> I'd rather be poor in Miami Beach or NYC than the EU. It has much better benefits than Romania. Sorry I couldn't help it. Comparing an EU member state to the

> I'd rather be poor in Miami Beach or NYC than the EU. It has much better benefits than Romania. Sorry I couldn't help it. Comparing an EU member state to the US is akin to comparing a US state to the EU. These are big places and Paris and even France are a very, very small part. Europe has some real, real crappy places that really, really mess up Europe's statistics. Once places like Bosnia and Ukraine get in, the stats will get even worse. I doubt Romanian and Ukrainian social spending is very high. Compare to US states and cities in you're comparing EU states and cities, and comparable ones.