Whether you’re talking about income, hours worked, crime, child welfare, happiness, or security, I think you err if, as Robert Samuelson does limit your comparison of the United States to relatively small, prosperous, homogeneous European countries:
Americans have long been fascinated with global rankings. Where do we stand? How do we compare with other nations? We like to imagine ourselves as No. 1: the national equivalent of the racing halfback who raises his forefinger as he crosses the goal line. Common sense says otherwise. We excel in some things and not in others. The latest evidence of this comes from a massive report that collected indicators on a wide range of well-being — from incomes to leisure time — for most advanced countries.
On some indicators, the United States does rank No. 1. Average after-tax household income (including both cash and non-cash government transfers) totals about $40,000; Norway is next highest at nearly $35,000. Among 29 countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the average is $27,630. But the United States is also near the top in income inequality; this means that middle-class Americans don’t do quite as well as the average suggests.
It’s like trying to get some understanding of Michigan’s problems by comparing Detroit and Mackinac Island.
To arrive at some reasonable understanding of the United States, it’s better to think of us as two countries occupying the same territory—one large country that’s fairly prosperous and mostly of European descent and another much poorer country that mostly isn’t. I wish that weren’t the case but, sadly, it’s the reality. Think Mexico not Finland.
If only Monaco were in the OECD statistics – they’d blow everyone away.
Well, going into Detroit, it’s hard not to think that the fortunes of the white working-class came at the expense of the black working-class in the 1945-1970 period. Study the history of who got jobs at the car factories–it’s white people rather than blacks. Same goes with housing. Whites had huge advantages. Thomas Sugrue’s The Origins of the Urban Crisis explains how this was. So yeah–Detroit bifurcated into a couple of places, but these are connected because of intentional acts.
American culture mirrors Detroit. Nobody could look at where black music ended up or Absalom, Absalom! and think that America is like Mexico or Guatemala.
Mackinac Island, cars per household: zero
Detroit, cars per household: 1.6
It’s about time that the larger, more prosperous municipality share the wealth.
Gee, Dave, we here in California are among those states afflicted by “non-europeans,” and somehow our unemployment rate is dropping like a rock, from highest in the country, to under 6% now and less than a point above the national average.
This despite jacking taxes way up on high earners, and the greatest drought in our history. Budget balanced, credit rating climbing, housing market coming back a wee bit too strong. . .
Kansas, meanwhile, having suffered far less damage from the recession, and with no drought, with far fewer “non-europeans” and a doctrinaire conservative Republican government that cut taxes, is actually seeing their unemployment rate rise a bit.
Summarizing:
1) Kansas, 87% white, low but rising unemployment.
2) California, 40% Hispanic, high average but falling unemployment.
Not to mention that we could buy up all the real estate in Kansas for the trade-in value of Belvedere Island.
Comparing us to Mexico is absurd, and though I don’t believe you intend it, there’s a distinctly Trumpian nativism peeking around the corner of that particular choice. You’re falling back on ethnicity to rationalize our inability to establish basic social safety net functions that everyone from Finland to the France have. That’s not why we can’t have paid sick leave etc… The problem ain’t Mexicans, it’s Republicans.
Presumably, it’s also Republican that are causing the Danes, Finns, Norse, and Swedes to trim their own “social safety net functions”.
BTW here’s what Michael’s talking about.
I don’t think the Congressional Republicans are helping. They only know one song and it’s “Cut Taxes”. The evidence that a cut in the personal income tax will do much to heal what ails our economy isn’t very strong.
Comparing the economies of CA and KS, with their vastly different inherent natural characteristics, hardly qualifies as analysis.
If you want to do it sorting by Mexican immigrants, compare TX to CA. Still bad analysis. If you want to do it sorting by political philosophy and party, compare to IL, hardly a good performer.
If you want to deal with Dave’s analogy in MI, ask yourself how a comparison of San Francisco or Los Angeles compares with the Central Valley. Venus and Mars.
Perhaps a best, yet still crude, measure of the general status of things is the ultimate vote – with your feet. States like IL, CA, NY etc have net out migration. That’s a fact. Hollywood and dot.com types, or the Goldman Sachs crowd think CA or NY is just great. Average people are not quite so enamoured.
BTW – about the scourge of our time, income inequality, how do you think CA and NY compare to, oh, Kansas.
Not quite. Illinois has net out-migration. California and New York have net out-migration of natives only but net in-migration overall.
It would be interesting to examine California’s median per capita real GDP over time. I honestly have no idea what you’d find.
Correction: Illinois, California, and New York all have net domestic out-migration. Since Illinois’s total population is also decreasing, that means that Illinois has net out-migration full stop. New York and California have net domestic out-migration which is compensated for (in terms of population) by immigration. It is believed that all three states have net out-migration of natives.