[Wytwwww]

> "So look, you can't afford rent, you can't afford groceries due to inflation, your student loans and medical bills are crippling, but the good news is tech stocks are up 200% since last year"

You can compare the disposable incomes in Europe and the US. I mean a median American can afford a whole lot more of those things than a median European.

[skyyler]

What does a comparison of the poorest between the two look like? What's Europe's West Virginia?

[weberer]

Median household income in West Virginia is 60k USD.

Mean household income in Bulgaria is 11.5k USD.

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/real-median-house...

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1269125/bulgaria-gross-a...

Its difficult to find either the mean or median for both.

[Wytwwww]

PPP adjusted median household disposable income per capita (with social transfers like public healtchae and stuff) in US was $62k back in 2022. West Virginia is ~72% of the national median. So Sweden?

Of course, money obviously isn't everything (not /s). And income inequality is much higher in WV than in Sweden. It's actually higher than in any European country. Which makes comparisons like this rather tricky (it's not even rich vs poor but median vs poor which is the problem in the US when you compare it to Europe).

The most equal US state (Utah) is still more unequal than the EU country which has the highest income inequality ( Bulgaria).

Interestingly enough before taxes France, Finland, Italy, UK etc. have comparable income inequality to the US.

West Virginia isn't the poorest state though (e.g. it's about on par with New Mexico). Mississippi and Louisiana are.

[Cumpiler69]

Average includes the Elon Musks and Donald Trumps of the country in the same bucket with homeless people.

[Wytwwww]

Median not the mean(average). So no, not mathematically..