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EU household real income per capita up 22% since 2004
- decremental 10mo ago[dead]
- ekjhgkejhgk 10mo agoPoorer countries like Romania and Poland benefited more than richer countries like Austria and Luxemburg (exception were intermediate countries like Greece and Italy that piled on too much debt). This was planned (called EU convergence), and is a victory of bureaucratic planning. Whatever you think of the goals or methods, I think it's awe inspiring that an organization can plan and follow through with a plan on multi-decade time horizon.
- rayiner 10mo ago[flagged]
- ekjhgkejhgk 10mo ago> Moreover, I’m not sure Germany, France, etc., voted to join the EU under the promise to sacrifice their own growth—they have significantly underperformed the U.S. over this time frame—to facilitate the development of eastern europe. Can you provide evidence that Germany, France, sacrificed their own growth? Unless you know something that I don't, what I see is that you're imagining a zero sum situation which is well known doesn't apply to things like markets. That they underperformed the US isn't not evidence of that. Germany and France underperformed the US in the time period, and in the last 100 years too.
- rayiner 10mo agoThat's how I understood your thesis: "This was planned (called EU convergence), and is a victory of bureaucratic planning." If you don't think Germany and France sacrificed their own growth, what exactly do you think "EU convergence" means?
- immibis 10mo agoWhy should I only grow 1.8% while you grow 2%, when it would be much fairer if we both grew 0%?
- ekjhgkejhgk 10mo agoIt's clear that you have no clue economics, as hinted by the comical numbers that you chose to pick for your disengenious example.
- ekjhgkejhgk 10mo ago> If you don't think Germany and France sacrificed their own growth, what exactly do you think "EU convergence" means? Convergence doesn't refer to growth rates approaching, but incomes (per capita) appproaching. It doesn't mean that the richer countries grow slower than otherwise. They might grow the same, or faster. The claim is something along the lines of: Without planned convergence: country G grows 2% per year starting from income of 30k/capita and country P grows %1 per year starting from income to 10k/capita. Country P will never approach country G in income/capita. With planned convergence: country G grows 2% per year starting from income of 30k/capita and country P grows %4 per year starting from income to 10k/capita. The two countries's income per capita will converge. Economics and counterfactuals are devilishily complicated subjects, but claim isn't complicated.
- rayiner 10mo agoBut what does any of that have to do with the EU or bureaucratic planning? It seems to me like Poland was poised to grow quickly as it transitioned from communism to capitalism with or without the EU.
- alde 10mo agoSoviet-aligned countries that didn't join the EU did much worse than those that did.
- KellyCriterion 10mo agoIf you take a look at the payments across the EU from richer to poorer countries, its quite clear why this happened: The EU invested everything to pamper them to make the "EU favorable for them".
- lbreakjai 10mo agoThis is not a zero sum game. Germany should have benefited tremendously from Poland getting much richer.
- ekjhgkejhgk 10mo agoYes, in fact I've heard people argue the opposite point, that EU benefits Germany more than the rest of the EU countries. The argument starts from Germany being more competitive than most EU countries. Protection from external trade is usually needed so that an industry can home brew and reach competitive or almost-competitive state, and trade barriers are then removed to keep improving against competition. But with competition in place you can't go from zero to one in established industries. The result, the argument goes, is that Germany ends up owning entire industries within the EU. But some people cannot conceive that some arrangements can be win-win.
- rvba 10mo agoThat's how the maths works though. If you are a farmer in Africa you buy one scythe for 10 dollars and your productivity increases by 100% If you are a farmer in Denmark you buy the second tractor and your productity increases by 20%. Also nothing was planned. If rhis was planned then USA losing and China winning was planned too. Just globalization meaning everyone goes towards optimum
- ekjhgkejhgk 10mo ago> Just globalization meaning everyone goes towards optimum You're a free market fundamentalist. This isn't an insult. I'm describing what I see. Someone who says "if you don't plan things will turn out the best possible" is a free market fundamentalist.
- rvba 10mo agoI am not a fundamentalist. I describe what happens - world is converging due to market forces. Also free market? China is for example not open - you cannot fully own a company there as an investment. EU market is converging towards optimum - and countries like Poland are still at 50% of level of Germany
- ekjhgkejhgk 10mo ago> I am not a fundamentalist. > Just globalization meaning everyone goes towards optimum
- adverbly 10mo agoThis is measuring household not individual... Needs context then... How did average working hours per household change during that period?
- grafmax 10mo agoMany things are missing from this picture. It uses mean not median income, which would do a better job of telling how widespread the increase is. It uses a basic inflation adjustment which doesn’t differentiate between luxury goods and services vs basic necessities. In other words it’s hard to tell to what degree this rise has benefited people in general.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- frikskit 10mo agoHours worked for full time employees in EU apparently has been falling year over year since at least 2013. Maybe it has increased for part timers though? Not sure how to square that with the fact that there’s been low productivity growth since 2008. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser and either search or use data code tps00071
- Swenrekcah 10mo agoIn the higher income countries the hours worked have fallen, however it may be that in lower income countries they have increased. That is to say, due to more work opportunities more people have gotten jobs that count towards measured work hours and GDP. Including households who used to have one person working jobs that count towards metrics now have two. I don’t have numbers for this though, just an informed guess.
- frikskit 10mo agoGood point. It would be sufficient for there simply to have been an increase in % of households where both parents work. That can lead to fewer hours worked per employee, low productivity growth, and increase in household income.
- mriet 10mo agoIt's kind of weird that Romania has done so well, given that amount of turmoil in Romanian politics and Romania in general in the last 20 years. Basically, it went up for Romania because they got access to the EU market (in terms of both exports and remittances) starting in 2007 and that helped, _despite_ everything else that went on. So.. kind of a win for Romania and the EU, I guess.
- petre 10mo agoExcept Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU in 2007, so they have only been for 17 years in the union.
- M95D 10mo agoSmart young people left for rich EU countries: doctors, engineers, even construction workers left. It took time until the old generation that remained behind retired and now we have the effects of that: better paid jobs. When I started working as a doctor in 2007, my salary was ~150 euro/month. It is now ~2000 euro/month. Some of it is experience/seniority, but most of it is just jobs competition from richer EU countries.
- petre 10mo agoThe generation during the population spike following the communist regime's 1967 Decree 770 (banning aborition and contraception) is up for pensions in about 7 years, which will create a pension crisis and a default of Romania's state pension fund. We'll see its effect on household income per capita, but it will certainly be under pressure. They already have increased labour taxes, thanx to the former goverments' deficit spending. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decree_770 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decree_770
- graemep 10mo agoThat is pretty disastrous. 22% over 20 years is 1% per year. A few countries have done spectacularly well, but others have done incredibly badly (two have an actual decline over a 20 year period!).
- Swenrekcah 10mo agoKeep in mind this is adjusted for inflation. However I agree it should have been more during this period.
- pjc50 10mo agoUK seems basically flat: https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp/timeseries/crxx/ukea https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp/times... I can't find corresponding US numbers?
- frikskit 10mo agoBy “flat” you mean “similar” ?Because your link shows approx 22% increase.
- graemep 10mo agoThat shows a 21% increase. However, its not the same number at all. it is median real disposable income per head (person), whereas the the EU number is mean real income per household. I think it is probably correct to say the UK has broadly speaking performed about as well as obvious peers such as France and Germany over the last 20 years, but its not greater performance for any of them.
- user____name 10mo agoMore granular breakdowns, e.g. per income percentile and sector would be useful.
- rayiner 10mo agoThe U.S. is up 39% since that time: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A229RX0 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A229RX0 [EDIT: Didn’t see it was disposable real income per capita. That figure is 39% not 30%.][1] The only countries that outperformed the U.S. were former soviet-aligned countries, Malta, and Iceland. [1] I don’t know if the Fed disposable income calculation accounts for everything the EU calculation does, specifically the value of free services. European growth could be higher if their welfare states and tax burdens have gotten relatively larger during this time.
- jve 10mo agoAre you talking about income or real income? > Adjusted gross disposable income of households per capita in real terms is the total amount of money households have available for spending and saving after subtracting income taxes and pension contributions, plus the individual goods and services (such as education and health services) received free of charge from government and non-profit institutions serving households. Real means that its nominal value is adjusted for price increases (by the deflator of household actual final consumption expenditure). Per capita indicates that the value was divided by the total population.
- hcurtiss 10mo agoThat’s a pretty fuzzy number. How do they value or even allocate the value of those free services?
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- tonyedgecombe 10mo agoIf you take away tech then the US looks just as sick as Europe.
- andsoitis 10mo ago> If you take away tech why would you do that?
- alecco 10mo agoSince 2004?? If anything, it's a terrible statistic. Meanwhile, since 2010: > House prices across the EU have soared by 48% between 2010 and 2023, according to Eurostat, while rents increased 22% over the same period. By 2023, nearly one in 10 people were spending 40% or more of their disposable income on housing, including 29% of the population in Greece, 15% in Denmark and 13% in Germany. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/dec/15/europe-housing-costs-new-pandemic-barcelona-mayor-eu-funding https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/dec/15/europe-housi... (Published Mon 15 Dec 2025)
- KellyCriterion 10mo ago++1
- KellyCriterion 10mo agoWow, getting downvoted for applauding someone who lined out the real reasons of the fact? :-D
- ben_w 10mo agoRent increasing by the same percentage as income per capita is what I'd expect by default. Inequality in rent-to-earnings is also a problem, though without knowing what it used to be I can't say if that has gotten worse or if it was always that unequal. Vimes Boots etc. The Guardian article links to https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/interactive-publications/housing-2024 https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/interactive-publications/h... which shows the % of people in overcrowded homes has gone down, and the % in under-occupied homes has gone up, and that 25% of the EU population's housing has had its insulation improved in the last 5 years. So, quality has gone up despite the same *average* fraction of income being spent. But I still don't know the distribution, the poorest may indeed be worse off, averages (even when combined with standard deviations) hide a lot, as anyone who has seen the Datasaurus dozen will know.
- bryanlarsen 10mo agoYou're quoting nominal increases, the linked article is real income, aka after inflation. Your link says inflation was 36% between 2010 and 2023, so the real increase in housing prices was 12% and rents declined 14% in real inflation adjusted terms.
- alephnerd 10mo agoHow much of this is convergence due to the addition of much poorer Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe - especially because this is "per capita"? Edit: looking at the source dataset, it is just convergent growth from Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe. Those EU countries that were already developed countries in the 2000s grew well below the average excluding Ireland, Sweden, and Germany.
- izacus 10mo agoYes, this is EU doing what's meant to do.
- svilen_dobrev 10mo agohah. Bulgaria does not count i guess. Even if same timing/trajectory as Romania. Too much cyrillics maybe.
- spwa4 10mo agoMeanwhile ... Inflation from 2004 to 2025 Cumulative price change 57.20% Average inflation rate 2.18% https://www.in2013dollars.com/europe/inflation/2004?amount=100 https://www.in2013dollars.com/europe/inflation/2004?amount=1...
- spwa4 10mo agoStrange just how much inequality exists within the EU ... WTF.
- M95D 10mo agoCountries don't just suddenly become equal when they join EU. It takes time, but we're getting there...