Despite the US’s economic success, income inequality remains breathtaking. But this is no glitch – it’s the system
The Chinese did rather well in the age of globalization. In 1990, 943 million people there lived on less than $3 a day measured in 2021 dollars – 83% of the population, according to the World Bank. By 2019, the number was brought down to zero. Unfortunately, the United States was not as successful. More than 4 million Americans – 1.25% of the population – must make ends meet with less than $3 a day, more than three times as many as 35 years ago.
The data is not super consistent with the narrative of the US’s inexorable success. Sure, American productivity has zoomed ahead of that of its European peers. Only a handful of countries manage to produce more stuff per hour of work. And artificial intelligence now promises to put the United States that much further ahead.
This is not to congratulate China for its authoritarian government, for its repression of minorities or for the iron fist it deploys against any form of dissent. But it merits pondering how this undemocratic government could successfully slash its poverty rate when the richest and oldest democracy in the world wouldn’t.
I appreciate your fine estimation of TWB, but a study is only as good as it’s data.
Data from the government, by the government. Have conditions and quality of life improved? Yes. But it was only a few years ago the people were buying gross tonnage of cheap fashion clothes during a rather harsh winter so people could survive the cold by burning it instead of coal to heat their homes.
That’s not even counting the hundreds of millions that live life like it’s the great depression, and the conditions in which they work.
Right…but you can’t swing from one extreme (zero poverty) to the other (hundreds of millions living like it’s the Great Depression). Neither are true.
It should be noted that poverty in China isn’t the same as poverty in the USA, ie when you adjust for wages v cost of living it doesn’t tell us much, because the systems are incompatible. All those people in China making below $1.90 US a day (or whatever your metric is) aren’t in the same boat they’d be in in the US, and vice versa.
But all of this ignores the topic of the post: China did indeed raise virtually all of its citizens out of poverty, and the US didn’t. But it’s really weird to just throw that factoid out there without acknowledging that China did it at the expense of the US.
True, I do have a habit of getting overly enthusiastic in my use a metaphor, lmao and humor as I see.
Compared to what life was like pre-80’s? Yes absolutely things have improved, but even if improvement of conditions exist for those into the billion, that doesn’t exclude the relative conditions on the ground.
Unemployment is growing in younger demographics at rates near the peak of what the US experienced in 33. If you compare overall, sustain unemployment year to year is worse. Continuing lack in stability in land value has changed what was a bedrock backing for generational social mobility into a risky hedge for many.
As you well know, and have said, just going off of say strength of the ren for pure purchasing power or daily wages is misleading. Compare the shifts in collegiate achievements, the chosen international schools that the middle class are sending their kids to get their degrees. Look towards the shifts in lower class, especially in the cities, towards day labor over even extended work contracts or proper salary. Look towards the accessibility of central heating, plumbing, electricity. See the treatment of the lower half a billion of Chinese society when they need to access healthcare, when they need the law. What is their commute like?
Source? Seriously, if you’re going to dispute sources you have to provide a better one.
You’re arguing with a guy called American economic think tank.
You say that like it’s a bad thing ♡
Well, biased and stalwart in opinion might be more accurate descriptions.
The source: It’s me.
I made it upI work my ass off to keep up on ongoing trade stats and national publications, as well as first hand sources including some colleagues world-wide.If you want to make a hobby of it, I’d recommend putting a little extra spending cash into a good radio receiver and your pick of audio translation software, you can time it to get live updates on policy from almost any country one way or another.