6 ms·

The Richest Countries in 2023

71 points by simonebrunozzi 3y ago

simonebrunozzi 3y ago
https://archive.is/tqBs2 https://archive.is/tqBs2
- mellosouls 3y ago
  +1 for the OP posting a non-paywall alternative rather than leaving it to somebody else.
  - joenot443 3y ago
    Some day we'll lose this ability and it'll be a sad day for HN. Feels like a special trick we've got to enjoy while we can. Nice submission OP - I learned something.
    - 0xDEF 3y ago
      It is also interesting that some of highest income people on Earth use the archive trick instead of paying to get through the paywall. Who actually pays for legacy media anymore?
      - loufe 3y ago
        That's a fair point. It's still true that wealth is not built by permitting frivolous spending. With all the posts on HN I find interesting, I feel like It's the television chanal package effect. Even avid news readers would not have subscriptions to all the varied news sources here. About 90% of the time I pay for an honest Economist subcription. It's great, but pricey. Even if I wanted to, I could not afford simultaneous FT, Economist, NYT, Globe&Mail, etc. subscriptions.
      - RetroTechie 3y ago
        It is also interesting that a news outlet based in one of the richest countries on Earth feels the need to put up a paywall on every single article. Other options: a) Just have subscribers, and make do with whatever those proceeds are. b) Give subscribers access to some freemium articles. c) Give subscribers early-bird access to articles. Free access to others later (say, +1 day or so). d) Give non-subscribers 1..3 freebie articles, then paywall. To name a few. But no: paywall everything, monetize to the last bit. Sign of the times, or indication of this news outlet's priorities / ethics?
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
TheFragenTaken 3y ago
I read into the numbers behind "hours worked" from OECD [1]. It seems wild to me that the United States on average works 500 more hours a year, compared to the top counties on that list, and 300 more than the EU average. I've never really been a proponent (or opponent) of the four-day work week, but this seems to indicate you become "richer" if you work less. At least according to this type of ranking. [1]: https://data.oecd.org/emp/hours-worked.htm https://data.oecd.org/emp/hours-worked.htm
- frde 3y ago
  > but this seems to indicate you become "richer" if you work less. Could this be in the opposite direction, where the richer you are, the less you need to work?
  - locococo 3y ago
    maybe the affordability issue where people need more than one job in the US is showing up here.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- amadeuspagel 3y ago
  More of the total work that people have to do, including chores, is in the US work that people pay for and are paid for, rather then doing it for themselves.
  - lambda_garden 3y ago
    Wow that's an interesting thought. If every did their neighbor's laundry (say) and charged a fee, then everyone would be doing the same amount of laundry and have the same amount of money, yet GDP would rise?
    - tomthe 3y ago
      Yes, there is also this nice story to illustrate this: Two economists are walking in a forest when they come across a pile of shit. The first economist says to the other “I’ll pay you $100 to eat that pile of shit.” The second economist takes the $100 and eats the pile of shit. They continue walking until they come across a second pile of shit. The second economist turns to the first and says “I’ll pay you $100 to eat that pile of shit.” The first economist takes the $100 and eats a pile of shit. Walking a little more, the first economist looks at the second and says, "You know, I gave you $100 to eat shit, then you gave me back the same $100 to eat shit. I can't help but feel like we both just ate shit for nothing." "That's not true", responded the second economist. "We increased the GDP by $200!" copied from: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37395566 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37395566 (but they probably also copied it from somewhere)
killdisk 3y ago
As an American living in Berlin for 2 years while working as a software dev, this article very much confirms my experience. The move started with a bit of sticker shock at having my income effectively cut in half - lower salaries and higher taxes - but I feel just as "rich". Germany has very strong worker protection laws, I feel secure in my job, the time off minimum STARTS at 28 days a year, + holidays + effectively unlimited sick days. And recently I went to 80% work capacity at my job (I no longer work Mondays), which again is a protected legal right within Germany. And I'm using this extra time to pursue a masters degree in music composition, something I've always wanted to do but never had time for. Germany has provided me the stability and opportunity to follow this passion, something that would be much harder to do in the U.S. I am very grateful, and I think the U.S. could learn a lot from it's European peers in this regard.
- alberth 3y ago
  > ”the time off minimum STARTS at 28 days a year” In German culture, do people take 100% of their allowed time off? In US culture, it’s a bit frowned upon within certain fields.
  - Rant423 3y ago
    >do people take 100% of their allowed time off? Yes. In some places, they FORCE you to take your allowed time off
- black_13 3y ago
  [dead]
- kmlx 3y ago
  > but I feel just as "rich" i think it really depends on the lifestyle you're accustomed to having.
  - j7ake 3y ago
    If this lifestyle involves having two kids or more, then Germany wins hands down
jacek 3y ago
My personal opinion here. For a long time GDP and standard of living/well-being of a society have been correlated that people started to think that these are the same. These two are becoming more and more detached each year with progressing inequality. To the point that GDP now tells us very little about a country. For example Bermuda. The high GDP per capita incomes is fueled by offshore financial services, but that does not translate to personal wealth of the citizens. And Qatar. More than 50% of population are immigrants working mostly in low-paying jobs often in terrible conditions. They generate wealth, but they are not considered citizens. Finally the elephant in the room - USA. GDP per capita means jack shit if half of the wealth belongs to a few people.
- epolanski 3y ago
  GDP being a weak and misleading metric has been known to be a factor from many decades. It's just an easy and lazy measurement most can (or think they) understand.
  - jakub_g 3y ago
    Apart from money not being everything, it's also much "averages vs medians" (vs distributions) again. People love using averages because they're a single number, and easy to calculate. Medians are more difficult to calc, and distributions and percentiles are something most people are never taught, and it's no longer a single number which is easy to (artificially) compare.
    - chrisweekly 3y ago
      Huh? Mean ("average"), median and mode are each a single number that provides a distinct measurement of central tendency.
j7ake 3y ago
Difficult to compare usa vd European countries due to size differences. Better to compare individual states vs European countries. How does California compare with Norway Is better than usa vs Norway.
- epolanski 3y ago
  All countries are relatively big/small compared to others. Switzerland is comparable in size to some of the biggest US counties (San Bernardino is half of Switzerland e.g.).
ObscureScience 3y ago
It would be interesting to see this using median income or similar meassure rather than GDP per capita. Inequality by itself doesn't have to be a problem (depending on economic ideology) but if all purchasing power is restricted to a few ultra rich that should be relevant to the discussion of whether a country is rich.
- beefield 3y ago
  This. And also adjusted on what you get for your tax money. (Say, median income after taxes, health care, student loans and pension savings.) And adjusted for the amount of holidays you have.
- thatwasunusual 3y ago
  All this data is available on the interwebz. I'm a Norwegian, but has worked in several countries around the world, among them the US. According to this site,[0] the median income in US and Norway was $24K-ish in 2021 (2019 numbers for Norway), while this Wikipedia article[1] lists countries based on average annual working hours (OECD, 2022). Based on this, we can deduce that: * Americans are paid $13.3/hour * Norwegians are paid $16.9/hour It's worth noting that even though Norway doesn't have a "general" minimum wage, except for some jobs, it's considered to be $21/hour. [0] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/median-income-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/median-in... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_annual_labor_hours https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_a...
  - e12e 3y ago
    Fwiw those numbers look sensible for Norway - but note that median household income after tax is about double (590k nok): https://www.ssb.no/statbank/sq/10090867 https://www.ssb.no/statbank/sq/10090867 Not sure how that compares to the us numbers.
    - thatwasunusual 3y ago
      > but note that median household income after tax is about double (590k nok) I think most people understand that if you add two people's median income, you'll end up with approx. the double. :)
dudul 3y ago
Is GDP per person even useful? Ok, the country is rich, cool, now what? GDP pp doesn't tell me anything about how the citizens benefit from it.
Mizza 3y ago
I think these calculations are essentially horseshit. Norway is an oil company with a nation state subsidiary. Salaries and purchasing power are significantly lower than the in US. Is there an alternative to GDP that doesn't include externally invested oil profits?
- epolanski 3y ago
  Why do people feel personally offended by these statistics? It's a GDP per capita with some adjustment ranking. Don't understand why is it triggering you. The news isn't about average salary or purchasing power.
- kwhitefoot 3y ago
  In Norway we distinguish between offshore and onshore GDP [1]. The ool income goes straight into the oil fund and that does not invest in Norway and neither does a large amount of the income generated from it get spent in Norway. So yes, there is an alternative, just do the statistics properly. [1] https://www.ssb.no/nasjonalregnskap-og-konjunkturer/nasjonalregnskap/statistikk/nasjonalregnskap/artikler/bnp-fastlands-norge-tok-seg-opp-igjen-i-mai https://www.ssb.no/nasjonalregnskap-og-konjunkturer/nasjonal...
- RadixDLT 3y ago
  it's not just Norway, all the oil rich countries float to top on this list. So indeed they are calculating how rich is the country's bank accounts because the money is distributed through social services, which is basically free money.
refurb 3y ago
I think one has to be careful with the “hours worked”. I noticed Singapore takes a huge hit, but after working there, the hours often include a 2hr lunch, and frequent breaks. At least at the company I was at, people got less work done in 10 hours than my American coworkers did in 7.
sgt101 3y ago
This is where aggregates are really tricky. I think that they are using means at the average - this is a serious issue. The thing is WHO is this money for? If the long tail of the population are subsisting on $20k a year while the top 1% are living large on $1M a year then things are going to feel very hard for the "average" Joe/Joanne.
RadixDLT 3y ago
there are 100 ways to calculate who is the richest country and you will get 100 deferent results the countries on the list also happen to be the most socialists who distributes half of your paycheck to everybody else
refurb 3y ago
You have to be careful with GDP because for some countries that money goes offshore. Ireland is a tax haven for corporations. Google sells their IP to Google Ireland, then charges for it across a swath of markets. Then the money flows back to Ireland as GDP. But it doesn’t stay there, it flows back to Google USA.
throw0101b 3y ago
Is there a list of the happiest countries in 2023? (Aren't most people, to use a particular phrase, pursuing happiness (in the Aristotelian sense?)? Of course, money can certainly help with that.)

simonebrunozzi 3y ago

https://archive.is/tqBs2 https://archive.is/tqBs2

mellosouls 3y ago
+1 for the OP posting a non-paywall alternative rather than leaving it to somebody else.
- joenot443 3y ago
  Some day we'll lose this ability and it'll be a sad day for HN. Feels like a special trick we've got to enjoy while we can. Nice submission OP - I learned something.
  - 0xDEF 3y ago
    It is also interesting that some of highest income people on Earth use the archive trick instead of paying to get through the paywall. Who actually pays for legacy media anymore?
    - loufe 3y ago
      That's a fair point. It's still true that wealth is not built by permitting frivolous spending. With all the posts on HN I find interesting, I feel like It's the television chanal package effect. Even avid news readers would not have subscriptions to all the varied news sources here. About 90% of the time I pay for an honest Economist subcription. It's great, but pricey. Even if I wanted to, I could not afford simultaneous FT, Economist, NYT, Globe&Mail, etc. subscriptions.
    - RetroTechie 3y ago
      It is also interesting that a news outlet based in one of the richest countries on Earth feels the need to put up a paywall on every single article. Other options: a) Just have subscribers, and make do with whatever those proceeds are. b) Give subscribers access to some freemium articles. c) Give subscribers early-bird access to articles. Free access to others later (say, +1 day or so). d) Give non-subscribers 1..3 freebie articles, then paywall. To name a few. But no: paywall everything, monetize to the last bit. Sign of the times, or indication of this news outlet's priorities / ethics?

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

TheFragenTaken 3y ago

I read into the numbers behind "hours worked" from OECD [1]. It seems wild to me that the United States on average works 500 more hours a year, compared to the top counties on that list, and 300 more than the EU average. I've never really been a proponent (or opponent) of the four-day work week, but this seems to indicate you become "richer" if you work less. At least according to this type of ranking. [1]: https://data.oecd.org/emp/hours-worked.htm https://data.oecd.org/emp/hours-worked.htm

frde 3y ago
> but this seems to indicate you become "richer" if you work less. Could this be in the opposite direction, where the richer you are, the less you need to work?
- locococo 3y ago
  maybe the affordability issue where people need more than one job in the US is showing up here.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
amadeuspagel 3y ago
More of the total work that people have to do, including chores, is in the US work that people pay for and are paid for, rather then doing it for themselves.
- lambda_garden 3y ago
  Wow that's an interesting thought. If every did their neighbor's laundry (say) and charged a fee, then everyone would be doing the same amount of laundry and have the same amount of money, yet GDP would rise?
  - tomthe 3y ago
    Yes, there is also this nice story to illustrate this: Two economists are walking in a forest when they come across a pile of shit. The first economist says to the other “I’ll pay you $100 to eat that pile of shit.” The second economist takes the $100 and eats the pile of shit. They continue walking until they come across a second pile of shit. The second economist turns to the first and says “I’ll pay you $100 to eat that pile of shit.” The first economist takes the $100 and eats a pile of shit. Walking a little more, the first economist looks at the second and says, "You know, I gave you $100 to eat shit, then you gave me back the same $100 to eat shit. I can't help but feel like we both just ate shit for nothing." "That's not true", responded the second economist. "We increased the GDP by $200!" copied from: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37395566 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37395566 (but they probably also copied it from somewhere)

killdisk 3y ago

As an American living in Berlin for 2 years while working as a software dev, this article very much confirms my experience. The move started with a bit of sticker shock at having my income effectively cut in half - lower salaries and higher taxes - but I feel just as "rich". Germany has very strong worker protection laws, I feel secure in my job, the time off minimum STARTS at 28 days a year, + holidays + effectively unlimited sick days. And recently I went to 80% work capacity at my job (I no longer work Mondays), which again is a protected legal right within Germany. And I'm using this extra time to pursue a masters degree in music composition, something I've always wanted to do but never had time for. Germany has provided me the stability and opportunity to follow this passion, something that would be much harder to do in the U.S. I am very grateful, and I think the U.S. could learn a lot from it's European peers in this regard.

alberth 3y ago
> ”the time off minimum STARTS at 28 days a year” In German culture, do people take 100% of their allowed time off? In US culture, it’s a bit frowned upon within certain fields.
- Rant423 3y ago
  >do people take 100% of their allowed time off? Yes. In some places, they FORCE you to take your allowed time off
black_13 3y ago
[dead]
kmlx 3y ago
> but I feel just as "rich" i think it really depends on the lifestyle you're accustomed to having.
- j7ake 3y ago
  If this lifestyle involves having two kids or more, then Germany wins hands down

jacek 3y ago

My personal opinion here. For a long time GDP and standard of living/well-being of a society have been correlated that people started to think that these are the same. These two are becoming more and more detached each year with progressing inequality. To the point that GDP now tells us very little about a country. For example Bermuda. The high GDP per capita incomes is fueled by offshore financial services, but that does not translate to personal wealth of the citizens. And Qatar. More than 50% of population are immigrants working mostly in low-paying jobs often in terrible conditions. They generate wealth, but they are not considered citizens. Finally the elephant in the room - USA. GDP per capita means jack shit if half of the wealth belongs to a few people.

epolanski 3y ago
GDP being a weak and misleading metric has been known to be a factor from many decades. It's just an easy and lazy measurement most can (or think they) understand.
- jakub_g 3y ago
  Apart from money not being everything, it's also much "averages vs medians" (vs distributions) again. People love using averages because they're a single number, and easy to calculate. Medians are more difficult to calc, and distributions and percentiles are something most people are never taught, and it's no longer a single number which is easy to (artificially) compare.
  - chrisweekly 3y ago
    Huh? Mean ("average"), median and mode are each a single number that provides a distinct measurement of central tendency.

j7ake 3y ago

Difficult to compare usa vd European countries due to size differences. Better to compare individual states vs European countries. How does California compare with Norway Is better than usa vs Norway.

epolanski 3y ago
All countries are relatively big/small compared to others. Switzerland is comparable in size to some of the biggest US counties (San Bernardino is half of Switzerland e.g.).

ObscureScience 3y ago

It would be interesting to see this using median income or similar meassure rather than GDP per capita. Inequality by itself doesn't have to be a problem (depending on economic ideology) but if all purchasing power is restricted to a few ultra rich that should be relevant to the discussion of whether a country is rich.

beefield 3y ago
This. And also adjusted on what you get for your tax money. (Say, median income after taxes, health care, student loans and pension savings.) And adjusted for the amount of holidays you have.
thatwasunusual 3y ago
All this data is available on the interwebz. I'm a Norwegian, but has worked in several countries around the world, among them the US. According to this site,[0] the median income in US and Norway was $24K-ish in 2021 (2019 numbers for Norway), while this Wikipedia article[1] lists countries based on average annual working hours (OECD, 2022). Based on this, we can deduce that: * Americans are paid $13.3/hour * Norwegians are paid $16.9/hour It's worth noting that even though Norway doesn't have a "general" minimum wage, except for some jobs, it's considered to be $21/hour. [0] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/median-income-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/median-in... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_annual_labor_hours https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_a...
- e12e 3y ago
  Fwiw those numbers look sensible for Norway - but note that median household income after tax is about double (590k nok): https://www.ssb.no/statbank/sq/10090867 https://www.ssb.no/statbank/sq/10090867 Not sure how that compares to the us numbers.
  - thatwasunusual 3y ago
    > but note that median household income after tax is about double (590k nok) I think most people understand that if you add two people's median income, you'll end up with approx. the double. :)

dudul 3y ago

Is GDP per person even useful? Ok, the country is rich, cool, now what? GDP pp doesn't tell me anything about how the citizens benefit from it.

Mizza 3y ago

I think these calculations are essentially horseshit. Norway is an oil company with a nation state subsidiary. Salaries and purchasing power are significantly lower than the in US. Is there an alternative to GDP that doesn't include externally invested oil profits?

epolanski 3y ago
Why do people feel personally offended by these statistics? It's a GDP per capita with some adjustment ranking. Don't understand why is it triggering you. The news isn't about average salary or purchasing power.
kwhitefoot 3y ago
In Norway we distinguish between offshore and onshore GDP [1]. The ool income goes straight into the oil fund and that does not invest in Norway and neither does a large amount of the income generated from it get spent in Norway. So yes, there is an alternative, just do the statistics properly. [1] https://www.ssb.no/nasjonalregnskap-og-konjunkturer/nasjonalregnskap/statistikk/nasjonalregnskap/artikler/bnp-fastlands-norge-tok-seg-opp-igjen-i-mai https://www.ssb.no/nasjonalregnskap-og-konjunkturer/nasjonal...
RadixDLT 3y ago
it's not just Norway, all the oil rich countries float to top on this list. So indeed they are calculating how rich is the country's bank accounts because the money is distributed through social services, which is basically free money.

refurb 3y ago

I think one has to be careful with the “hours worked”. I noticed Singapore takes a huge hit, but after working there, the hours often include a 2hr lunch, and frequent breaks. At least at the company I was at, people got less work done in 10 hours than my American coworkers did in 7.

sgt101 3y ago

This is where aggregates are really tricky. I think that they are using means at the average - this is a serious issue. The thing is WHO is this money for? If the long tail of the population are subsisting on $20k a year while the top 1% are living large on $1M a year then things are going to feel very hard for the "average" Joe/Joanne.

RadixDLT 3y ago

there are 100 ways to calculate who is the richest country and you will get 100 deferent results the countries on the list also happen to be the most socialists who distributes half of your paycheck to everybody else

refurb 3y ago

You have to be careful with GDP because for some countries that money goes offshore. Ireland is a tax haven for corporations. Google sells their IP to Google Ireland, then charges for it across a swath of markets. Then the money flows back to Ireland as GDP. But it doesn’t stay there, it flows back to Google USA.

throw0101b 3y ago

Is there a list of the happiest countries in 2023? (Aren't most people, to use a particular phrase, pursuing happiness (in the Aristotelian sense?)? Of course, money can certainly help with that.)