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Most OECD countries have health care as part of their taxes. We for the most part do not. When you subtract out the heath care costs from disposable income, we end up more in line with the middle of the pack. Also, in America the top 1/10 of a percent are extremely rich skewing the results. If you factor in the GINI for the median American we end up again middle of the pack. I also wish they had included real estate in their figures.
each bubble represents average household wealth
Averages are misleading. The average of your and Bill Gates' personal wealth is a lot. But that doesn't make you rich.
Median wealth would be much more interesting.
Median means "half have more than this, half have less".
Our visualization reveals several key insights about personal wealth accumulation across the OECD. First off, the U.S. clearly dominates the rankings with over $170k on average per household.
Overall, I believe we have a much higher standard of living than the rest of the pack. Larger homes, more and better cars, appliances, gadgets, travel.
They should also adjust the figures to reflect ...PPP-Purchasing Power Parity.
Also, in America the top 1/10 of a percent are extremely rich skewing the results. If you factor in the GINI for the median American we end up again middle of the pack. I also wish they had included real estate in their figures.
Strategist saysOverall, I believe we have a much higher standard of living than the rest of the pack. Larger homes, more and better cars, appliances, gadgets, travel.
With much higher personal debt to go with it.
Strategist saysThey should also adjust the figures to reflect ...PPP-Purchasing Power Parity.
PPP is the most overhyped politicized metric in the history of the world. Read “Burgernomics,” by Michael Pakko and Patricia Pollard to find out just some of the problems with PPP.
Irrelevant actually. The saying goes.......He who dies with the most toys wins the game.
If we can all live like millionaires until we die, will it matter what our debt is?
Sure there are problems with the PPP. All statistical indicators have their good points and drawbacks. That is why you look at it along with some other indicators.
Overall, I believe we have a much higher standard of living than the rest of the pack. Larger homes, more and better cars, appliances, gadgets, travel.
I agree with not including mortgage or real estate in the chart. It isn't really debt. You sell the house the debt goes away and you get back any equity you have built up. Mortgages are renting money and don't affect household wealth.
The problem is many don't die before the stop earning money to live like millionaires supported by debt. I'll take a lot less toys and more money to retire on thank you very much. Oh wait I did that already.
It would be investing to learn who funds howmuch.net to see who they are producing their numbers for
Don't remember the years between 2006 - 2013 in the housing market?
Never heard of "negative equity", have you? Or FHA loans? Or Home Equity loans?
If we can all live like millionaires until we die, will it matter what our debt is?
bob2356 saysIt would be investing to learn who funds howmuch.net to see who they are producing their numbers for
It's not "their" numbers: they simply visualized OECD numbers.
But they didn't specify how they "visualized' the numbers or which numbers they chose to visualize.. The methodology isn't spelled out.
bob2356 saysBut they didn't specify how they "visualized' the numbers or which numbers they chose to visualize.. The methodology isn't spelled out.
Yes they did and yes it is. Reading is fundamental.
Oops.... they're not...
Bob, want to try again?
We got our numbers directly from the OECD. Our visualization roughly corresponds to the geographic location of each country on the map—the U.S. is furthest “west” and Japan is further “east.” The size of each bubble represents average household wealth for each country, or assets minus liabilities. This takes into account things like savings, securities, stocks and loans (but not real estate). We then color-coded each bubble based on the average disposable income for each household, which equates to the amount of income left over after taxes and transfers have been taken out. Basically, it’s how much you can spend on living expenses and other discretionary purchases.
These are the top ten countries among the OECD with the highest household wealth, together with the average disposable income.
1. United States: $176,076 with $44,049 in disposable income
2. Switzerland: $128,415 with $36,378 in disposable income
3. Belgium: $104,084 with $29,968 in disposable income
4. Japan: $97,595 with $28,641 in disposable income
5. Sweden: $90,708 with $30,553 in disposable income
6. Netherlands: $90,002 with $28,783 in disposable income
7. Canada: $85,758 with $29,850 in disposable income
8. United Kingdom: $83,405 with $28,408 in disposable income
9. Luxembourg: $74,141 with $41,317 in disposable income
10. Denmark: $73,543 with $28,950 in disposable income
Our visualization reveals several key insights about personal wealth accumulation across the OECD. First off, the U.S. clearly dominates the rankings with over $170k on average per household. The other standout on our list, Switzerland, is far behind the U.S. with $128k of accumulated household wealth on average. The rankings then become much tighter further down the list with countries grouped together in the $70-90k range. There are also a few countries in the OECD for obvious political reasons. It is hard to see why Russia should be counted with only $16,657 in disposable income and $2,260 in net financial wealth.
https://howmuch.net/articles/household-net-financial-wealth-around-the-world