5 ms·

At least one of these statistics is calculated completely wrong - For instance, when looking at the "Americans have 22.43% less free time" statistic, that's not

by Closi 5y ago

At least one of these statistics is calculated completely wrong - For instance, when looking at the "Americans have 22.43% less free time" statistic, that's not what the data says - It says they work 22.43% less than Americans. But if I work 22% less, that doesn't mean I get 22% more free time (because, for instance, if I work 20 hours and have 100 free hours, working 50% less will mean I get only a 10% bump in free time). Similarly the "make more money" statistic is calculated based on GDP per capita rather than on earnings (so for instance, while the site claims a 33% difference in earning, the Germany mean income is c$47k-$52k USD depending on the source while in the US it is c$55k-$57k, so while earning is higher it is not at the 33% difference claimed). GDP per capita tends to increase with income, but will absolutely diverge depending on the economic situation, as it's actually adding up Consumption + Investment + Government Spending + Net Exports and then dividing by the population, which isn't a valid way to work out how much is paid to workers. Considering two basic stats are so far out, it doesn't fill me with confidence on the others...

Beltiras 5y ago
Also: how is using more electricity bad? I live in Iceland where we almost solely produce electricity with hydro and geothermals. I drive a Tesla which reduces our gasoline consumption. There's a lot of built in assumptions that ignore nuance that matters a great deal in the final analysis.
- northwest65 5y ago
  According to wiki the Kárahnjúkar Dam took 4000 tons of steel, and flooded 440,000 acres, and presumably consumed an ungodly amount on concrete. Presumably you can't keep expanding that sort of infrastructure forever.
  - Beltiras 5y ago
    Hydro and geothermal have non-zero emissions of course. They last for a very long time thou. It's a bit like buying an electric car. The emissions might look bad at the outset but you come out ahead really quickly.
    - northwest65 5y ago
      Yeah, I too live in a country that uses a fair amount of hydro. Low in service emissions are nice, but on the flip side hydro kills an insane amount of animals and permanently destroys their habitats. We have geothermal too, but nothing making the sort of power the hydro does. The only thing that is clear is that using more electricity could be accepted as 'bad' by many important metrics.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
bgdam 5y ago
Similarly it says I would spend 76.3% more money on healthcare if I were in Germany rather than India. While the comparison is between healthcare spend per capita, the inference drawn is completely wrong as for most procedures I would be completely covered by insurance in Germany whereas in India it would be highly dependent on the exact insurance policy I have and even then outpatient procedures would not be covered. So in reality if I were in Germany I'd be spending way less on healthcare than if I were in India.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  Or in India you would die 76.3% more often.
quantumwannabe 5y ago
Germany has a median household disposable income after taxes and transfers and adjusted for PPP of $31,323 (2018) and thes same stat for the US is $42,800 (2019), which is ~37% higher [1]. The OECD, which is Wikipedia's source, defines this stat as: "Household adjusted disposable income includes income from economic activity (wages and salaries; profits of self-employed business owners), property income (dividends, interests and rents), social benefits in cash (retirement pensions, unemployment benefits, family allowances, basic income support, etc.), and social transfers in kind (goods and services such as health care, education and housing, received either free of charge or at reduced prices)." The OP site uses a different statistic that does have the inaccuracies you described, but it correlates fairly well with the more representative statistic described above. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_capita_income#Median https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c...
- Closi 5y ago
  But if the statistic is “earns more money” then you shouldn’t adjust it for purchasing power (because the statistic is earns most money, not earns most money adjusted for purchasing power). As a similar example - I am taller than my sister, but if I adjust heights for the average for our genders she would be taller. That doesn't mean she is taller than me though! (But she is taller relative to the average girl than I am tall relative to the average guy). Then your wiki link displays another statistic which is disposable income adjusted to PPP - which is again different to money earned. It's a fine statistic - and probably more useful than just looking at the amount of money people earn - but it's not how much money people earn! I don't mind which is used, but the title should match the statistic.
azernik 5y ago
More: For "be X times more/less likely to have babies" they use the per capita birth rate, which is strongly affected by age distribution, as opposed to the age-adjusted Total Fertility Rate. For "spend X% more/less on health care" they show total public and private spending, i.e. they include government subsidies, so that Israel's less generous welfare state shows up as "you spend 50% less than Germans on healthcare". Which, no.
- Closi 5y ago
  Well the healthcare numbers have some other interesting biases - for instance that paying less on healthcare is implied as good (as it’s coloured in green rather than red). But this then puts, for instance, Botswana as green for healthcare spending when compared to the UK despite the UK health outcomes being better. Also, when I clicked on Botswana I also noticed that their GDP per capita figures are completely wrong.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  > For "spend X% more/less on health care" they show total public and private spending Absolutely agree with the first one, but for healthcare, public + private spending is the reasonable number to use. Not talking about the real number hides a lot of sins, such as the fact that US public spending on healthcare is already as much per capita as fully socialized systems, and allowed M4A to be attacked as "doubling" health care spending when it actually lowered it. Also, if I were a "run the government like a household" conservative, I'd add that the money comes from the taxpayer anyway (although that's wrong.)
- q1w2 5y ago
  When an article or website clearly showcases their agenda, you should expect that they cherry pick and misrepresent data. Conclusions need to be data-driven, rather than agenda-driven. A good sign of this is when data presented doesn't demonstrate a clear conclusion, and when different articles show analyses that initially seem to support different agendas. Truth is about nuance and nuance complicated and confusing - often seemingly contradictory on the surface.
thenoblesunfish 5y ago
Plus, "free time" and "time not working" are different. Two time sinks I'm thinking of are commuting (lots of time for Americans) and childcare.
- rory 5y ago
  A bit odd to single out that Americans spend a lot of time commuting, when average American commute times are some of the shortest in the developed world. Example: https://www.statista.com/statistics/521886/travel-time-spent-work-study-countries/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/521886/travel-time-spent...
notahacker 5y ago
Well it does tell you what the sources are, which I think was more the point than providing an accurate number despite reporting it to two decimal places. Data availability is obviously a factor here (otherwise median income differences are arguably a lot more representative than mean income or GDP per capita differences) On a similar note, I'd argue that "unequal society" was a better label than "class divide", which usually implies lack of social mobility and fractured social groupings rather than simple ranges of income. But it does tell you exactly how they calculated what it calls the "class divide"
- Closi 5y ago
  Agree with your note on the "class divide" label - e.g. at the moment the USA shows a bigger class divide in the notes than India for instance, which still implements a caste system.

by Closi 5y ago

Beltiras 5y ago

Also: how is using more electricity bad? I live in Iceland where we almost solely produce electricity with hydro and geothermals. I drive a Tesla which reduces our gasoline consumption. There's a lot of built in assumptions that ignore nuance that matters a great deal in the final analysis.

northwest65 5y ago
According to wiki the Kárahnjúkar Dam took 4000 tons of steel, and flooded 440,000 acres, and presumably consumed an ungodly amount on concrete. Presumably you can't keep expanding that sort of infrastructure forever.
- Beltiras 5y ago
  Hydro and geothermal have non-zero emissions of course. They last for a very long time thou. It's a bit like buying an electric car. The emissions might look bad at the outset but you come out ahead really quickly.
  - northwest65 5y ago
    Yeah, I too live in a country that uses a fair amount of hydro. Low in service emissions are nice, but on the flip side hydro kills an insane amount of animals and permanently destroys their habitats. We have geothermal too, but nothing making the sort of power the hydro does. The only thing that is clear is that using more electricity could be accepted as 'bad' by many important metrics.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]

bgdam 5y ago

Similarly it says I would spend 76.3% more money on healthcare if I were in Germany rather than India. While the comparison is between healthcare spend per capita, the inference drawn is completely wrong as for most procedures I would be completely covered by insurance in Germany whereas in India it would be highly dependent on the exact insurance policy I have and even then outpatient procedures would not be covered. So in reality if I were in Germany I'd be spending way less on healthcare than if I were in India.

pessimizer 5y ago
Or in India you would die 76.3% more often.

quantumwannabe 5y ago

Germany has a median household disposable income after taxes and transfers and adjusted for PPP of $31,323 (2018) and thes same stat for the US is $42,800 (2019), which is ~37% higher [1]. The OECD, which is Wikipedia's source, defines this stat as: "Household adjusted disposable income includes income from economic activity (wages and salaries; profits of self-employed business owners), property income (dividends, interests and rents), social benefits in cash (retirement pensions, unemployment benefits, family allowances, basic income support, etc.), and social transfers in kind (goods and services such as health care, education and housing, received either free of charge or at reduced prices)." The OP site uses a different statistic that does have the inaccuracies you described, but it correlates fairly well with the more representative statistic described above. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_capita_income#Median https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c...

Closi 5y ago
But if the statistic is “earns more money” then you shouldn’t adjust it for purchasing power (because the statistic is earns most money, not earns most money adjusted for purchasing power). As a similar example - I am taller than my sister, but if I adjust heights for the average for our genders she would be taller. That doesn't mean she is taller than me though! (But she is taller relative to the average girl than I am tall relative to the average guy). Then your wiki link displays another statistic which is disposable income adjusted to PPP - which is again different to money earned. It's a fine statistic - and probably more useful than just looking at the amount of money people earn - but it's not how much money people earn! I don't mind which is used, but the title should match the statistic.

azernik 5y ago

More: For "be X times more/less likely to have babies" they use the per capita birth rate, which is strongly affected by age distribution, as opposed to the age-adjusted Total Fertility Rate. For "spend X% more/less on health care" they show total public and private spending, i.e. they include government subsidies, so that Israel's less generous welfare state shows up as "you spend 50% less than Germans on healthcare". Which, no.

Closi 5y ago
Well the healthcare numbers have some other interesting biases - for instance that paying less on healthcare is implied as good (as it’s coloured in green rather than red). But this then puts, for instance, Botswana as green for healthcare spending when compared to the UK despite the UK health outcomes being better. Also, when I clicked on Botswana I also noticed that their GDP per capita figures are completely wrong.
pessimizer 5y ago
> For "spend X% more/less on health care" they show total public and private spending Absolutely agree with the first one, but for healthcare, public + private spending is the reasonable number to use. Not talking about the real number hides a lot of sins, such as the fact that US public spending on healthcare is already as much per capita as fully socialized systems, and allowed M4A to be attacked as "doubling" health care spending when it actually lowered it. Also, if I were a "run the government like a household" conservative, I'd add that the money comes from the taxpayer anyway (although that's wrong.)
q1w2 5y ago
When an article or website clearly showcases their agenda, you should expect that they cherry pick and misrepresent data. Conclusions need to be data-driven, rather than agenda-driven. A good sign of this is when data presented doesn't demonstrate a clear conclusion, and when different articles show analyses that initially seem to support different agendas. Truth is about nuance and nuance complicated and confusing - often seemingly contradictory on the surface.

thenoblesunfish 5y ago

Plus, "free time" and "time not working" are different. Two time sinks I'm thinking of are commuting (lots of time for Americans) and childcare.

rory 5y ago
A bit odd to single out that Americans spend a lot of time commuting, when average American commute times are some of the shortest in the developed world. Example: https://www.statista.com/statistics/521886/travel-time-spent-work-study-countries/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/521886/travel-time-spent...

notahacker 5y ago

Well it does tell you what the sources are, which I think was more the point than providing an accurate number despite reporting it to two decimal places. Data availability is obviously a factor here (otherwise median income differences are arguably a lot more representative than mean income or GDP per capita differences) On a similar note, I'd argue that "unequal society" was a better label than "class divide", which usually implies lack of social mobility and fractured social groupings rather than simple ranges of income. But it does tell you exactly how they calculated what it calls the "class divide"

Closi 5y ago
Agree with your note on the "class divide" label - e.g. at the moment the USA shows a bigger class divide in the notes than India for instance, which still implements a caste system.