The numbers (World Bank via Bloomberg, as of 12/2025): PPP GDP per capita US $90,027, Germany $75,407, Eurozone $67,483 — with the chart showing the gap widening steadily since ~2010. The standard European comfort is that the US mean is distorted by its billionaires. Schuldensuehner’s move is the one worth keeping: test the distribution objection by switching to the median — OECD median disposable household income, US $46.6k vs Germany $36.2k. The gap survives at the median, so the distortion thesis doesn’t carry it.
Method: “the average is skewed” is a checkable claim, not a rebuttal — move to the median (or quantiles) before accepting it. Caveats from memory, flagged as such: disposable-income comparisons are sensitive to what’s counted — in-kind public services, out-of-pocket healthcare, hours worked per household — and fuller adjustments narrow the gap without erasing it; PPP conversion itself is index-choice sensitive. The direction is robust, the exact ratio is not.
Related
cited by
- pageTopics