https://www.city-journal.org/article/comparing-the-u-s-with-europe
European vacation season isn’t over yet, and this year more Americans than ever have been flying across the Atlantic. By August’s end, they’ll be returning by the 787-full, jetlagged but jubilant, ready to regale friends with tales of their travels—and often enough, the view that the Europeans really have this quality-of-life thing figured out.
Europe’s cities, towns, and countrysides surely are pleasant places to visit. But does their appeal go further? Are they superior to America as places to live? For an evidence-based answer, the natural starting points are big-figure economic numbers such as GDP per capita and disposable incomes. On that score, America clearly comes out ahead of Europe (we’ll focus on EU countries for our purposes here). According to the World Bank, 2023 per capita GDP adjusted for purchasing power in the United States is more than one-third higher than that of the EU, at $81,695 vs. $60,350. Disposable incomes favor the U.S. as well.
Of course, while it is widely accepted that Americans are on average more productive and richer than Europeans, both America and Europe are sufficiently diverse and vast that generalizing isn’t that useful. Given that newcomers to the EU are still climbing out of the hole dug by Communism, a comparison with the richer corners of Europe is more apt. Moreover, Americans tend to work more for the money they earn. If we’re trying to puzzle out who has it better, it makes sense to adjust for the more plentiful leisure time afforded Europeans.
Last year, The Economist performed an exercise of this kind, stacking European countries up against the United States on the basis of per capita GDP adjusted for purchasing power and hours worked. The analysis found that EU countries Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, and Sweden (along with non-EU Norway and Switzerland) eclipse the U.S. in per-capita GDP when adjusting for those considerations. These countries, in a manner of speaking, have higher individual productivity than America. But if we isolate Norway’s 6 million people, Belgium’s 12 million, and the like, why not do the same for American states? That comparison tells another story.