Outside London, Britain Is Poorer Than Every U.S. State
Middle-income Britons trail Germans by 20 percent, and the poorest households are thousands of pounds worse off than in France.
Noahpinion · The UK is a cautionary tale for the U.S.Take Britain as a whole, income per person, adjusted for what things cost at home, is about $56,000, roughly the same as Mississippi, which usually ranks last among American states. Remove London, with its outsized share of output and workers, and living standards fall another 14 percent, enough to put the rest of the country behind every U.S. state.
Britain also trails its European neighbours. Middle-income Britons are 20 percent poorer than their counterparts in Germany and 9 percent poorer than those in France. Low-income British households are about 27 percent poorer than low-income households in France and Germany, leaving the poorest £4,300 worse off than similar households in France.
France and Germany are as safe and healthy as Britain, if not safer and healthier, and still richer.
Questions people ask
What does adjusted for prices mean?
PPP stands for purchasing power parity. It adjusts incomes for what money can actually buy in each place, so $56,000 in Mississippi and a similar amount in Britain mean roughly similar baskets of goods, housing, and services.
Is Mississippi really America's poorest state?
Mississippi usually ranks last on per capita income among the 50 states, though rankings can shift year to year with revisions and price adjustments. It is also near the bottom on measures like health, education, and life expectancy.
Why is London so much richer than the rest of Britain?
London concentrates finance, government, media, universities, and high-paid professional services, and it draws many younger, highly educated workers. That clustering raises productivity and wages there, while many former industrial regions have not replaced lost manufacturing jobs with equally high-paying work.