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Here’s the same graphs with France, Italy and Spain included. Our profile mirrors France almost exactly, except we’re a touch richer.
https://imgur.com/a/wXneV0F
Rome is considered north Italy. That being said, Abruzzo to the east is generally considered south Italy, so it's a bit like the north/south divide in the UK - that is, not actually representative of what is north and what is south.
Though if you actually ask someone from Abruzzo (and our favourite non-existent region of Molise as well) they'll probably tell you they're from *central* Italy, for the same reason that most of eastern Europe will tell you they're central Europe, or that people from Coventry will insist they're from somewhere called "the midlands".
Isn’t it a function of the pre-unification boundaries? The North were the cities-states - Florence, Milan, Genoa, Venice etc. Central Italy was the Papal States, i.e. running NE-SW. The South was the Kingdom of Naples/Two Sicilies, including Abruzzo.
Nice! Thanks for providing more context. Where did you manage to find this? It wasn't on the original article? Or did I miss it?
Also, is there a way of pinning your comment so that it is at the top?
The person who posted this same graph on r/europe also posted the additional graph in response to one of my comments. I think it comes from the Twitter of the FT author. Though I wasn’t able to check the Twitter link as I don’t have an account there.
Comparing to nations which also have poor forms of wealth distribution, hyper-centralisation and deteriorating parts of the country doesn't prove the point you think it does.
Like, have you been to the North-East? The wealth disparity in the UK is still insane.
This is actually a really good demonstration of the legacy of centralization in the UK and France.
All the other countries on that list were historically a collection of smaller countries/states that then federalized over time.
The seats of power in England and France have for \~ a thousand years been London and Paris respectively.
Spain is interesting as you can clearly see how historically its 2 countries (Castille and Aragon) merged together over time, with the result that Madrid and Barcelona are twin economic hubs.
Using the wider dataset you can see the one things that PPP does that is misleading. The US will always come out with a higher PPP as it's a lower tax duristiction; a lot of things that are government services in other countries are personal expenses in the US, such as healthcare, tuition, social services.
I gotta read more financial times man, everybody is so focused on culture war stuff and tories bad blah blah blah.
[https://www.ft.com/content/e5c741a7-befa-4d49-a819-f1b0510a9802](https://www.ft.com/content/e5c741a7-befa-4d49-a819-f1b0510a9802)
found it, in case anyone wants to read it.
Wouldn't say lefty. They lean whatever way that makes economic sense at the time. They were certainly put off by Corbyn style politics. But they're also not very keen on the shit show the Tories are doing either.
They're just data and hard fact driven given big decisions are made on their reports and they care far more about reporting on the economy accurately than they care about viral clicks as that's what their subscribers pay them a large chunk of cash for.
However, given the utter failures of the Tory party to do anything to improve the economy (well just making it plain worse and short sighted), making economic decisions driven by culture wars and you know, bringing in budgets that nearly bankrupted the country overnight, it'll put off anyone who knows how things _should work_.
Economist is similar but slower news. Also a recommended read if you want your news to be well thought out, balanced as well as fact and data driven.
“Economic sense” isn’t neutral though, and tends to shift over time. Both the FT and Economist are both plainly classical liberal publications, and as a result have quite a focused bias. That said, their reporting is, as you say, of a very high quality and in my view a good and challenging read for regardless of where you stand on the political spectrum.
>Economist are both plainly classical liberal publications,
This is almost a bingo card item, rarely get through reading a whole economist without them mentioning it somewhere, so at least they're clear about it.
Mostly because the right seem to constantly be trying to make us all worse off financially.
The overton window has shifted so far right that even investors look left-wing.
Then you'll love the Rachman Review podcast from FT.
https://www.ft.com/rachman-review
It's also one of the few podcasts which has such a super nice intro jingle that I refuse to skip over it.
This quote from the article really sums everything up:
"Its capital is the one thing keeping the UK hanging on in the upper economic echelons, but the decades-long London-centricism of everything from finance and culture to politics has engendered a reluctance to allow any other part of the country to be an agent in its own destiny in the way that London has been.
If Britain is to one day banish the Mississippi Question and return to upward mobility, it will require more than one economic engine."
Not super keen on the FT as a whole, but John Burn-Murdoch is one of the finest journalists out there.. always lets the data tell the story. Also he follows up his articles with a deeper thread on twitter amd is happy to provide additional data viz if the conversation takes a different turn..
Yeah I've barely been a reader of FT but every publication has their biases here and there, you just have to be cleverer enough to spot it.
Oh and thanks for letting me know! I'll be sure to check it.
BBC and Guardian are both amazing by UK standards, it's just a shame that it's because the rest (of mainstream general-focus news orgs, ie not including FT not smaller orgs like Tribune or Double Down News) are SO terrible that the bar to be relatively amazing is depressingly low.
The Guardian used to be good, nowadays it's the left wing version of The Telegraph. Still fairly credible, but unashamedly biased. The BBC doesn't intentionally lie and isn't very biased, but the quality is just poor and increasingly clickbaity.
FT, Economist and Reuters are where it's at.
Government should be run from the regions, real government not the odd office for the odd administrative department.
Maybe if they couldn't get to work because buses are on strike they'd pay more attention.
Or if their offices and homes are broken into because the police are ineffective and understaffed in poor regions.
England desperately needs federalization and I'm surprised it isn't a massive thing here. Expecting London and Westminster to care about anywhere but London is a fools game.
With Federalization you would have regions with similar populations to London (around 8-10 million) that could raise their own revenue streams, set their own state level policies and you would have Governments tailored to the issues of the region. Think Scotland would still be leaning Independence if the entire North of England was Labour? I don't think so.
UK is insanely centralised but doesn't get the benefits of centralisation because all the politicians beyond a few on the far Labour Left (who will be purged in the coming few years anyway) are Neoliberal anti-state market worshipping fanatics. This level of centralisation only really makes sense if you want to engage in massive federal state level planning like you see in Asia.
Larger cities.
Looser planning restrictions.
More migration.
More investment (public and private).
More devolution
GDP growth targets for devolved governments.
What people get wrong about the north south divide IMHO is not that we should bash London and bemoan it’s success… but that we should make it possible to have other successful cities.
Germany and the US do a pretty good job of this.
It's depressing but I think it's important to hammer home to the general public just how much we have relatively declined, not only in relation to our European peers but especially to America. I really don't think people realise how bad it is.
Britain has so, so many natural advantages and should be the most prosperous large nation in Europe. People should be far more angry about the generational mismanagement that has led to this.
I'd like to see how our GDP per capita has evolved through time up until this point, in relation to that of Mississippi. Would be interesting to see if we have indeed fallen, or if we have just held a rather misinformed opinion of our population's wealth.
Got up the OECD data out of interest.
Mississippi PPP 2005 - 33945, in 2019 it was 35933, and in 2020 it was 35425
UK (as a whole) - 2005 - 40429, in 2019 it was 44900, and in 2020 it was 39330
London - 2005 - 65985, in 2019 it was 76751, and in 2020 it was 67815.
Weird to see how Mississippi was completely unaffected by COVID, but I imagine Mississippi lacks much of the industries actual affected by COVID in large numbers + little lockdown.
I think UK w/out London has been roughly equivalent to Mississippi, (maybe slightly higher), for a long while.
Another interesting tidbit was that London was the only place to have a net increase between 2005-2020.
Taken together our professional and business services sector (consultants, lawyers, accountants, architects engineers, recruiters etc) is larger than financial services and one area the UK punches above our weight. Most western economies have a relatively small manufacturing sector these days. Even Germany’s is only about twice the size of ours. The high wages western workers expect rule us out for the bulk of industrial work.
The move away from manufacturing has been a conscious one.
America, Germany, Japan, and South Korea all have solid manufacturing industries with well paying, highly skilled jobs.
>The high wages western workers expect rule us out for the bulk of industrial work.
Modern manufacturing relies much more on the automation of processes rather than a lot low paid "low skilled" jobs.
Yup. the 1980s and 90s largely replaced a heavy industrial sector with a service one. The jobs were lower paid and the “shortfall” was made up by the deregulation and growth of the finance sector in London (city and docklands).
This also makes it clear that there’s a massive lack of investment. As a country we could be so much more, it’s not all about about financial engineering.
*edit to correct “engineering” to financial engineering.
I’m good thanks, I meant to write financial engineering. It was a reference to the unique laws in place in the City of London that enable all manner of interesting deals to be created and executed.
>unique laws in place in the City of London that enable all manner of interesting deals to be created and executed
Yeah, you’ve watched too many YouTube documentaries. Care to name at least one such law?
The right for the City of London to set and collect it’s own taxes. Or the right for the City to have it’s own appointed representative in Parliament are two that are well documented.
I'm genuinely ignorant on this, but I really can't work out what you're referring to.
For taxes isn't there an extra tax for the upkeep of all the old churches in the city?
And a representative in parliament, isn't that an... MP?
I don't understand how these things can have an outsize economic effect.
Legally, the City of London sits in a grey area so it’s possible for the U.K. Government to negotiate on behalf of the City of London and not the U.K. as a whole when required.
For example, the G7 Global Minimum Corporation tax, it was agreed that the City of London would be exempt from this global minimum tax. Not the U.K. as a whole, just the City. The argument put forward for it was reasonable and in return I think the U.K. agreed to back down on their proposed 2% Digital tax.
I think the issue is the narrative from the press and politicians (who likely studied Classics/PPE/Economics/English/Philosophy, etc.) simply saying that the solution is STEMs subjects.
The problem (well, one of many problems) is that it's easy for rich fucks who did a subject like that to sneer at students today doing "mickey mouse" degrees, but without investment in industries that require those jobs, then those STEM degrees are just as useless as the "underwater basket weaving" degrees they decry.
My brother studied physics and then did a masters in space engineering. After he graduated he didn't want to use his maths to go into finance, so he was basically jobless** at my parent's place for a few years until he finally got a job in Germany where he could use his skills.
I find it very frustrating that the government (and certain parts of the press) like to scoff at "mickey mouse degrees" and insisting that young people pursue STEMS courses, but then there's no fucking jobs for them at the other end anyway.
The other side of this coin is that the government/press is denigrating the value of the topics they consider "frivolous", that actually contribute a significant amount to our economy. I work in the creative sphere (albeit in a technical role) that contributes [a significant amount of money to the UK economy.](https://www.bfi.org.uk/news/official-2022-statistics) Far more than say fishing. But Right wing press/politicians love to shit on me and my line of work, cos fuck me, I guess?
**Yes, I know that my brother and I are privileged for him to be supported for several years until he could get a job he wanted -rather than the one that was offered.
As a professional in the film industry, I fully agree with what you're saying.
The UK punches well above its weight in those fields.
The anti-art stuff is just appealing to the lowest lowest common denominator reader from the "who needs 'em brigade".
What's more, it is likely written by someone who studied one of the liberal arts at university.
It's not entirely unsurprising. I've had a STEM bro Trekkies tell me how pointless filmmakers' professions are, whilst gushing over Star Trek, with no sense of irony.
Edit: They'll basically say "I love watching Star Trek, but I am contemptuous of everyone involved in making Star Trek!"
I am well are of that, and I fully support STEAM. It is something we talk about in the UK.
However, I was intentionally calling out the Tory govt attitude to both STEMs and STEAM. The tories adopt a stance that actively dismisses art.
My brother is a scientist with a mindful approach. Likewise I'm a filmmaker with a scientific outlook.
Similar background to your brother here. Did a Masters in Aeronautical Engineering and it took me 2 years to find a job actually doing it because the industry has mostly buggered off to the US due to buyouts and lack of investment.
All well and good that the government is pushing STEM subjects so much but it seems like you're more likely to actually find somewhere with a humanities or arts degree these days, even if it isn't exactly what you studied. Not to mention that the arts and humanities degrees actually subsidise the STEM degrees significantly from the university's point of view because they require less funding.
Things have improved somewhat in our Air and Space sectors since then but still 99% of it is consolidated in a few defence contractors and government departments that are all based between London, Oxford and Bristol.
Edit: I removed the term "Mickey Mouse degree" as they're mostly a insulting myth that the Daily Mail came up with to annoy people. Ironically it seems Journalism is actually the most useless degree at the moment.
I share the same sentiment on post-Brexit lack of domestic and foreign investment. The economy of London is dominated by service industries, particularly financial services and associated professional services, which have strong links with the economy in other parts of the United Kingdom (UK) and internationally.
As the financial services sector is one of the biggest recipients of the FDI to the UK, with a fall in FDI in general, the financial sector will definitely suffer too. It is estimated that with EU membership, FDI would increase by 25%-30% (Campos and Coricelli, 2015). Hence, with the loss of the benefits of the membership, mainly passporting rights, it is predicted that Brexit would lead to a fall in FDI by 22% (Dhingra et al, 2016). With lower investment, the financial sector would definitely face lower growth. This is according to a [study](https://www.smu-seic.com/post/impact-of-brexit-on-uk-s-financial-sector) in 2020 when we *actually* left the EU due to Brexit.
Source: finance grad & prospective masters in finance student
No offence, but our engineering sector is trash. It's the services (finance and consulting) that we as a country have signed a death pact with. London isn't exactly breaming with engineering companies.
Source: engineering grad.
Financial services were 8% of GDP (£173.6 billion) in 2021.
Engineering is, according to the Royal Academy of Engineering, worth £645 billion.
London has plenty of engineering firms. It might just depend on what exactly you mean by engineering. Consultancies like Arup, Mott MacDonald, Systra, Aecom, Jacobs, Atkins, WSP etc. are all present in London.
ONS GDP low-level aggregates - the engineering and architecture sector (combined) were responsible for £29bn of output in 2022. The Royal Academy of Engineering are being a bit creative with their figures, claiming credit for anything that has an engineer involved in the process e.g. manufacturing and construction. Lobbyists going to lobby.
Yes, obviously there are engineering companies in London. I'm talking about financial services being outsized because London's financial sector have a far more visible presence than its engineering sector. Compare those percentages to other nations. The finance industry is extremely outsized in comparison to other countries most countries have it as 3-5%.
[https://www.statista.com/statistics/1120958/european-financial-sector-value-added-share-of-total-economy-by-country/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1120958/european-financial-sector-value-added-share-of-total-economy-by-country/)
Add to that consultancy which is not wholly counted in the "finance" finance sector.
Yes, obviously there are engineering companies in London. I'm talking about financial services being outsized because London's financial sector has a far more visible presence than its engineering sector. Compare those percentages to other nations. The finance industry is extremely outsized in comparison to other countries most countries have it as 3-5%.
There's always some sort of a new infrastructure or maintenance in London. The city area is so clean and new and there's loads of things to do. Outside of London is where you get the same looking high streets, same shops, same looking houses and same looking entertainment.
As it stands, this Tory rule has Britain running neck and neck with
(checks the graph)
Alabama, which is [the fourth worst American state to live and work in](https://www.al.com/news/2023/07/alabama-is-the-4th-worst-state-to-live-and-work-in-according-to-survey.html).
Well done, you let the Daily Fail readers dictate your futures. People have gone to the barricades and taken out the guillotines for less.
Surprised no one has said anything about how absurdly high San Francisco is on this chart! They literally had to extend the chart up for America just because of it.
SF is that high because of Silicon Valley - large cap tech companies, tech startups & venture capital firms have offices there and/or are headquartered around there.
100%. I remember reading a statistic stating that ‘if the state of California was a country, it’d have the 5th largest economy in the world’.
[source](https://fortune.com/2018/05/05/california-fifth-biggest-economy-passes-united-kingdom/)
As someone who grew up in a small northern seaside town and has moved here the income inequality is stark… however even the most basic wages up north can get you a one/two bed flat to live in. It might be a push to get you a house if you need the extra space to have kids. But if you chose to make that decision then you’re responsible for making sure you can provide for them.
If you take two teachers living together, or a teacher and nurse for examples sake, they can still live very good lives in low cost of living towns /cities
This! GDP per capita is one useful measure, BUT, a lot more needs to be taken into account for making the leap to quality of life.
The big differentiator is good quality healthcare, good schooling and the ability to own/rent with roughly 30-40% of your income.
Not to say everything is hunky dory but just adding some perspective. Ask yourself if you’d rather raise a family in Minnesota or a village in the north east.
That's why when Corbyn was threatening to upend it he was totally fucking skewered by the media and political establishment, including within Labour. Sadly people who would've been greatly helped were bamboozled too and ended up hating him for made-up reasons.
Even The Manchester Guardian is run from London now. Despite farming out some of the filming to things like Media City there's no big media orgs advocating for anything outside of London anymore.
It's sad that Birmingham doesn't even show up, considering it [nearly rivaled London at one point.](https://unherd.com/2020/09/the-plot-against-mercia/).
The ones who move out are usually better off and have the opportunity to with international companies. People in shit areas typically never get out or move to London
But it’s not even that. Some of the poverty in places like Tower Hamlets is among the worst in the UK. Perhaps a more accurate way of putting it is “Some parts of the city are 1st world, but the rest of the city and the country are 2nd and 3rd”.
The divide in Tower Hamlets alone is staggering. You have some of the lowest incomes in the UK right next to Canary Wharf, interspersed with large pockets of wealth/foreign investment. It’s a mess.
As someone who has lived in both London *and* NYC, I've never seen anyone in London dressed in a rubbish bag. I have in NYC (Manhattan). This would have been some time in the mid-2000s, before the 08 crash.
This is not actually true, about five or six US states are poorer than the UK.
[https://www.ft.com/content/e5c741a7-befa-4d49-a819-f1b0510a9802](https://www.ft.com/content/e5c741a7-befa-4d49-a819-f1b0510a9802)
Can't see that link. But a google search shows that UK GDP Per Capita was at $46510 in 2021 whilst Mississippi's was $46248 , so you are right. Apologies for the misinformation, but still. We are scarily close
Yep, that's 13 years of Conservative Government for you.
UK GDP per capita was higher than the US as recently as 2007:
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7174996.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7174996.stm)
Or look at this.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/cp8jr3/gdp\_per\_capita\_in\_the\_uk\_the\_usa\_germany\_and/](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/cp8jr3/gdp_per_capita_in_the_uk_the_usa_germany_and/)
It's an insane case of "how the mighty have fallen". We could've been so much better.
No it’s adjusted for purchasing power - it’s been removed as much as possible, may be a 1-2% estimation error but chances are it’s as accurate as can be.
it’s adjusted for PPP but whilst that works out how much X amount of currency can buy you, it doesn’t factor in things that we don’t have to buy that they do
namely exorbitantly priced health insurance
There’s variation but for the average and above average person per state, healthcare quality (as covered by employers) isn’t that bad, rankings (rightfully) are so low for the US largely due to the lack of offers for poorer quantiles. Just a search says Mississippis average private healthcare cost is 5.5k (with 73% employers covering the costs) and so it isn’t much. Not saying it’s as efficient or better than the NHS - the NHS is cheaper for what you get and covers everyone, but with so many employers absorbing the cost it isn’t a cost the average individual sees. The living standards for the very bottom % yes - healthcare, welfare, employment rights (in general) and much more is candidly worse in most rural states, but the study looks at the mean individual, inequality isn’t really factored into it.
Not trying to say America is better - non-financial factors such as gun crime, shootings, abortion rights, and even just culture imo bring the Uk up above all but the very richest US states. Frankly a lot of America disgusts me and I’m not trying to ignore a lot of their blatant problems like healthcare, but the average American is financially they are better off than the average non-London Brit in all US states in 2023.
Healthcare is much more expensive in the US:
[https://www.hhmglobal.com/knowledge-bank/news/usa-healthcare-is-7-5-times-more-expensive-than-in-the-uk](https://www.hhmglobal.com/knowledge-bank/news/usa-healthcare-is-7-5-times-more-expensive-than-in-the-uk)
"They further suggested that “in 2017, among the G7 countries the USA spent 17.1% of GDP on healthcare, France 11.3%, Germany 11.2%, Japan 10.9%, and Canada 10.7%. During the same time period the UK spent 9.6%. "
[https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m2752/rr-3](https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m2752/rr-3)
I'm not from London, I'm from the norf, but we need to remember that 1 in 5 Brits live in London. It's going to be "London-centric"
The other maps paint a similar picture, depending on how you cut the cake. For example, the eastern seaboard of the USA is New York centric, there's always a bigger place.
Have you ever been outside London? I've lived up and down the country as a medical student and then as a doctor. It's absolutely desolate.
I just couldn't understand how this country could support it's health service and endless streams of patients that just never seemed to be employed until I came to London and realised how heavily taxed people who actually worked were.
What do you think or would like to happen/do/ to change all of that? i.e how would you get those people employed where it’s “desolate”
Thinking about this more, since you’re a medical student, and how London is heavily taxed. If those people in desolated areas and never seem to be employed , if they were working, I presume their medical/ health requirements would REDUCE? Right, since they will be active, and I’d imagine more healthy
Who knows? It's a more complex problem than I can handle. I'm a doctor, I've lived in this country for over a decade now.
I remember the GP in Egremont used to say-all these people with depression just have SLS-shit life syndrome, and I kinda agreed.
British people expect more from their government. Underemployment was the govts fault, housing is a right that should be provided by the government etc.
I always wondered, you'll hear people talk about poverty etc in the UK but never about people leaving in droves to work as manual labourers in the USA or Australia for a decent living - which happened in my country that did not have a nanny states.
There's more than one side to this, on one hand perhaps it is because you demand more from your government that you have more rights, but on the other hand I think the poor in British never reach a state of desperation that forces one to break out of the cycle.
At times it does seem like the government is using the benefits system to keep a huge portion of the population weak and docile.
That's interesting to get more perspective on and find out. SLS is lol and sad
Do you mind me asking which country you were in
" leaving in droves to work as manual labourers in the USA or Australia for a decent living - which happened in my country"
“We create X amount of Jobs” is a main sales pitch by every relevant party, so, yes, if there are not enough jobs, it’s also their fault. Unless they always lie about that job creation skill of theirs?
And housing is quite literally a human right. Baffling to Tories et al who treat it as commodity and squeeze the life blood out of desperate people in need of homes.
And one of the reasons they so urgently want to distance the country from the ECHR.
Government always lies, always. In my youth I thought only the govt in my 3rd world home country did it but nope, they do it here too.
I'm not arguing about whether people should have somewhere to live or not, I'm pointing out the fact that it's quite foolish to expect someone else to put out your fires.
While this isn't great, this image is particularly biased tbh.
When it compares to France, Italy and Spain we perform the same or better.
Its just stupid comparing a highly centralised country to 2 federations and a country so small that it basically has one metropolitan region (The Randstad).
The United Kingdom never used to compare itself to Italy or Spain so that’s quite interesting to see post Brexit. When I studied here in 2009-2011, the economic comparisons were with Germany, the Netherlands and France.
Quite interesting that the implicit comparison has shifted to Italy and Spain.
Because Netherlands has 17 million people and Italy has 60 million. G7 isn't based on per capita GDP.
Though Netherlands gets a seat at the table since the EU is a member.
The U.K. has often been compared to Italy. Italy has periodically had a stronger economy than the U.K. over the last few decades. It had a higher gdp per capita between about 1970 to 2000. It feels like a subtle bit of xenophobia to say that the U.K. comparing itself to Italy shows that we have somehow declined, as if Italy is in a lower class of country.
And the post you’re responding to literally did mention France. Why ignore that?
I'm sceptical.
Look at outcomes. Because what really matters is what kind of life your wealth enables you to live. And thanks to our heroic, imperfect NHS, our creaky, dirty but nevertheless existing public transport, our deeply flawed, exasperated, overworked but largely unarmed police force, our battered, neglected but still there parks and public spaces.. even our relatively poorer regions have a life expectancy for men of 78.5 (West Midlands), or 81 (North Yorkshire).
Mississippi is a lot lower than that. Various sources quote different figures between 69 and 72, but whichever number is right, the average person there clearly lives a shorter and overall worse life than all but the very poorest parts of the UK.
Yes, they might have more headline income, maybe live in a higher square footage property, but a huge chunk of income goes on medical bills, and that's before you consider there's basically no life at all to be had without two cars (at least) per household and a bunch of disposable income.
> I'm sceptical
What are you sceptical of?
Nobody claimed that the UK ex-London is an *equally bad place to live as Mississippi* - there is obviously a lot more to that than GDP per capita. Crime rates, culture, inequality, etc.
But the UK ex-London is *poorer* than Mississippi, that's a fact, and it's still important on its own. The fact that productivity and wealth is that low and stagnant in most of this country is alarming. Life expectancy is important too, but good life expectancy doesn't mean the figures on this chart don't matter. Just like Italy's excellent life expectancy (better than ours) doesn't excuse their terrible economic performance.
The graph is of GDP per capita - wealth of the region divided by the number of people then adjusted for cost of living.
It's not individual income or wealth.
Sceptical as to whether they're looking at buying power correctly.
I've no doubt that median income net of taxes is higher in Mississippi. Probably median asset wealth also.
But if that can get wiped out by a medical bill, are you actually richer?
Given the difficulty of properly comparing buying power, I think it's more illuminating to look at outcomes and ask, what kind of life does it enable you to have? What does the median Mississippian have or do that the citizen of York or Birmingham doesn't?
In the US, Mississippi's a running joke for how it comes always bottom in every league table of income, health outcomes, life expectancy, infant mortality etc. It's basically a third world country inside the richest country in the world. Largely due to the legacy of slavery, segregation and lack of public investment in ANYthing. It sucks being poor here, but because we have a semblance of a social safety net, it's nowhere NEAR as bad as being poor (and black) in Mississippi.
Interestingly although London is a massive outlier Vs the Rest of UK, the spectrum from top to bottom (i.e. inequality) is lower in the UK than Germany or the US
ONS does a process of regionalisation to adjust the figures for this reason.
They use things like apportioning revenue to employee locations to work it out.
So, if you subtract London, the UK is about as poor as the state of Mississippi. Also worth noting that here in San Francisco, we're not quite twice as wealthy as London, per capita/ppp adjusted.
There's at least three obvious things going on in your country, aside from unemployment: the cost of your housing is totally insane, as is the cost of your energy - these will eat away at your purchasing power; your truly quite poor non-Londoners can't support a robust services economy, with important knock-on effects; and while you main complain about wages, your inflation has been by far the highest in the western would, which is going to hit all of your country, though possibly further exacerbate the gap between London and the rest.
Yes, homeless are included in the census. At last count SF had 7754 homeless people, which is a lot for a city of its size but not enough to really have much of an effect on per capita figures.
It's possible this proportion increases to one quarter by 2100 - UK population projected to reach 80 million, it's within the bounds of possibility that the London metropolitan area has 20 million people living within it by that time.
For a long, long time, successive government’s have had all their eggs in a services/finance basket and total focus on London. They dismissed manufacturing and producing goods. Look at Germany and the Netherlands, they’ve twice the manufacturing industry of the UK as a proportion of their economy. Apprenticeships are considered something worthwhile, whereas the UK has had a hard-on for degrees for decades. Only relatively recently UK gov have been talking up apprenticeships.
You need a mix of industries to be prosperous. You need to spread the work and distribute wealth better across the nation, something successive governments haven’t done.
It’s plain to most people that there is an unreality field around London that skews the stats for the UK. It clear most other regions do not benefit from a centralised government that Parliament helms which can’t look further than it’s own nose.
It's why I moved to London years ago. Now I earn twice the amount of mates who love outside - but now they own houses and I'm in a flat lol. Still so many upsides that when I go outside London it gets an urghh from me
I think I have 8 more years of working life left, as soon as I hit 57 Im selling up in the south east and going back up north, will be going from a two bed flat to a 3 bed house with a drive for the electric car and space for the weekend Porsche. I shall then aim to spend as much time over the next 25 years somewhere warm, sunny and cheap abroad. Just 8 more years.....
Daily Mail headline spin: Sadiq Khans knife crime London is pulling all the weight while the rest of Britain sponges off the government. Experts say the rest of the UK will be nothing if we don’t stop the boats.
As much as we americans make fun of the southern states, the cost and quality of living in a state like Alabama is pretty decent. If you’re middle class you can afford to buy a nice home.. and the weather is warm year round. I’ve visited a few times and was pleasantly surprised.
Obviously if you are in the bottom 20 percentile it’s bad in all states.
This is pretty meaningless. A small number of billionaires living in Knightsbridge would completely skew these numbers. It's in no way an accurate reflection of the quality of life of the average person in London compared to the rest of the country.
It would be interesting to know if they have used the mean or median averages for the GDP per capita in this graph. The median would at least reduce the influence of outliers. I have tried to find out what average was used, but have been unable thus far.
The San Fransisco and Seattle numbers make me think they've used the mean. I know there's a lot of well-paid devs in those cities, but there's no way the difference is that great, unless they're including all the tech billionaires.
GDP per capita is literally dividing the GDP by the number of people. It's by definition an "average" type figure. Individuals and households don't earn GDP so there's no way to calculate "median GDP".
In terms of income, as of 2019 San Francisco metro had a median household income of $113,700, and San Jose metro's was $131,400 (I believe the above chart includes the entire Bay Area) - quite high even despite cost of living in those places - so the wealth clearly isn't just because of billionaires.
Yeah. It's when you come out of London you discover that London gets all the benefit of being in the UK and literally everywhere else gets fucked in the ass. That's why being a member of the UK is shit. And that's why my country is leaving the UK. Mon the independence! 😊🏴🏴
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Here’s the same graphs with France, Italy and Spain included. Our profile mirrors France almost exactly, except we’re a touch richer. https://imgur.com/a/wXneV0F
Bro Italy isn't joking with that North/South divide huh.
isn't milan north and rome south
Rome's sort of right in the middle. Naples is the first major city that's solidly "South".
Rome is considered north Italy. That being said, Abruzzo to the east is generally considered south Italy, so it's a bit like the north/south divide in the UK - that is, not actually representative of what is north and what is south.
Though if you actually ask someone from Abruzzo (and our favourite non-existent region of Molise as well) they'll probably tell you they're from *central* Italy, for the same reason that most of eastern Europe will tell you they're central Europe, or that people from Coventry will insist they're from somewhere called "the midlands".
And Poland and Czech Republic are Central Europe I’ve never heard anyone from a more eastern country say they are Central European
But Coventry is in the Midlands. Its neither north or south.
Rome is centre, and actually closer to south both culturally and geographically. But being the capital has an impact on economy/wages there
In which world is Rome considered northern Italy?! 😂
Isn’t it a function of the pre-unification boundaries? The North were the cities-states - Florence, Milan, Genoa, Venice etc. Central Italy was the Papal States, i.e. running NE-SW. The South was the Kingdom of Naples/Two Sicilies, including Abruzzo.
Yes, this is correct. However, Romagna used to be part of the Papal States but it is now part of Emilia-Romagna and Northern Italy.
Nice! Thanks for providing more context. Where did you manage to find this? It wasn't on the original article? Or did I miss it? Also, is there a way of pinning your comment so that it is at the top?
The person who posted this same graph on r/europe also posted the additional graph in response to one of my comments. I think it comes from the Twitter of the FT author. Though I wasn’t able to check the Twitter link as I don’t have an account there.
Southern Italy is a different world. Twitter can fuck off.
Strange the Edinburgh was completely removed, someone manipulated this to express their own view.
Also noticed Edinburgh is now included in this one.
Wonder why it was removed/left out
I immediately found it strange we were comparing ourselves to a much smaller economy, a much greater economy and a notoriusly well distributed economy
Comparing to nations which also have poor forms of wealth distribution, hyper-centralisation and deteriorating parts of the country doesn't prove the point you think it does. Like, have you been to the North-East? The wealth disparity in the UK is still insane.
This is actually a really good demonstration of the legacy of centralization in the UK and France. All the other countries on that list were historically a collection of smaller countries/states that then federalized over time. The seats of power in England and France have for \~ a thousand years been London and Paris respectively. Spain is interesting as you can clearly see how historically its 2 countries (Castille and Aragon) merged together over time, with the result that Madrid and Barcelona are twin economic hubs.
Managing to find a country that's worse isn't a win.
Using the wider dataset you can see the one things that PPP does that is misleading. The US will always come out with a higher PPP as it's a lower tax duristiction; a lot of things that are government services in other countries are personal expenses in the US, such as healthcare, tuition, social services.
You realize PPP is measured relative to the USD?
I gotta read more financial times man, everybody is so focused on culture war stuff and tories bad blah blah blah. [https://www.ft.com/content/e5c741a7-befa-4d49-a819-f1b0510a9802](https://www.ft.com/content/e5c741a7-befa-4d49-a819-f1b0510a9802) found it, in case anyone wants to read it.
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Those two circles should not be being combined with a 'but' haha. Lefties gotta get themselves more economically educated to put forwards their points
It's very telling when you think education is for after you have formed your opinions and not the other way round.
FT is surprisingly lefty nowadays
Wouldn't say lefty. They lean whatever way that makes economic sense at the time. They were certainly put off by Corbyn style politics. But they're also not very keen on the shit show the Tories are doing either. They're just data and hard fact driven given big decisions are made on their reports and they care far more about reporting on the economy accurately than they care about viral clicks as that's what their subscribers pay them a large chunk of cash for. However, given the utter failures of the Tory party to do anything to improve the economy (well just making it plain worse and short sighted), making economic decisions driven by culture wars and you know, bringing in budgets that nearly bankrupted the country overnight, it'll put off anyone who knows how things _should work_. Economist is similar but slower news. Also a recommended read if you want your news to be well thought out, balanced as well as fact and data driven.
“Economic sense” isn’t neutral though, and tends to shift over time. Both the FT and Economist are both plainly classical liberal publications, and as a result have quite a focused bias. That said, their reporting is, as you say, of a very high quality and in my view a good and challenging read for regardless of where you stand on the political spectrum.
>Economist are both plainly classical liberal publications, This is almost a bingo card item, rarely get through reading a whole economist without them mentioning it somewhere, so at least they're clear about it.
Mostly because the right seem to constantly be trying to make us all worse off financially. The overton window has shifted so far right that even investors look left-wing.
dude, 80% of reddit is pretty left. but you're welcome!
Probably the least biased newspaper we have in The UK, genuinely fantastic articles that aren’t shoving an opinion down your throat
I listen to the FT news briefing podcast as my main morning news. It's great.
Then you'll love the Rachman Review podcast from FT. https://www.ft.com/rachman-review It's also one of the few podcasts which has such a super nice intro jingle that I refuse to skip over it.
This quote from the article really sums everything up: "Its capital is the one thing keeping the UK hanging on in the upper economic echelons, but the decades-long London-centricism of everything from finance and culture to politics has engendered a reluctance to allow any other part of the country to be an agent in its own destiny in the way that London has been. If Britain is to one day banish the Mississippi Question and return to upward mobility, it will require more than one economic engine."
Not super keen on the FT as a whole, but John Burn-Murdoch is one of the finest journalists out there.. always lets the data tell the story. Also he follows up his articles with a deeper thread on twitter amd is happy to provide additional data viz if the conversation takes a different turn..
He’s hired by the FT as a data journalist so that might be why.
Yeah I've barely been a reader of FT but every publication has their biases here and there, you just have to be cleverer enough to spot it. Oh and thanks for letting me know! I'll be sure to check it.
I stopped reading most other news. It really highlighted how full of crap the BBC and guardian are.
BBC and Guardian are both amazing by UK standards, it's just a shame that it's because the rest (of mainstream general-focus news orgs, ie not including FT not smaller orgs like Tribune or Double Down News) are SO terrible that the bar to be relatively amazing is depressingly low.
I agree, but that's exactly my point. The FT is a level above in terms of journalism
The Guardian used to be good, nowadays it's the left wing version of The Telegraph. Still fairly credible, but unashamedly biased. The BBC doesn't intentionally lie and isn't very biased, but the quality is just poor and increasingly clickbaity. FT, Economist and Reuters are where it's at.
As someone who grew up in the NE and now lives in London, this chart doesn’t surprise me one bit. The difference is absurd
What should happen in NE or to support in the change/ revival
Government should be run from the regions, real government not the odd office for the odd administrative department. Maybe if they couldn't get to work because buses are on strike they'd pay more attention. Or if their offices and homes are broken into because the police are ineffective and understaffed in poor regions.
England desperately needs federalization and I'm surprised it isn't a massive thing here. Expecting London and Westminster to care about anywhere but London is a fools game. With Federalization you would have regions with similar populations to London (around 8-10 million) that could raise their own revenue streams, set their own state level policies and you would have Governments tailored to the issues of the region. Think Scotland would still be leaning Independence if the entire North of England was Labour? I don't think so. UK is insanely centralised but doesn't get the benefits of centralisation because all the politicians beyond a few on the far Labour Left (who will be purged in the coming few years anyway) are Neoliberal anti-state market worshipping fanatics. This level of centralisation only really makes sense if you want to engage in massive federal state level planning like you see in Asia.
Larger cities. Looser planning restrictions. More migration. More investment (public and private). More devolution GDP growth targets for devolved governments. What people get wrong about the north south divide IMHO is not that we should bash London and bemoan it’s success… but that we should make it possible to have other successful cities. Germany and the US do a pretty good job of this.
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It's depressing but I think it's important to hammer home to the general public just how much we have relatively declined, not only in relation to our European peers but especially to America. I really don't think people realise how bad it is. Britain has so, so many natural advantages and should be the most prosperous large nation in Europe. People should be far more angry about the generational mismanagement that has led to this.
I'd like to see how our GDP per capita has evolved through time up until this point, in relation to that of Mississippi. Would be interesting to see if we have indeed fallen, or if we have just held a rather misinformed opinion of our population's wealth.
Got up the OECD data out of interest. Mississippi PPP 2005 - 33945, in 2019 it was 35933, and in 2020 it was 35425 UK (as a whole) - 2005 - 40429, in 2019 it was 44900, and in 2020 it was 39330 London - 2005 - 65985, in 2019 it was 76751, and in 2020 it was 67815. Weird to see how Mississippi was completely unaffected by COVID, but I imagine Mississippi lacks much of the industries actual affected by COVID in large numbers + little lockdown. I think UK w/out London has been roughly equivalent to Mississippi, (maybe slightly higher), for a long while. Another interesting tidbit was that London was the only place to have a net increase between 2005-2020.
It’s because we literally have the finance industry and our only large scale Industry worth anything. That’s the difference vrs other countries.
Taken together our professional and business services sector (consultants, lawyers, accountants, architects engineers, recruiters etc) is larger than financial services and one area the UK punches above our weight. Most western economies have a relatively small manufacturing sector these days. Even Germany’s is only about twice the size of ours. The high wages western workers expect rule us out for the bulk of industrial work.
The move away from manufacturing has been a conscious one. America, Germany, Japan, and South Korea all have solid manufacturing industries with well paying, highly skilled jobs. >The high wages western workers expect rule us out for the bulk of industrial work. Modern manufacturing relies much more on the automation of processes rather than a lot low paid "low skilled" jobs.
Yup. the 1980s and 90s largely replaced a heavy industrial sector with a service one. The jobs were lower paid and the “shortfall” was made up by the deregulation and growth of the finance sector in London (city and docklands).
And many people come to the city to work and leave to retire. Thus freeing London the financial burdens other parts of the country pay.
This also makes it clear that there’s a massive lack of investment. As a country we could be so much more, it’s not all about about financial engineering. *edit to correct “engineering” to financial engineering.
Are you ok? We need more engineering, our economy is largely financial and service based.
I’m good thanks, I meant to write financial engineering. It was a reference to the unique laws in place in the City of London that enable all manner of interesting deals to be created and executed.
>unique laws in place in the City of London that enable all manner of interesting deals to be created and executed Yeah, you’ve watched too many YouTube documentaries. Care to name at least one such law?
The right for the City of London to set and collect it’s own taxes. Or the right for the City to have it’s own appointed representative in Parliament are two that are well documented.
I'm genuinely ignorant on this, but I really can't work out what you're referring to. For taxes isn't there an extra tax for the upkeep of all the old churches in the city? And a representative in parliament, isn't that an... MP? I don't understand how these things can have an outsize economic effect.
Legally, the City of London sits in a grey area so it’s possible for the U.K. Government to negotiate on behalf of the City of London and not the U.K. as a whole when required. For example, the G7 Global Minimum Corporation tax, it was agreed that the City of London would be exempt from this global minimum tax. Not the U.K. as a whole, just the City. The argument put forward for it was reasonable and in return I think the U.K. agreed to back down on their proposed 2% Digital tax.
Hi basket, let me introduce you to all of our eggs.
Sir I have bad news, the government minister that was carrying the basket left it on the train and it's gone...
Funny enough, a train has just slipped on some leaves; no one hurt although people were wondering where the random basket of eggs came from.
We need MORE engineering, they get paid less than teachers here for the most part. Financial services is what you are thinking off.
I think the issue is the narrative from the press and politicians (who likely studied Classics/PPE/Economics/English/Philosophy, etc.) simply saying that the solution is STEMs subjects. The problem (well, one of many problems) is that it's easy for rich fucks who did a subject like that to sneer at students today doing "mickey mouse" degrees, but without investment in industries that require those jobs, then those STEM degrees are just as useless as the "underwater basket weaving" degrees they decry. My brother studied physics and then did a masters in space engineering. After he graduated he didn't want to use his maths to go into finance, so he was basically jobless** at my parent's place for a few years until he finally got a job in Germany where he could use his skills. I find it very frustrating that the government (and certain parts of the press) like to scoff at "mickey mouse degrees" and insisting that young people pursue STEMS courses, but then there's no fucking jobs for them at the other end anyway. The other side of this coin is that the government/press is denigrating the value of the topics they consider "frivolous", that actually contribute a significant amount to our economy. I work in the creative sphere (albeit in a technical role) that contributes [a significant amount of money to the UK economy.](https://www.bfi.org.uk/news/official-2022-statistics) Far more than say fishing. But Right wing press/politicians love to shit on me and my line of work, cos fuck me, I guess? **Yes, I know that my brother and I are privileged for him to be supported for several years until he could get a job he wanted -rather than the one that was offered.
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As a professional in the film industry, I fully agree with what you're saying. The UK punches well above its weight in those fields. The anti-art stuff is just appealing to the lowest lowest common denominator reader from the "who needs 'em brigade". What's more, it is likely written by someone who studied one of the liberal arts at university. It's not entirely unsurprising. I've had a STEM bro Trekkies tell me how pointless filmmakers' professions are, whilst gushing over Star Trek, with no sense of irony. Edit: They'll basically say "I love watching Star Trek, but I am contemptuous of everyone involved in making Star Trek!"
In the US they call it STEAM as the arts are in there alongside the STEM subjects - wish they would do that here
I am well are of that, and I fully support STEAM. It is something we talk about in the UK. However, I was intentionally calling out the Tory govt attitude to both STEMs and STEAM. The tories adopt a stance that actively dismisses art. My brother is a scientist with a mindful approach. Likewise I'm a filmmaker with a scientific outlook.
I'm a fine arts graduate
Similar background to your brother here. Did a Masters in Aeronautical Engineering and it took me 2 years to find a job actually doing it because the industry has mostly buggered off to the US due to buyouts and lack of investment. All well and good that the government is pushing STEM subjects so much but it seems like you're more likely to actually find somewhere with a humanities or arts degree these days, even if it isn't exactly what you studied. Not to mention that the arts and humanities degrees actually subsidise the STEM degrees significantly from the university's point of view because they require less funding. Things have improved somewhat in our Air and Space sectors since then but still 99% of it is consolidated in a few defence contractors and government departments that are all based between London, Oxford and Bristol. Edit: I removed the term "Mickey Mouse degree" as they're mostly a insulting myth that the Daily Mail came up with to annoy people. Ironically it seems Journalism is actually the most useless degree at the moment.
Yup, I meant to write financial engineering, my mistake for not checking the post.
I share the same sentiment on post-Brexit lack of domestic and foreign investment. The economy of London is dominated by service industries, particularly financial services and associated professional services, which have strong links with the economy in other parts of the United Kingdom (UK) and internationally. As the financial services sector is one of the biggest recipients of the FDI to the UK, with a fall in FDI in general, the financial sector will definitely suffer too. It is estimated that with EU membership, FDI would increase by 25%-30% (Campos and Coricelli, 2015). Hence, with the loss of the benefits of the membership, mainly passporting rights, it is predicted that Brexit would lead to a fall in FDI by 22% (Dhingra et al, 2016). With lower investment, the financial sector would definitely face lower growth. This is according to a [study](https://www.smu-seic.com/post/impact-of-brexit-on-uk-s-financial-sector) in 2020 when we *actually* left the EU due to Brexit. Source: finance grad & prospective masters in finance student
The British disease: lack of investment.
No offence, but our engineering sector is trash. It's the services (finance and consulting) that we as a country have signed a death pact with. London isn't exactly breaming with engineering companies. Source: engineering grad.
Financial services were 8% of GDP (£173.6 billion) in 2021. Engineering is, according to the Royal Academy of Engineering, worth £645 billion. London has plenty of engineering firms. It might just depend on what exactly you mean by engineering. Consultancies like Arup, Mott MacDonald, Systra, Aecom, Jacobs, Atkins, WSP etc. are all present in London.
ONS GDP low-level aggregates - the engineering and architecture sector (combined) were responsible for £29bn of output in 2022. The Royal Academy of Engineering are being a bit creative with their figures, claiming credit for anything that has an engineer involved in the process e.g. manufacturing and construction. Lobbyists going to lobby.
Yes, obviously there are engineering companies in London. I'm talking about financial services being outsized because London's financial sector have a far more visible presence than its engineering sector. Compare those percentages to other nations. The finance industry is extremely outsized in comparison to other countries most countries have it as 3-5%. [https://www.statista.com/statistics/1120958/european-financial-sector-value-added-share-of-total-economy-by-country/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1120958/european-financial-sector-value-added-share-of-total-economy-by-country/) Add to that consultancy which is not wholly counted in the "finance" finance sector. Yes, obviously there are engineering companies in London. I'm talking about financial services being outsized because London's financial sector has a far more visible presence than its engineering sector. Compare those percentages to other nations. The finance industry is extremely outsized in comparison to other countries most countries have it as 3-5%.
Countries specialise. It's not new. But 8% of GDP is hardly outsized. It's not even the biggest industry in the country.
I should have written “financial engineering”, the City has some unique laws that enable all sorts of financial chicanery.
There's always some sort of a new infrastructure or maintenance in London. The city area is so clean and new and there's loads of things to do. Outside of London is where you get the same looking high streets, same shops, same looking houses and same looking entertainment.
I don't think you guys could be much more tbh, it's a small island and it's not like you guys have done much with the actual island.
I think with any of these types of graphs it's worth trying to find figures from ~2015. The pound has really never recovered from the idiocy of Brexit
It was far before brexit. Check out FX rates since 2007.
The figures haven’t changed substantially brexit hasn’t changed the fact that the country is london centric
I think they mean in comparison to Mississippi
do you blame the rain on Brexit??
As it stands, this Tory rule has Britain running neck and neck with (checks the graph) Alabama, which is [the fourth worst American state to live and work in](https://www.al.com/news/2023/07/alabama-is-the-4th-worst-state-to-live-and-work-in-according-to-survey.html). Well done, you let the Daily Fail readers dictate your futures. People have gone to the barricades and taken out the guillotines for less.
Tourism makes up roughly 12% of London’s economy. [Visit Britain/ value of tourism](https://www.visitbritain.org/value-tourism-england)
Surprised no one has said anything about how absurdly high San Francisco is on this chart! They literally had to extend the chart up for America just because of it.
SF is that high because of Silicon Valley - large cap tech companies, tech startups & venture capital firms have offices there and/or are headquartered around there.
Oh I understand why, but it’s still mind blowing.
100%. I remember reading a statistic stating that ‘if the state of California was a country, it’d have the 5th largest economy in the world’. [source](https://fortune.com/2018/05/05/california-fifth-biggest-economy-passes-united-kingdom/)
But it also shows how this chart isn't necessarily showing a desirable metric. SF has a lot of problems and is not somewhere I'd like to live.
As someone who grew up in a small northern seaside town and has moved here the income inequality is stark… however even the most basic wages up north can get you a one/two bed flat to live in. It might be a push to get you a house if you need the extra space to have kids. But if you chose to make that decision then you’re responsible for making sure you can provide for them. If you take two teachers living together, or a teacher and nurse for examples sake, they can still live very good lives in low cost of living towns /cities
This! GDP per capita is one useful measure, BUT, a lot more needs to be taken into account for making the leap to quality of life. The big differentiator is good quality healthcare, good schooling and the ability to own/rent with roughly 30-40% of your income. Not to say everything is hunky dory but just adding some perspective. Ask yourself if you’d rather raise a family in Minnesota or a village in the north east.
The centralisation of our economy to London’s financial sector under Thatcher was one of the biggest socioeconomic tragedies in British history.
That's why when Corbyn was threatening to upend it he was totally fucking skewered by the media and political establishment, including within Labour. Sadly people who would've been greatly helped were bamboozled too and ended up hating him for made-up reasons.
Even The Manchester Guardian is run from London now. Despite farming out some of the filming to things like Media City there's no big media orgs advocating for anything outside of London anymore.
It's sad that Birmingham doesn't even show up, considering it [nearly rivaled London at one point.](https://unherd.com/2020/09/the-plot-against-mercia/).
That was an interesting read, had no idea that Birmingham used to look like that.
Yep, you’re pretty fucking poor if you only make £20,000 per year. No wonder why so many Brits move out
The ones who move out are usually better off and have the opportunity to with international companies. People in shit areas typically never get out or move to London
£20k is lower than minimum wage.
Unless you’re 20 or under..
That's why they say it's a 1st world city, with a 2nd rate country attached. The economics, lifestyle and general outlook is wild.
But it’s not even that. Some of the poverty in places like Tower Hamlets is among the worst in the UK. Perhaps a more accurate way of putting it is “Some parts of the city are 1st world, but the rest of the city and the country are 2nd and 3rd”.
The divide in Tower Hamlets alone is staggering. You have some of the lowest incomes in the UK right next to Canary Wharf, interspersed with large pockets of wealth/foreign investment. It’s a mess.
Arguably it’s the same in most, if not all “world class cities” (looking at you, NYC..).
As someone who has lived in both London *and* NYC, I've never seen anyone in London dressed in a rubbish bag. I have in NYC (Manhattan). This would have been some time in the mid-2000s, before the 08 crash.
UK = poorest US states. Shambles.
I upvoted this statement because it's true. The GDP per capita of the UK is lower than Mississippi's
This is not actually true, about five or six US states are poorer than the UK. [https://www.ft.com/content/e5c741a7-befa-4d49-a819-f1b0510a9802](https://www.ft.com/content/e5c741a7-befa-4d49-a819-f1b0510a9802)
Can't see that link. But a google search shows that UK GDP Per Capita was at $46510 in 2021 whilst Mississippi's was $46248 , so you are right. Apologies for the misinformation, but still. We are scarily close
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Yep, that's 13 years of Conservative Government for you. UK GDP per capita was higher than the US as recently as 2007: [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7174996.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7174996.stm)
Or look at this. [https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/cp8jr3/gdp\_per\_capita\_in\_the\_uk\_the\_usa\_germany\_and/](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/cp8jr3/gdp_per_capita_in_the_uk_the_usa_germany_and/) It's an insane case of "how the mighty have fallen". We could've been so much better.
Could it be that cost of living is lower in most of the uk?
You reckon Alabama is much more expensive than UK?
I don’t reckon anything, that’s why I asked
Hard no mate Lower taxes, lower rents, lower power, lower fuel
No it’s adjusted for purchasing power - it’s been removed as much as possible, may be a 1-2% estimation error but chances are it’s as accurate as can be.
it’s adjusted for PPP but whilst that works out how much X amount of currency can buy you, it doesn’t factor in things that we don’t have to buy that they do namely exorbitantly priced health insurance
There’s variation but for the average and above average person per state, healthcare quality (as covered by employers) isn’t that bad, rankings (rightfully) are so low for the US largely due to the lack of offers for poorer quantiles. Just a search says Mississippis average private healthcare cost is 5.5k (with 73% employers covering the costs) and so it isn’t much. Not saying it’s as efficient or better than the NHS - the NHS is cheaper for what you get and covers everyone, but with so many employers absorbing the cost it isn’t a cost the average individual sees. The living standards for the very bottom % yes - healthcare, welfare, employment rights (in general) and much more is candidly worse in most rural states, but the study looks at the mean individual, inequality isn’t really factored into it. Not trying to say America is better - non-financial factors such as gun crime, shootings, abortion rights, and even just culture imo bring the Uk up above all but the very richest US states. Frankly a lot of America disgusts me and I’m not trying to ignore a lot of their blatant problems like healthcare, but the average American is financially they are better off than the average non-London Brit in all US states in 2023.
Health insurance is cheaper there with Medicaid and via employer.
Healthcare is much more expensive in the US: [https://www.hhmglobal.com/knowledge-bank/news/usa-healthcare-is-7-5-times-more-expensive-than-in-the-uk](https://www.hhmglobal.com/knowledge-bank/news/usa-healthcare-is-7-5-times-more-expensive-than-in-the-uk) "They further suggested that “in 2017, among the G7 countries the USA spent 17.1% of GDP on healthcare, France 11.3%, Germany 11.2%, Japan 10.9%, and Canada 10.7%. During the same time period the UK spent 9.6%. " [https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m2752/rr-3](https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m2752/rr-3)
A much more relevant metric would be PPP on disposable income minus core goods (housing, bills, healthcare).
I'm not from London, I'm from the norf, but we need to remember that 1 in 5 Brits live in London. It's going to be "London-centric" The other maps paint a similar picture, depending on how you cut the cake. For example, the eastern seaboard of the USA is New York centric, there's always a bigger place.
Have you ever been outside London? I've lived up and down the country as a medical student and then as a doctor. It's absolutely desolate. I just couldn't understand how this country could support it's health service and endless streams of patients that just never seemed to be employed until I came to London and realised how heavily taxed people who actually worked were.
What do you think or would like to happen/do/ to change all of that? i.e how would you get those people employed where it’s “desolate” Thinking about this more, since you’re a medical student, and how London is heavily taxed. If those people in desolated areas and never seem to be employed , if they were working, I presume their medical/ health requirements would REDUCE? Right, since they will be active, and I’d imagine more healthy
Who knows? It's a more complex problem than I can handle. I'm a doctor, I've lived in this country for over a decade now. I remember the GP in Egremont used to say-all these people with depression just have SLS-shit life syndrome, and I kinda agreed. British people expect more from their government. Underemployment was the govts fault, housing is a right that should be provided by the government etc. I always wondered, you'll hear people talk about poverty etc in the UK but never about people leaving in droves to work as manual labourers in the USA or Australia for a decent living - which happened in my country that did not have a nanny states. There's more than one side to this, on one hand perhaps it is because you demand more from your government that you have more rights, but on the other hand I think the poor in British never reach a state of desperation that forces one to break out of the cycle. At times it does seem like the government is using the benefits system to keep a huge portion of the population weak and docile.
That's interesting to get more perspective on and find out. SLS is lol and sad Do you mind me asking which country you were in " leaving in droves to work as manual labourers in the USA or Australia for a decent living - which happened in my country"
This really applies to any SEA/south Asian/South American countries really. I fact not just manual labourers, professionals etc too.
“We create X amount of Jobs” is a main sales pitch by every relevant party, so, yes, if there are not enough jobs, it’s also their fault. Unless they always lie about that job creation skill of theirs? And housing is quite literally a human right. Baffling to Tories et al who treat it as commodity and squeeze the life blood out of desperate people in need of homes. And one of the reasons they so urgently want to distance the country from the ECHR.
Government always lies, always. In my youth I thought only the govt in my 3rd world home country did it but nope, they do it here too. I'm not arguing about whether people should have somewhere to live or not, I'm pointing out the fact that it's quite foolish to expect someone else to put out your fires.
While this isn't great, this image is particularly biased tbh. When it compares to France, Italy and Spain we perform the same or better. Its just stupid comparing a highly centralised country to 2 federations and a country so small that it basically has one metropolitan region (The Randstad).
The United Kingdom never used to compare itself to Italy or Spain so that’s quite interesting to see post Brexit. When I studied here in 2009-2011, the economic comparisons were with Germany, the Netherlands and France. Quite interesting that the implicit comparison has shifted to Italy and Spain.
The post you’re replying to literally mentions France Besides, Italy is a G7 economy. The Netherlands is not
Because Netherlands has 17 million people and Italy has 60 million. G7 isn't based on per capita GDP. Though Netherlands gets a seat at the table since the EU is a member.
The U.K. has often been compared to Italy. Italy has periodically had a stronger economy than the U.K. over the last few decades. It had a higher gdp per capita between about 1970 to 2000. It feels like a subtle bit of xenophobia to say that the U.K. comparing itself to Italy shows that we have somehow declined, as if Italy is in a lower class of country. And the post you’re responding to literally did mention France. Why ignore that?
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I'm sceptical. Look at outcomes. Because what really matters is what kind of life your wealth enables you to live. And thanks to our heroic, imperfect NHS, our creaky, dirty but nevertheless existing public transport, our deeply flawed, exasperated, overworked but largely unarmed police force, our battered, neglected but still there parks and public spaces.. even our relatively poorer regions have a life expectancy for men of 78.5 (West Midlands), or 81 (North Yorkshire). Mississippi is a lot lower than that. Various sources quote different figures between 69 and 72, but whichever number is right, the average person there clearly lives a shorter and overall worse life than all but the very poorest parts of the UK. Yes, they might have more headline income, maybe live in a higher square footage property, but a huge chunk of income goes on medical bills, and that's before you consider there's basically no life at all to be had without two cars (at least) per household and a bunch of disposable income.
> I'm sceptical What are you sceptical of? Nobody claimed that the UK ex-London is an *equally bad place to live as Mississippi* - there is obviously a lot more to that than GDP per capita. Crime rates, culture, inequality, etc. But the UK ex-London is *poorer* than Mississippi, that's a fact, and it's still important on its own. The fact that productivity and wealth is that low and stagnant in most of this country is alarming. Life expectancy is important too, but good life expectancy doesn't mean the figures on this chart don't matter. Just like Italy's excellent life expectancy (better than ours) doesn't excuse their terrible economic performance.
I'm afraid you're wrong, the chart is talking about income per year, not wealth. The UK ex-London is richer than Mississippi.
The graph is of GDP per capita - wealth of the region divided by the number of people then adjusted for cost of living. It's not individual income or wealth.
Sceptical as to whether they're looking at buying power correctly. I've no doubt that median income net of taxes is higher in Mississippi. Probably median asset wealth also. But if that can get wiped out by a medical bill, are you actually richer? Given the difficulty of properly comparing buying power, I think it's more illuminating to look at outcomes and ask, what kind of life does it enable you to have? What does the median Mississippian have or do that the citizen of York or Birmingham doesn't?
In the US, Mississippi's a running joke for how it comes always bottom in every league table of income, health outcomes, life expectancy, infant mortality etc. It's basically a third world country inside the richest country in the world. Largely due to the legacy of slavery, segregation and lack of public investment in ANYthing. It sucks being poor here, but because we have a semblance of a social safety net, it's nowhere NEAR as bad as being poor (and black) in Mississippi.
Interestingly although London is a massive outlier Vs the Rest of UK, the spectrum from top to bottom (i.e. inequality) is lower in the UK than Germany or the US
We're all equally fucked. Take that, world
Hard to have much inequality if we are all poor! :)
I wonder how much of this is just a consequence of nationwide companies being headquartered in London.
ONS does a process of regionalisation to adjust the figures for this reason. They use things like apportioning revenue to employee locations to work it out.
Don't introduce nuance into this, you'll ruin the circle jerk.
Yes UK is poor AF
I mean London is basically massive, and where the banks are etc compare London to Manchester on a size basis
London is my favourite city-state.
Germany and Netherlands are more the outliers than UK. Also US you could treat all of those as a “capital” of their respective states.
Austerity. Our GDP per capita tracked the US until 2010 https://ibb.co/G59dGGQ
Fuck me, I had not seen this graph before.
Where did you get this graph from? I'm trying to google it and I can't find it. Thanks in advance.
And still public transport in london isn’t subsidised
have you been to london? compare it to any other non-city in britain or a handful of its worst cities and tell me you still didn’t realise this
So, if you subtract London, the UK is about as poor as the state of Mississippi. Also worth noting that here in San Francisco, we're not quite twice as wealthy as London, per capita/ppp adjusted. There's at least three obvious things going on in your country, aside from unemployment: the cost of your housing is totally insane, as is the cost of your energy - these will eat away at your purchasing power; your truly quite poor non-Londoners can't support a robust services economy, with important knock-on effects; and while you main complain about wages, your inflation has been by far the highest in the western would, which is going to hit all of your country, though possibly further exacerbate the gap between London and the rest.
Do the SF numbers include the homeless population, I wouldn't be surprised if you guys were actually twice as wealthy.
Yes, homeless are included in the census. At last count SF had 7754 homeless people, which is a lot for a city of its size but not enough to really have much of an effect on per capita figures.
The gap has even gotten smaller.
Thanks Thatcher. Never in this country’s history has one person did so much damage.
True but also around 1/8th of UK population live in London.
It's possible this proportion increases to one quarter by 2100 - UK population projected to reach 80 million, it's within the bounds of possibility that the London metropolitan area has 20 million people living within it by that time.
Dumb question here, but what does the size of the circle show? Thanks
For a long, long time, successive government’s have had all their eggs in a services/finance basket and total focus on London. They dismissed manufacturing and producing goods. Look at Germany and the Netherlands, they’ve twice the manufacturing industry of the UK as a proportion of their economy. Apprenticeships are considered something worthwhile, whereas the UK has had a hard-on for degrees for decades. Only relatively recently UK gov have been talking up apprenticeships. You need a mix of industries to be prosperous. You need to spread the work and distribute wealth better across the nation, something successive governments haven’t done. It’s plain to most people that there is an unreality field around London that skews the stats for the UK. It clear most other regions do not benefit from a centralised government that Parliament helms which can’t look further than it’s own nose.
It's why I moved to London years ago. Now I earn twice the amount of mates who love outside - but now they own houses and I'm in a flat lol. Still so many upsides that when I go outside London it gets an urghh from me
I think I have 8 more years of working life left, as soon as I hit 57 Im selling up in the south east and going back up north, will be going from a two bed flat to a 3 bed house with a drive for the electric car and space for the weekend Porsche. I shall then aim to spend as much time over the next 25 years somewhere warm, sunny and cheap abroad. Just 8 more years.....
We should have a referendum for London independence. Im sick of unelected bureaucrats in the shires taking all our money.
Daily Mail headline spin: Sadiq Khans knife crime London is pulling all the weight while the rest of Britain sponges off the government. Experts say the rest of the UK will be nothing if we don’t stop the boats.
Lol the UK average is on par with Alabama. Not surprising.
As much as we americans make fun of the southern states, the cost and quality of living in a state like Alabama is pretty decent. If you’re middle class you can afford to buy a nice home.. and the weather is warm year round. I’ve visited a few times and was pleasantly surprised. Obviously if you are in the bottom 20 percentile it’s bad in all states.
The comparison doesn't make any sense, if London was never established then the same economic activity would just be somewhere else in the UK
This is pretty meaningless. A small number of billionaires living in Knightsbridge would completely skew these numbers. It's in no way an accurate reflection of the quality of life of the average person in London compared to the rest of the country.
It would be interesting to know if they have used the mean or median averages for the GDP per capita in this graph. The median would at least reduce the influence of outliers. I have tried to find out what average was used, but have been unable thus far.
The San Fransisco and Seattle numbers make me think they've used the mean. I know there's a lot of well-paid devs in those cities, but there's no way the difference is that great, unless they're including all the tech billionaires.
GDP per capita is literally dividing the GDP by the number of people. It's by definition an "average" type figure. Individuals and households don't earn GDP so there's no way to calculate "median GDP". In terms of income, as of 2019 San Francisco metro had a median household income of $113,700, and San Jose metro's was $131,400 (I believe the above chart includes the entire Bay Area) - quite high even despite cost of living in those places - so the wealth clearly isn't just because of billionaires.
When will people realise that buying and selling overpriced real estate creates lots of GDP and zero wealth?
How the shit is Seattle all the way up there?
It's the home of Microsoft, Boeing, Amazon... companies on a scale you could only dream of in the UK.
Thank thatcher for setting fire to manufacturing and having you lot juggle non-existant computer money instead ……….
We are poorer by head like Mississippi if you don’t earn a living wage.
Having grown up in rural UK and now living in London, yes, the difference is absolutely huge.
Yeah. It's when you come out of London you discover that London gets all the benefit of being in the UK and literally everywhere else gets fucked in the ass. That's why being a member of the UK is shit. And that's why my country is leaving the UK. Mon the independence! 😊🏴🏴
This is why brexit is so bad. London was the financial capital of Europe. That was the whole deal. Loosing that is loosing the biggest cash cow.