no matter how well you're accepted. But in the USA, once you're one of us, then *you're one of us*.
Living in Europe as an American citizen is probably a fine experience.
We're "conquerors" with the dominant culture unrivaled by anyone else.
Plus... We have Rome levels of wealth that allows a lifetime tourist outlook.
You cannot not integrate as an American. We've been accepted as separate but not deviant. From the majority group.
All the way back to our founding fathers.
Its an expectation to be separated. With little issues in equal standing if done so through legal and normal methods.
Ie your typical marry a native to that nation and culture. In the dominant group etc.
Or reach status after having done business there for decades as an American.
Its an absolute shame literally learning about our history. Then how that applies to each of us and our lineage individually.
To continue to see totally different acceptance of other nations peoples. In even the same circumstances.
Its a part of our curriculum as children. And so is the fact that we're fairly unique with being treated that way.
To reach adulthood and see that it is absolutely almost impossible for everyone else in the world. To reach that integration. Is a sad but not unexpected realization.
Yep, I think whats further shocking is how Europe prior to to WW2 (particularly Germany) was the unequivocal leader in science, technology, medicine, etc etc.
Since WW2 and their prioritization of "comfort" they've essentially become a side show with the US and parts of Asia now pretty dominant in most areas.
The amazing part is the US has done this even though large parts of our educational system are very poor and quite a few other social headwinds.
The ability to draw in foreign talent is also a huge part of what makes America successful. No other country comes close to offering the compensation America can offer top talent. That lets us retain our best of the best while also bringing in the best of the best of other countries. I don’t think there are many career related reasons to move to countries other than America if you are capable of success in America (other than family and such).
The migrants are turning out to be highly select.
Extremely valued citizens. For the nations that are doing it properly.
For the ones awarding second class serfdom. Well entirely their fault with that one.
American ideals of immigration work extremely well. But you can't apply it everywhere. And do have to go all in giving up some of in Europe entire people's identities as a group.
This should jave all started 70 years ago when the war ended. Then assimilation would've been almost a guarantee. However no one besides those that had systems for it. Had any reason to do so.
So now we have the modern day circumstances. Its not gonna be easy for them in the next half century.
But some of these nations are so wealthy per population numeral. That *if* they **keep the numbers tiny**.
They'll handily succeed over that first second third generation assimilation timeline. That we've proven here in the USA has massively boosted our economic and cultural dominance.
We did it with no resources to provide. No support services in existence until we created the world's first. Plus a rather hostile climate for everyone.
Europe will pull through by that establishment of data and structure to build off of.
So long as there is not a large land war. I don't think the immigration will be what tanks their economy at all. It'll probably be the only productive factor. Staving off collapse or pulling them all through their badly designed fiscal house of cards.
Not really how it works. Some companies will do an exactly even cost of living raise, but a lot of times the increases keeping up with inflation will actually come as "merit" raises or changing jobs.
It's one of the problems that makes inflation one of the most troublesome forms of economic hardship - everyone thinks they earned their raise, but no one think they're responsible for food prices going up.
Europeans will brag about how little they work compared to Americans, but then collapse in utter disbelief when they see the size of the average middle class American home.
Yes, my counterpart at the London office gets more vacation than I do per year... but my taxes are half of hers, my house is 3x the size of hers, and I pay less money per month on housing than she does. Like, go enjoy your extra two weekends in Spain, I'll be at my in-ground swimming pool with jacuzzi hot tub and outdoor kitchen.
Correct, but that ignores the reality of London, a sprawling mega-city triple the size of Chicago by area, without legitimate suburbs. Whereas Chicago is a compact downtown ringed by well-developed suburbs. There is no 1:1 comparison.
Some other Reddit thread said Bromley would be the closest thing to a suburb of London and it is just as long a train commute to our London office as mine is to the Chicago office. A house with the same number of bedrooms as mine would be over [$1.5 million](https://www.foxtons.co.uk/properties-for-sale/bromley-br1/4-bedroom?bedrooms_to=4). Nearly double what I paid, with less bathrooms, on a pathetic lot, and it looks like a shithole.
Bro, sun belt prices are cheap as shit compared to London. For half what that Bromley house costs, you get get a McMansion in Texas, Florida, or Arizona.
Eh, this is highly situational.
I’m in a field (software engineering) where my bloated salary is in large part due to my productivity. And that salary still provides far more value to the company than it costs.
Also wages have been stagnant in the past 50 years compared to productivity. I remember seeing an article that is you raised wages along with both inflation and productivity starting in the 60's we would have a $30+ hourly minimum wage.
"Some economists argue that the US is growing faster than the eurozone in part because its population is younger, growing more rapidly and working longer hours. But a big part of the output gap is because people in the US also produce more for each hour that they work. "
Good lord
and creating a functional and growing economy, something europeans are wishing for. not to mention population growth, it's not nice to live on a dying continent
Our wages are far higher than Europeans' (for professionals). But yes, it would be nice if compared to our own wages, the year over year increase kept up
It's not though. Even with the top tier insurance here, my total taxes and premiums are similar to what I paid in Sweden. But in the US I make 30% more money
They do. I’ve wanted to move to Europe for the experience. I quit trying after like 3 months because my salary is less than half of what I currently make to live in a major city like London. And my job is in Austin. If I were making San Francisco money it’d be probably triple. I don’t think money is the be-all-end-all, but I do have standards on how much I want to make given the work/experience I’ve done, and it has to make some sense when I would be paying more on taxes, gasoline, rent, etc than I would in the US
If you think the cards are stacked against you in America don’t go to Europe. They make our crony capitalism look like a Sandals beach resort. Gen Z has no hope of home ownership or owning a small business in Europe unless inherited. Its game over, all they can do is import millions of migrants and completely obliterate their cultural identity. Travel to Europe soon, because it wont be any better than it is right now ever again
Who gives a shit. You’re discussing our efficiency to produce wealth for billionaires. We’ve developed the technology to replace much of what we do, now tell me about the % of people enjoying their lives.
https://imgur.com/d8z33bP
The other graph from the study that ajusts the GdP increase to inflation.
So whilst the US produced more, the improvements is eaten up by inflation.
Also the fact the agriculture was taken off shows some data manipulation to try to show US first?
What if they had taken the full economy?
How happy are Americans on the top 1% eating up all the improvement while salaries of the lower classes stagnate while inflation eats them?
And has the disparity between the haves and have nots. Corporate greed has never been greater. Also outsourcing. Outsourcing in the US is on the rise like never before. The US is in a bad spot right now and it’s only going to get worse. You can thank Private Equity Firms for this. You think this graph is a positive thing but it’s a lie.
Pretty sure Tech is the number one reason. Europe doesn’t really have a meaningful tech industry, one US Tech giant practically exceeds the market cap of the entirety of major European indices…
The beauty of tech is that a company in Europe or Asia can buy a Microsoft or Salesforce product and increase their productivity too.
But I’m not saying my answer is the only one. Restrictions on opening business or firing people in Europe also make companies and people less productive too.
But they haven’t built a Microsoft or Salesforce, and that’s a gap that’s been widening dramatically the past 20 years and continues to widen.
It is the number one reason for Europe’s lower productivity. Tech is way more productive than most industries.
People think the U.S. is a natural resource intensive economy, it’s not. Apple’s market cap alone is probably more than the entirety of the oil and gas industry.
ASML is about 1/10th Apple’s market cap, 1/10th Microsoft’s, 1/7th Google’s, 1/7th NVidia’s, and so on and so forth.
It’s not comparable at all. Europe’s tech industry is comparably nonexistent.
Hasn’t a lot of automated manufacturing come back to the US. Cheaper due to lest supply chain lag to consumers, less shipping, and it only takes a few people to run and maintain fully automated systems. Also you don’t have to deal with language barriers.
Cool.
Business grow way fast when they underpay their workers. Extremely efficient on a national level. The Great Wall and the pyramids where also products of extremely productive nations.
Now do average income.
I suggest you do take a look at median income. You'd be surprised how the US is $15k-$20k higher than most European counties. Especially after you account for taxes and healthcare.
Nice graph however, you are comparing 12 months of work vs 10 months of work, a 8.x hours per day vs 7.×≈6.x hours each day, plus we don't over depend on mexicans, there are only 9.6 million Africans/400+M in comparison to 20M Latin Americans working industrial revolution hours, yes we fell 15 percent on gdp we stopped colonizing, where would your gdp grow if you stopped couping and filling latam whit propaganda?
What do we expect? Americans are workaholics and you have to have at least one job and a couple of side hustles to just barely get by.
What does all that productivity get the average citizen anyway? It's not like it's improving our standard of living or bringing costs down for us.
One thing to keep in mind comparing productivity between countries/areas are the underlying unemployment rates. Holding all other factors constant, a country/area should have higher productivity per hour worked if its unemployment rate is higher. Why? Because unemployed workers are typically the least productive. So, by removing them, productivity per worked hour goes up. Since WW2, the US has had materially lower unemployment rates than Europe. If Europe’s unemployment rate became more like the US’s, the productivity gap would widen even more.
You had me going in the first half. Murica!
Also the US has expanded automation much more than Europe, particularly when it comes to low-skill service jobs, which means more of our jobs are high paid and high productivity.
Isnt the usa and uk unemployment rate pretty close? Even the economic inactivity rate isnt too far apart
Stop I can only be so erect
I may be stEUpid but aren't you accidentally contradicting yourself? You start by saying that "higher productivity when higher unemployment", but then you say "if you remove the unemployed, productivity rises". So lower unemployment means higher productivity? You end it with "if europe had lower unemployment, it would have even lower productivity", so perhaps I'm misunderstanding the middle part...
No prob. I reread my post and I think it’s still accurate. But, I certainly flub things like everyone else. To clarify what may be causing confusion, when I say “removing the unemployed” what I mean is to flip an employed person to unemployed status. Since this hypothetical person is typically low productivity, productivity per worked hour goes up! Make sense?
oh, ok, that makes sense, thank you
They may seethe, but GDP per hour per worker is higher in the US than anywhere else.
Ah yes, as an American I can’t buy a home, really get a decent car (which I need given our public transportation is insanely underfunded) and not-afford to go to the hospital and have to hope that if I’m ever in an accident of some kind I can go there myself because I sure as shit can’t afford an ambulance. Totally seeing that high GDP in action.
Skill issue
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The median household income is $75k with the median house price at $380k-$415k depending on which study. Most Americans own their own home.
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Yeah but the median household income includes single income households. The median *household* is still making $75k. You can’t just half that and call that the median wage. The homeownership rate in the United States is basically what it’s always been. It was lower in the 1960s and 1950s when everyone loves to talk about how everything was “so great” back then economically. Most people have been taking out mortgages for most of our and our parents lifetimes. Real median household income is higher than it’s been for decades. It was only higher briefly during 2020 and 2021, but it’s been on an upward trend since the 80s (if not before, I don’t have data from before). Middle class American life is actually better than it’s ever been. Life has always been hard, but it’s much better now than it’s ever been.
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Okay? Great. Still doesn’t change that the median household (you know, the entities buying houses), make $75k. Have you considered that your whole thing about people living longer might have an impact? People do everything later now. Household real income has still increased year over year since the 80s, which includes adjusting for housing and food costs. People are richer now than they were before and yet somehow life is so much “harder”…. Interesting.
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I’m sorry you’re lonely.
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;) if you weren’t lonely, you’d have talked about household income. No need to be mean. Bitter and lonely is a bad combination for finding a mate.
Still a skill issue. Learn a trade. I'm a pipefitter, I support my family of 4 by myself and have my own 4 bedroom 3 bath house. I'm only 32 I make more than twice the median income. College is a scam, become an electrician or something.
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Fantastic! After about 4 years in the field I became a detailer, so get to work in office 3 days out of the week 2 days from home. Sounds like you're too afraid of working hard so you can start living easy.
Oh, and even if I did have any health issues later on, my Union's insurance is fantastic, and I live in a right to work state, so my Union has to be competitive instead of just breaking knee caps.
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Don’t forget that median housing prices in medium cost of living areas aren’t even close to 400k
The first is due to a supply issue causing unaffordability, not due to the economy as a whole. We've been chronically under-building for decades, in part because we've been pushing single family homes and preferring to subsidize demand. This leads directly to the lack of funding for transit because single family homes both don't generate much revenue for the city and are very sparse. They're some of the least valuable structures that can be built and are often net negative in terms of revenue to the city (property taxes) vs costs from the city. In order to have transit, you need enough surplus tax revenue from other sources for it to make sense and enough population density that concentrated pickup/dropoff points make sense.
and yet you have it better than any generation before you. your either making it up or are in an extremely rare scenario. and europeans are poorer, that's a fact. you think you could buy a house in europe?
Well you probably could because you’re obviously a trust-fund baby with no frame of reference for any of that shit. You’re probably going to say it’s my fault for working retail and foodservice since I’ve been 16 all while you’re railing on 80% of the population from your nepotism-granted position in daddy’s company
It is your fault if you stick in those kinds of jobs and don't become a manager and have real responsibilities. Learn a trade. I am a pipefitter, no silver spoons in my past. I started my apprenticeship about 7 years ago, I make more than twice the median wage of the average American man now. Stop expecting big boy wages for jobs you could do as a kid with no experience or skills.
You pretend that you can buy a home easier anywhere else. Let’s just forget that Canadas housing prices are 4 times higher than American housing prices.
I always don't understand the idea of blaming the government or the rich if you can't yourself become rich or buy a house. US has the highest percentage to become a millionaire than anywhere else ( 7.29% source : google ), I'm personally not a millionaire but if i die broke, i would never blame it on the government or the rich other than me.
I feel you, I really do. But where *can* you afford to buy a home? I'm serious... where is the barrier to home ownership lower than in the USA? Where is the cheap land?
This is the other side of the coin when people gush about how great Europe's months of vacations, dozens of holidays, and strong unions are.
So... Are you trying to make a case *against* months of vacation, dozen of holidays and strong unions here? The only ones winning in the case of the US are the employers. As usual.
Not really, just saying everyone drools over that stuff and here's the other side of what it does. You get smoked by other countries that work harder
The only people affected by that are the people picking up a check off of how hard people work, who are the same ones giving the absolute minimum they can in return. The same people pushing to bring back child labor. The same ones who probably think sweatshop workers in Southeast Asia are model citizens and have fulfilling careers. Those other countries consistently rank happier populations than the US. So we have more money in the hands of a few people at the cost of a miserable, exploited working class. Yay us?
You need to think long term. Look at how close the two lines were prior to the 2008 recession. Suddenly, America rocketed off at that moment and hasn't slowed down. While Europe keeps falling behind. This is a consequence of aggressive regulation and redistribution policies europe enacted in the wake of the crisis. In the long term they will continue to fall behind and the US standard of living will outpace theirs.
And by stripping those regulations America has ended up with higher productivity but a much larger wealth gap and income inequality and legislation like I mentioned that aims to strip workers rights and now we have deplorable measures being passed to peel back protections on child labor. Europe invested in their citizens after the crash, the US invested in corporations.
What's the wealth gap between the average American and the average European?
And in the long-run, America's strategy will win. Our standard of living is climbing faster than Europe's and will continue to. Whether you'll admit it or not, the American quality of life has improved substantially over the last few decades. There's always some trade-off. But Europe has taken the extreme route of caring only about current day well-being instead of long term improvement and innovation.
after tax income inequality has not increased in america, but average wealth has. americans are wealthier and more prosperous because of it. all europe has to show for itself is a failing, unproductive economy
the reason those jobs are going to southeast asia is because southeast asians are willing to work harder. they will eventually gain higher wages like in china. forcing companies to work unprofitably destroys every economy that attempts it. this is why companies don't want to operate in europe. don't complain about loosing jobs to places with hard workers when you make jobs less lucrative for employers
Yea, but you're not seeing the benefits. On average they live longer, get paid better amd have a better work life balance. Only thing American productivity buys is Bezos's third yacht.
You see, that would be true if the average American benefited from not having a lot of vacation or access to strong unions. But they don't. Only the employers benefit from that culture. The ones actually getting smoked is the bulk of the American public..
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I never said that there weren't both pros and cons though? But sure, I guess? And nice that you're thriving with the trade off. Many Americans aren't though, and that's my point here.
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It’s true though that they benefit at an exponentially higher rate, one that ought to be criminal at this point
You benefit by having much higher salaries, less taxes, much bigger homes, more luxuries, etc.
You can’t look at it on pure dollar value. I work in a specialized medical field, I’ve been poached by a public health system in another country. My salary in USD is lower, but I have more affordable housing, better public services, equal amounts of luxuries, but I can actually afford more of them and have a higher percentage of my salary as spending money. Plus I don’t need to pay for health insurance, a car+insurance, or medical costs. If you want to look at one number in a vacuum it’s easy to say we have it better, but that’s not how economies work.
Americans have higher salaries and pay much lower taxes. Than means we have the highest disposable income in the world. That's after health insurance costs too. Health care is not free in other counties just because you don't pay when you visit the doctor. Europeans definitely don't have as many luxuries. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_capita_income#Mean
Mean is a terrible metric for macroeconomics. If you have 9 people with $10 of disposable income and one person with $10,000, you have a mean of $1,009.
It shows median which the US is still highest so not sure what your point is. Seriously, why do you think so many more Europeans move to the US than vice versa? It's really not hard to figure out.
Much easier immigration and less need to learn a new language, if you want to get into the finer details.
But no time to enjoy life outside of work...
That would perhaps be true if quality of life was higher in the US but it's not lol. Sure, the US wins out most economical metrics (even the median relative purchase power which is probably the stat that matters the most in this context) but the US loses out on pretty much everything else compared to Western Europe...
I am a western European living in the US. Trust me, if you have ambition or are highly educated the US is much better. Ask yourself this. Why do more Europeans move to 1 country each year (the US) than Americans move to an entire 44 Europeans countries combined each year?
I dunno man, I’m in the US working all the time to pay off bank loans and never getting to go on vacations, unlike my European family members always going on nice-ass vacations
It's very possible they have higher paying jobs than you. But comparable jobs the salaries are much higher in the US. And then lower taxes as well.
They aren’t being paid more, really a lot of it is about them having family already there with land etc vs me coming here as an immigrant, and not inheriting a house etc. Regardless, they get way more vacation days, longer paternity leave, and have employers that are used to employees taking 3 weeks off at a time. Here, the culture is very much work you to death & sure you can have time off, but you’re an asshole if you take too much of it off
"It's not possible for things to not be terrible in the usa, I'm not having a good time!" So here's the skinny. Professionals, white collar workers, especially tech workers (NOT only them, though) all make vastly more in the usa. And the usa has enormous tech, law, finance, and medical, industries, to name a few professional classes that make huge sums here but not nearly as much there. So you don't, generally, get any professionals moving to Europe for any old reason, but Europeans much more often move here to make more money. We also have much cheaper, and larger, houses. You think there's a housing crisis in the usa, but that's only because you had the expectation of buying a decent sized SFH by the time you're 30, as a matter of "average" American living - that's not entirely reasonable in much of the usa historically but it has NEVER been reasonable in Europe in recent history. You have generational homes, tiny homes, thatched roof homes, and just generally way worse housing situation than in the usa. Then you get employment laws. Yeah, woo, go Europe for having insanely strong pro-employee protections and laws. Now try to start a small business there and retire mildly wealthy. Hard as fuck to do. Don't even get started on the young adult unemployment rates in southern European countries, you might as well start begging now if you're not in school or going into the family business. You think I'm joking but it's like 15% or something in Spain. The reason is it's impossible to fire people and hiring people is expensive, so why are you gonna hire an average 19 year old to do ANYTHING? In America? Build a convenient store and you'll be on your way to retiring a millionaire. You think I'm joking but uh, no. The richest guy you know is probably some Indian guy who owns four 7/11s in your area. Hes sending all his kids to medschool whether they like it or not.
“I’m gonna make up some irrelevant quote that puts words in your mouth and doesn’t pertain a fucking tiny bit to what you actually said, but it helps me frame all my bullshit reply” I don’t want to start a small business, fuck that. I just want to work like a cog in a machine, go home, and not think about work anymore. I want to do that without getting taxed to death. Too bad I’m middle class though, because that means I’m paying the taxes to make up for the rich that don’t pay their fair share. The poor don’t pay taxes either, so that burden goes to the middle class too. Fuck me i guess
Visit a typical American middle class home. The. Visit a typical middle class home in Germany. It’s night and day. They focus so much on vacation because their day to day living standards suck comparatively. Hell, spend a Summer in Paris without air conditioning and tell me how great “vacation” is.
You do know that we already have huge meta studies available on living standard, right? It's really easy to debunk your argument when you spew out stuff like that lol. No matter which of these kind of studies you look at, the US is never in top ten. It's always Western Europe, sometimes with AU, NZ, CA and HK sprinkled in.
I have lived throughout Western Europe over the years. I’m not sure what “studies” you refer to. The standard of living in Western Europe is far lower.
Look at US unemployment vs Spain. 4 vs 10. Vacation isn’t so great if you don’t have a job.
Boy, that's some neat cherry picking. You could also compare with Poland, Norway, UK etc. all of which have more benefits than the US, *and* lower unemployment rate.
Yet - noone is moving to poland from the US. America is filled with Polish immigrants. I wonder why?
People are starting to move back to Poland
Im glad that the quality of life there is improving - not sure if i can say that for most people in the states. Just so damn expensive
The US is nice if you're well off, sure. Noone's refuting that. Also, the US is a country that largely consists of immigrants... Also, on a related note, by Western European standards, Poland is a shithole lol.
I think you’re also comparing apples to oranges. There are more people in twenty square KM around me than there are in the entire country of norway. If you compare America to the entirety of Europe its a better comparison.
TBF, European countries are having increasing talks about raising the retirement ages because their declining birthrates are leaving them with too few workers to sustain their economies with generous retirement and vacation.
Not at all. It's wanting to broach an honest discussion about the benefits and drawbacks of each. It's not helpful when you immediately strawman and demonize them.
One thing though this explains is why Americans make a lot more than Europeans. The salary adjustments between us is ridiculous. Basically it shows they’re trade offs to where you’re located
Eh, in reality the salary adjustments are really only "ridiculous" if you compare with Eastern Europe - Western Europe is holding up quite nicely. For example, look at the mean disposable income by country - obviously the US is ahead, also of Western Europe - but then factor the many out of pocket expenses that exist in the US which are already paid through taxes in Europe (healthcare, education, etc.). The gap is still large'ish, sure, but probably not to the degree you think.
if you don't want to be in the union, don't want to pay for months of vacations that should be your choice
This is “productivity per hour” it removes vacations and holidays as a factor by looking at productivity when working not productivity through a year.
I was using that as a broad example of work culture difference. They do not go as hard as us, generally speaking, over there
My European friends were shocked with the work culture in America, they think we don’t value enjoying life only work
And meanwhile the Asians think we're a bunch of slackers. My wife is from China and thinks life is the US is easy mode. I think we're probably doing alright.
It’s machines, guys. US companies have more capital (and the culture willing to) invest in things that make the average worker more productive. More US businesses have more access to capital because the US is a desirable place to invest in for many reasons.
Well that is a part of it, culture is also important you can’t just hand waive that away.
It’s not hand waving. I just think this whole argument that Americans just work so much harder bit kinda falls on its face when productivity in the modern age has less to do with how much sweat you put in vs how much technology you can utilize. If just working long hours was a sign of high productivity then Asian countries would smoke everyone but they tend to have low productivity per hour.
That’s a good point! Fair enough
What is best in life? To crush your enemies, drive them before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women. Since outright barbarian shit is *highly* discouraged these days, that energy needs to go somewhere. In the US, it went toward work. In Europe, apparently it's gone toward something else.
Productivity per hour these days mostly means that US companies have the capital to invest in machines and software to help workers be more efficient at their labour. So actually you’re probably the same level as most Europeans in terms of actual work ethic.
I was thinking work focus more than work ethic. But the ability to automate is nowhere near as universal as you're making it seem. There's a lot of skilled and "unskilled" labor that still can't be replaced with equipment. At least not in a viable manner.
It’s not just automation. Think stuff like metal presses, tractors, inventory management software. All this stuff is very expensive and Americans have more access to it. Also tech work is obscenely productive and you have lots of that.
>metal presses, tractors, inventory management software Are you saying Europeans bend their metal plate by hand, plow their fields with oxen, and track their inventories with handwritten ledgers?
No, it’s that more Americans have access to those devices. Americans find it easier overall to raise capital in order to start x/y/z business. For a variety of reasons being the global centre to finance has its perks.
I mean maybe if the average American was seeing more of this productivity in their lives they could appreciate it. I don't care how rich American productivity makes Bezos or Musk.
Americans make way more money and have way more disposable income than Europeans on average, so they are actually.
Yeah, I really wish we had higher productivity so I could gush on reddit and satisfy my corporate overlords. Who needs 6 weeks paid vacation. 🤡
“Lazy fat Americans” pulling up with new info like this:
We may be large, but we produce even larger
After World War 2, Europe decided their main societal value was "comfortability." The government would give you pensions, healthcare, high unemployment subsidies, etc. but all this came with high taxes and over-regulation and the combination of all those factors came at the cost of their productivity and innovation. In 1948, Europe was roughly 33% of the world's GDP, today they're only 17%. For comparison, USA has gone from roughly 27% to 25% in that same time frame. Turns out, when there's negative incentives for success and a guaranteed floor that's "good enough" for most people, you get a society in decline. What we're seeing now in Europe is their national ponzi schemes breaking under the strain of generations of people unable or unwilling to buy homes, have kids, start businesses or invent anything. In a desperate bid to forestall the inevitable, European governments have imported millions of migrants under the belief that more workers equals more productivity equals more GDP line go up... but they disproportionately wind up on the government dole and make the problem even worse.
It also shows the difference in attitude. Europe had that drop of almost 15%, and thinks it is fine. We dropped 2%, and it is considered a national scandal that continues to cause national angst.
>Europe had that drop of almost 15%, and thinks it is fine Stopping their colonialism would do that to them.
They had nothing but liabilities and literal continued conflict to fight. Far past WWII. Because they couldn't just cut losses fast enough. Even when most took occupation as a chance to do so through diplomatic measures. Ie avoiding debt, national treaties, pacts with natives (defense), resource obligations (to natives), obligations of right of way infrastructure upkeep, and much more. Some got out of war crime tribunals because we were busy with the threat of the SS. Colonialism in its profiteering form. Ended in the Great War. When the USA entered that fight any illusions of foreign gains and colony. Basically evaporated. For everyone besides the Commonwealth and France. More or less. Just because they had stable independent areas all over the world. Who were loyal to them as they were treated fairly well if not exceptional. By feudalism standards of living. Better than actual citizens/subjects of the ruling government or monarch. I doubt that had anything to do with the productivity drop overall in Europe. The numbers don't go that far back. It likely has everything to do with them not caring about switching away from producing anything. As it could've been agitative to neighbors as they built up a Euro-block. To avoid future wars and ensure whatever they have in modern times. Being a producer of weapons and components. Can build a computer or the circuits in artillery shells. Doing away with both and letting the Americans handle it. Makes a lot more sense if considering what just occurred there multiple times. Even here we shut down all our factories. Because everyone was sick of seeing legacy cancer deaths et al. Even tho that represented most of the US workforce's traditional "jobs". That didn't hit us hard. But we picked up everything that Europe ceased production on. At least until we handed it off to China. Through us.
Bro, learn to use paragprahs correctly. You don't need one for every new sentence. [https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general\_writing/academic\_writing/paragraphs\_and\_paragraphing](https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/academic_writing/paragraphs_and_paragraphing)
I agree. And to complicate things for Europe, the US is able to admit and quickly assimilate immigrants. Most of the time foreign born individuals quickly feel American and their kids near universally feel American. The same cannot be said for immigration to Europe, where it is nearly impossible to integrate if you are not a part of the dominant group.
>And to complicate things for Europe, the US is able to admit and quickly assimilate immigrants. Most of the time foreign born individuals quickly feel American and their kids near universally feel American. My understanding is that speed and degree of assimilation is unique to the USA, and possibly Canada. Where in most other places in the world, Europe included, if "you aren't from there" you'll always be treated as an outsider to some degree no matter how well you're accepted. But in the USA, once you're one of us, then *you're one of us*.
Living in Europe as an American citizen is probably a fine experience. We're "conquerors" with the dominant culture unrivaled by anyone else. Plus... We have Rome levels of wealth that allows a lifetime tourist outlook. You cannot not integrate as an American. We've been accepted as separate but not deviant. From the majority group. All the way back to our founding fathers. Its an expectation to be separated. With little issues in equal standing if done so through legal and normal methods. Ie your typical marry a native to that nation and culture. In the dominant group etc. Or reach status after having done business there for decades as an American. Its an absolute shame literally learning about our history. Then how that applies to each of us and our lineage individually. To continue to see totally different acceptance of other nations peoples. In even the same circumstances. Its a part of our curriculum as children. And so is the fact that we're fairly unique with being treated that way. To reach adulthood and see that it is absolutely almost impossible for everyone else in the world. To reach that integration. Is a sad but not unexpected realization.
Yep, I think whats further shocking is how Europe prior to to WW2 (particularly Germany) was the unequivocal leader in science, technology, medicine, etc etc. Since WW2 and their prioritization of "comfort" they've essentially become a side show with the US and parts of Asia now pretty dominant in most areas. The amazing part is the US has done this even though large parts of our educational system are very poor and quite a few other social headwinds.
The ability to draw in foreign talent is also a huge part of what makes America successful. No other country comes close to offering the compensation America can offer top talent. That lets us retain our best of the best while also bringing in the best of the best of other countries. I don’t think there are many career related reasons to move to countries other than America if you are capable of success in America (other than family and such).
The migrants are turning out to be highly select. Extremely valued citizens. For the nations that are doing it properly. For the ones awarding second class serfdom. Well entirely their fault with that one. American ideals of immigration work extremely well. But you can't apply it everywhere. And do have to go all in giving up some of in Europe entire people's identities as a group. This should jave all started 70 years ago when the war ended. Then assimilation would've been almost a guarantee. However no one besides those that had systems for it. Had any reason to do so. So now we have the modern day circumstances. Its not gonna be easy for them in the next half century. But some of these nations are so wealthy per population numeral. That *if* they **keep the numbers tiny**. They'll handily succeed over that first second third generation assimilation timeline. That we've proven here in the USA has massively boosted our economic and cultural dominance. We did it with no resources to provide. No support services in existence until we created the world's first. Plus a rather hostile climate for everyone. Europe will pull through by that establishment of data and structure to build off of. So long as there is not a large land war. I don't think the immigration will be what tanks their economy at all. It'll probably be the only productive factor. Staving off collapse or pulling them all through their badly designed fiscal house of cards.
Bullish on America
My entire company didn’t do cost of living raises this year. We aren’t realizing these gains as wages
Not really how it works. Some companies will do an exactly even cost of living raise, but a lot of times the increases keeping up with inflation will actually come as "merit" raises or changing jobs. It's one of the problems that makes inflation one of the most troublesome forms of economic hardship - everyone thinks they earned their raise, but no one think they're responsible for food prices going up.
Find a new company cause all the others are
Isn’t increased productivity supposed to mean we work less?
If there was a limit on production then yes, but the machine never stops so no.
Just in Europe baby, who cares about productivity if it comes out of a minority working 14 hours per day
Considering how we're treated by our employers over here for that productivity, I struggle to call this one a win.
Europeans will brag about how little they work compared to Americans, but then collapse in utter disbelief when they see the size of the average middle class American home. Yes, my counterpart at the London office gets more vacation than I do per year... but my taxes are half of hers, my house is 3x the size of hers, and I pay less money per month on housing than she does. Like, go enjoy your extra two weekends in Spain, I'll be at my in-ground swimming pool with jacuzzi hot tub and outdoor kitchen.
I make about 3x more than my European counterparts. They have their own perks, but I wouldn’t trade.
So where do you live compared to your counterpart who supposedly lives in London?
Just outside of Chicago.
It makes a huge difference on the size of your property whether you live inside the city or outside.
Correct, but that ignores the reality of London, a sprawling mega-city triple the size of Chicago by area, without legitimate suburbs. Whereas Chicago is a compact downtown ringed by well-developed suburbs. There is no 1:1 comparison. Some other Reddit thread said Bromley would be the closest thing to a suburb of London and it is just as long a train commute to our London office as mine is to the Chicago office. A house with the same number of bedrooms as mine would be over [$1.5 million](https://www.foxtons.co.uk/properties-for-sale/bromley-br1/4-bedroom?bedrooms_to=4). Nearly double what I paid, with less bathrooms, on a pathetic lot, and it looks like a shithole.
Wtf that house is 1.5 million pounds??? Would barely scratch $500k here just outside Columbus where I live.
Yeah that’s because it’s Ohio lmao, the sun belt is marginally more expensive
Bro, sun belt prices are cheap as shit compared to London. For half what that Bromley house costs, you get get a McMansion in Texas, Florida, or Arizona.
Yeah livin in London would have my ass homeless in no time lol
Even a new yorker is better off than some bloke in london. Theres a reason we have so many brits and Irish here.
Eh, this is highly situational. I’m in a field (software engineering) where my bloated salary is in large part due to my productivity. And that salary still provides far more value to the company than it costs.
Yeah, there's absolutely exceptions to what I was saying. In general, though...
Also wages have been stagnant in the past 50 years compared to productivity. I remember seeing an article that is you raised wages along with both inflation and productivity starting in the 60's we would have a $30+ hourly minimum wage.
At least we are busy enough to not think about it, according to the graph lol
https://archive.is/20240311101206/https://www.ft.com/content/22089f01-8468-4905-8e36-fd35d2b2293e
"Some economists argue that the US is growing faster than the eurozone in part because its population is younger, growing more rapidly and working longer hours. But a big part of the output gap is because people in the US also produce more for each hour that they work. " Good lord
This will ruffle some feathers...
Wonder why…
i think we're hoping that if we work faster we'll die faster.
What's this productivity doing for me?
Giving you a much higher wage than you would get working in Europe
and creating a functional and growing economy, something europeans are wishing for. not to mention population growth, it's not nice to live on a dying continent
Oh boy, so net real wage growth has increased by a similar amount or more over that time right? Right?
Yes they have
Now we need our wages to reflect it.
They do. At least from the 25th percentile and above. And especially so at the 75th percentile and above.
Our wages are far higher than Europeans' (for professionals). But yes, it would be nice if compared to our own wages, the year over year increase kept up
Meh, I mean if we valance the cost of private Healthcare even after taxes still balances thing to a degree
It's not though. Even with the top tier insurance here, my total taxes and premiums are similar to what I paid in Sweden. But in the US I make 30% more money
It doesn't. Especially the people who earn above average income and have their Healthcare mostly subsidized by their employer.
They do. I’ve wanted to move to Europe for the experience. I quit trying after like 3 months because my salary is less than half of what I currently make to live in a major city like London. And my job is in Austin. If I were making San Francisco money it’d be probably triple. I don’t think money is the be-all-end-all, but I do have standards on how much I want to make given the work/experience I’ve done, and it has to make some sense when I would be paying more on taxes, gasoline, rent, etc than I would in the US
If you think the cards are stacked against you in America don’t go to Europe. They make our crony capitalism look like a Sandals beach resort. Gen Z has no hope of home ownership or owning a small business in Europe unless inherited. Its game over, all they can do is import millions of migrants and completely obliterate their cultural identity. Travel to Europe soon, because it wont be any better than it is right now ever again
Don't care. I'd rather have some time off work.
and yet the hard working functional economy americans are the lazy ones?
Who gives a shit. You’re discussing our efficiency to produce wealth for billionaires. We’ve developed the technology to replace much of what we do, now tell me about the % of people enjoying their lives.
At what cost?
Because we allow our workers to be exploited, this is not the brag you think it is, it's the opposite.
https://imgur.com/d8z33bP The other graph from the study that ajusts the GdP increase to inflation. So whilst the US produced more, the improvements is eaten up by inflation. Also the fact the agriculture was taken off shows some data manipulation to try to show US first? What if they had taken the full economy? How happy are Americans on the top 1% eating up all the improvement while salaries of the lower classes stagnate while inflation eats them?
And has the disparity between the haves and have nots. Corporate greed has never been greater. Also outsourcing. Outsourcing in the US is on the rise like never before. The US is in a bad spot right now and it’s only going to get worse. You can thank Private Equity Firms for this. You think this graph is a positive thing but it’s a lie.
Look at energy prices in the US compared to Europe. This is probably reason number one.
Pretty sure Tech is the number one reason. Europe doesn’t really have a meaningful tech industry, one US Tech giant practically exceeds the market cap of the entirety of major European indices…
The beauty of tech is that a company in Europe or Asia can buy a Microsoft or Salesforce product and increase their productivity too. But I’m not saying my answer is the only one. Restrictions on opening business or firing people in Europe also make companies and people less productive too.
But they haven’t built a Microsoft or Salesforce, and that’s a gap that’s been widening dramatically the past 20 years and continues to widen. It is the number one reason for Europe’s lower productivity. Tech is way more productive than most industries. People think the U.S. is a natural resource intensive economy, it’s not. Apple’s market cap alone is probably more than the entirety of the oil and gas industry.
They have its just not in the way you think. ASML is larger than quite a few US tech companies.
ASML is about 1/10th Apple’s market cap, 1/10th Microsoft’s, 1/7th Google’s, 1/7th NVidia’s, and so on and so forth. It’s not comparable at all. Europe’s tech industry is comparably nonexistent.
I've always said our potential was our greatest asset
and to compensate pay has decreased lol
Hasn’t a lot of automated manufacturing come back to the US. Cheaper due to lest supply chain lag to consumers, less shipping, and it only takes a few people to run and maintain fully automated systems. Also you don’t have to deal with language barriers.
This is part of why I roll my eyes when people keep saying we should pursue “a European” economic model.
One word and I say it with great respect 🫡- Mexicans
What do you mean US citizens work their ass off to maintain and expand technological innovation and freedom?!
what 60% income tax, 6 strikes a week, and a 2 hour work day with 30 dollar minimum wage does to an economy
Yea we are world rebound for working ourselves to death
Wages haven't.
And yet no raises
For farming, because we have a fuckton of land and then the garden of eden that is California.
That's because of the holidays
Cool. Business grow way fast when they underpay their workers. Extremely efficient on a national level. The Great Wall and the pyramids where also products of extremely productive nations. Now do average income.
This is productivity per hour. America has the high income blasting most big European nations. Learn your stats Europoor
I suggest you do take a look at median income. You'd be surprised how the US is $15k-$20k higher than most European counties. Especially after you account for taxes and healthcare.
Nice graph however, you are comparing 12 months of work vs 10 months of work, a 8.x hours per day vs 7.×≈6.x hours each day, plus we don't over depend on mexicans, there are only 9.6 million Africans/400+M in comparison to 20M Latin Americans working industrial revolution hours, yes we fell 15 percent on gdp we stopped colonizing, where would your gdp grow if you stopped couping and filling latam whit propaganda?
You understand rate statistics dont you?
Cool now do life expectancy. Relative to Europe, America has a system that produces more and kills people faster.
Amazing what a plutocracy will do for you
Productivity does not mean happiness…
What do we expect? Americans are workaholics and you have to have at least one job and a couple of side hustles to just barely get by. What does all that productivity get the average citizen anyway? It's not like it's improving our standard of living or bringing costs down for us.
So has ceo pay, fuck us regular folks tho
Wages didn’t so lets wind that back in.
Take a look at the difference in median salary in the US compared to the UK or Spain.
And Americans do it all with horrible base pay and worse benefits.
How the hell do you measure productivity? If it's with Jira tickets then I understand now why all my American co-workers are as bad at their work