The Richest Countries in 2023

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2023/12/15/the-worlds-richest-countries-in-2023

by simonebrunozzi • 3 years ago

71 74 3 years ago

economist.com

simonebrunozzi• 3 years ago

https://archive.is/tqBs2

mellosouls• 3 years ago

+1 for the OP posting a non-paywall alternative rather than leaving it to somebody else.

joenot443• 3 years ago

Some day we'll lose this ability and it'll be a sad day for HN. Feels like a special trick we've got to enjoy while we can. Nice submission OP - I learned something.

TheFragenTaken• 3 years ago

I read into the numbers behind "hours worked" from OECD [1]. It seems wild to me that the United States on average works 500 more hours a year, compared to the top counties on that list, and 300 more than the EU average. I've never really been a proponent (or opponent) of the four-day work week, but this seems to indicate you become "richer" if you work less. At least according to this type of ranking.

[1] https://data.oecd.org/emp/hours-worked.htm

frde• 3 years ago

but this seems to indicate you become "richer" if you work less.

Could this be in the opposite direction, where the richer you are, the less you need to work?

locococo• 3 years ago

maybe the affordability issue where people need more than one job in the US is showing up here.

amadeuspagel• 3 years ago

More of the total work that people have to do, including chores, is in the US work that people pay for and are paid for, rather then doing it for themselves.

lambda_garden• 3 years ago

Wow that's an interesting thought.

If every did their neighbor's laundry (say) and charged a fee, then everyone would be doing the same amount of laundry and have the same amount of money, yet GDP would rise?

a1j9o94• 3 years ago

In my anecdotal experience this hasn't been the case. Most people I know in the US can't afford to pay people to do house work or chores. I'm thinking in contrast to a place like India where it's the norm to have hired help for things like cooking, cleaning, and laundry.

epolanski4• 3 years ago

It seems wild to me that the United States on average works 500 more hours a year

I think that ultimately stems from different workers' rights in US where people work even if sick due to the sick leave limits and low mandatory vacation days.

I'm quite sure people that are independent/self-employed in Europe work comparable numbers because they too will likely take much less vacations and sick days.

evancox100• 3 years ago

As a US worker that regularly interfaces with colleagues in various EU/UK sites, I am not at all surprised by the discrepancy.

Edit: Elaborating… in my experience entire countries will be on holiday for up to a month at a time, while the US offices are chugging along. (And this by and large isn’t true the opposite direction, except for Thanksgiving week.)

I’m not saying it is good or bad either way, but the US prioritizes work far more than other OECD / developed countries.

loufe2• 3 years ago

I think it's also an artifact of the size of the US labour market. The huge labour pool in the single market makes for strong competition jobs. It's a race to the bottom for pay and working conditions for tons of folks.

e12e3• 3 years ago

You might enjoy the film "After Work":

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt10400026/

The craziest thing to me about the US is the number of vacation days given, but not used.

killdisk• 3 years ago

As an American living in Berlin for 2 years while working as a software dev, this article very much confirms my experience. The move started with a bit of sticker shock at having my income effectively cut in half - lower salaries and higher taxes - but I feel just as "rich".

Germany has very strong worker protection laws, I feel secure in my job, the time off minimum STARTS at 28 days a year, + holidays + effectively unlimited sick days. And recently I went to 80% work capacity at my job (I no longer work Mondays), which again is a protected legal right within Germany. And I'm using this extra time to pursue a masters degree in music composition, something I've always wanted to do but never had time for.

Germany has provided me the stability and opportunity to follow this passion, something that would be much harder to do in the U.S. I am very grateful, and I think the U.S. could learn a lot from it's European peers in this regard.

kmlx• 3 years ago

but I feel just as "rich"

i think it really depends on the lifestyle you're accustomed to having.

j7ake3• 3 years ago

If this lifestyle involves having two kids or more, then Germany wins hands down

0xDEF2• 3 years ago

It is worth pointing out that we Northern Europeans can only afford this because we have a small group of highly competitive and wealth generating companies and sectors. We would be in a dire situation here in Denmark without Novo Nordisk. 1-2 years ago it was Maersk, DSV etc. that held up our economy because freight prices were high.

tokai• 3 years ago

Not true. Denmark has a very diverse economy.

firewire• 3 years ago

Denmark, Sweden, and Finland have economies that are nowhere near as concentrated as the two other Nordic nations. Norway is analogous to a Middle Eastern petrostate with over 60% of their economy being derived from oil. Iceland is also heavily reliant on aluminum mining and fishing with those two sectors making up over 70% of their economy.

gumby• 3 years ago

The metrics are complex and ill understood, because few people can make the comparison you have.

The thing that jumps out to me about life in the USA is how much time you spend maintaining it rather than living it. Chasing down bills for health care, until recently a lack of autopay, steady stream of paperwork and decisions from the schools…just a million fine-grained decisions and responsibilities when compared to other advanced economies.

I used to feel it was because I have more choices in the US, but some sectors here like telecom or travel are much less competitive than OECD norms.

No place is perfect, of course. But I am in SV because I love the work environment, not the quality of life in the USA which I consider flat and exhausting compared to the other countries I’ve lived in.

landedgentry2• 3 years ago

It's death by a thousand paper cuts. A lot of things simply cannot be depended on to work in the U.S., and you have to spend a lot of time chasing them down.

More examples: budgeting flexible spending accounts, choosing health insurance annually, finding doctors in your network (and checking again and again, with multiple sources), hotels losing your reservation, airlines overbooking flights, mail and deliveries disappearing, people promising and not returning calls, etc.

nus07• 3 years ago

Ehh we here in US got better things to do with taxes like spending it to build another fighter jet so we can send it to the Middle East in the name of Freedom . I am told you guys in Western Europe enjoy your stability because of the “freedom” we bring for all of you at the cost of our own healthcare , worker protections and social safety net. Look we are martyrs.

*my brother in law lives in Germany making less than half of what I make and I still envy his lifestyle . He and his wife are going on a 20 day trip to Greece and I am on-call over the holidays . But I make more than double and have my “freedom” and supposed choice of where my tax dollars go.

actionfromafar• 3 years ago

Sure, but replace jets with “health care middlemen” and you get the real spending.

decafninja• 3 years ago

I more or less quadrupled my income a few years ago, and as someone who loves to travel, this has opened a lot of doors in terms of travel. I can travel to more places, for longer, not to mention doing so more comfortably/luxuriously. If before I could comfortably afford one international vacation a year, I can afford several.

Obviously I’m not aware of what you or your brother in law make, but I’d imagine you’d easily be able to replicate his Greek vacation if you’re making double what he is.

On a more general non-travel note, I feel after you exceed a certain threshold of income in the US, you can just bulldoze your way into matching or exceeding most of the European social benefits including healthcare. Definitely possible if you’re making FAANG or near-FAANG level.

On the subject of SWE comp, an Italian SWE colleague half jokingly told me he’d make more as a gondolier in Venice than in a typical Italian SWE job. Curious if that’s really true.

refurb3• 3 years ago

I guess it depends on what you’re looking for because I had the opposite experience.

I went from carefully budgeting each month, thinking about buying a house maybe in a decade (or two). And put away a few hundred for retirement each month. Job opportunities were ok, but options limited.

Then I went to the US and got a 100% pay bump. And pay has only increased after that. I bought a house 2 years after arriving in the US. I was putting away 10x in savings. Suddenly retiring before I was 65 was an option.

I went from being “ok” to a state where I didn’t have to worry if I had a major expensive. The mental load went away. I could think about retiring early. Not to mention the career opportunities. I had multiple employers and cities I could work in. Sure, healthcare is a hassle, but I didn’t have to be a 1 year waitlist for a primary physician.

Overall moving to the US was a huge life upgrade for me.

6bb32646d83d• 3 years ago

Same experience here.

Yes, my friends back home are on vacations 5 weeks a year. But I can do something in the US that almost nobody can do in Europe: put away >$100k every year and run toward financial independence and an early retirement.

Back in Europe, my friends don't even think about something like that. They all just accept that they'll be working until 63, 65 or whatever the retirement age will be when they're older.

And it's not just tech. My wife is in another sector and also makes a lot more than she would in Europe.

splintercell3• 3 years ago

Replace "rich" with "secure" in OP's comment, and it will make a lot more sense.

FirmwareBurner4• 3 years ago

As an American living in Berlin for 2 years [...] but I feel just as "rich"

You probably lucked out on landing a good job and housing, otherwise it's difficult to feel even remotely rich in Berlin as you search for housing if you're moving in right now.

Landing a good job right now is also insanely difficult if you don't have the in-demand skills & experience, a stellar resume, and willing to do lengthy take home tests or leetcode. It's highly competitive right now.

Your experience is more like survivorship bias.

roflyear3• 3 years ago

It's funny in a way: because the US spends so much on its military, its allies do not have to. This of course is an enormous benefit to the US: but it's a great way for allies of the US to prosper under the might of the US military while maintaining security in this regard.

FirmwareBurner4• 3 years ago

because the US spends so much on its military, its allies do not have to

The US also doesn't have to spend so much on military considering it has no enemies at it's borders. It can always ramp down and spend the extra on social services. Ask yourself why doesn't it do that?

but it's a great way for allies of the US to prosper under the might of the US military while maintaining security in this regard

Oh please, stop being so generous with your allies, you don't have to. You have this a bit backwards.

It's mainly the US who prospers from the oversized military. Do you think the US would stay the world reserve currency and as influential on the world stage in terms of decision making, if the US had the military the size of Denmark? It's precisely that powerful military that allows the US to dictate a lot of international terms and deals in its favor: "Oh, you're a commie nation with different values than us? Then enjoy our globally imposed embargo and sanctions that will impoverish your people."

The US could save a lot of money by shrinking its military and global influence to just cover the US/NA instead of the whole world, but then that would leave a worldwide power vacuum that China will gladly fill and that would also make the US less influential and therefore poorer.

So you see, the US spends 'hella stacks' to be the world reigning superpower because it profits more than it spends.

splintercell3• 3 years ago

The move started with a bit of sticker shock at having my income effectively cut in half - lower salaries and higher taxes - but I feel just as "rich".

The thing you're feeling is not same amount of "rich", but same amount of security.

If your mental model shifted, You would find out the difference between these two things. For instance, if your aim was to make as much money as possible as soon as possible, then move to a place with much lower cost of living and work far less (or not at all), then you would not find this to be the same amount of "rich".

CalRobert• 3 years ago

It's remarkable how there are some things I just couldn't find in the US at (nearly) any price. I wanted to live somewhere I felt safe with my kids biking to school and living car-free as a family. And there are some places that kinda-sorta-barely might be doable for that (Portland, culdesac in Tempe but I've zero interest in Arizona, maybe Davis, parts of New York though it's not ideal for kids biking safely, one of those cities with golf-cart paths), but no matter what my budget I couldn't really find anywhere that gives me what I get for the price of a basic house in pretty much any city in the Netherlands.

I know I'd have more money in the US, but having lived there for 30 years, I'm confident my quality of life would be worse.

alberth• 3 years ago

”the time off minimum STARTS at 28 days a year”

In German culture, do people take 100% of their allowed time off?

In US culture, it’s a bit frowned upon within certain fields.

Rant423• 3 years ago

do people take 100% of their allowed time off?

Yes. In some places, they FORCE you to take your allowed time off

jacek• 3 years ago

My personal opinion here.

For a long time GDP and standard of living/well-being of a society have been correlated that people started to think that these are the same. These two are becoming more and more detached each year with progressing inequality. To the point that GDP now tells us very little about a country.

For example Bermuda. The high GDP per capita incomes is fueled by offshore financial services, but that does not translate to personal wealth of the citizens. And Qatar. More than 50% of population are immigrants working mostly in low-paying jobs often in terrible conditions. They generate wealth, but they are not considered citizens. Finally the elephant in the room - USA. GDP per capita means jack shit if half of the wealth belongs to a few people.

epolanski4• 3 years ago

GDP being a weak and misleading metric has been known to be a factor from many decades.

It's just an easy and lazy measurement most can (or think they) understand.

jakub_g• 3 years ago

Apart from money not being everything, it's also much "averages vs medians" (vs distributions) again.

People love using averages because they're a single number, and easy to calculate.

Medians are more difficult to calc, and distributions and percentiles are something most people are never taught, and it's no longer a single number which is easy to (artificially) compare.

j7ake3• 3 years ago

Difficult to compare usa vd European countries due to size differences.

Better to compare individual states vs European countries.

How does California compare with Norway Is better than usa vs Norway.

epolanski4• 3 years ago

All countries are relatively big/small compared to others.

Switzerland is comparable in size to some of the biggest US counties (San Bernardino is half of Switzerland e.g.).

ObscureScience• 3 years ago

It would be interesting to see this using median income or similar meassure rather than GDP per capita. Inequality by itself doesn't have to be a problem (depending on economic ideology) but if all purchasing power is restricted to a few ultra rich that should be relevant to the discussion of whether a country is rich.

beefield• 3 years ago

This. And also adjusted on what you get for your tax money. (Say, median income after taxes, health care, student loans and pension savings.) And adjusted for the amount of holidays you have.

thatwasunusual2• 3 years ago

All this data is available on the interwebz. I'm a Norwegian, but has worked in several countries around the world, among them the US.

According to this site,[0] the median income in US and Norway was $24K-ish in 2021 (2019 numbers for Norway), while this Wikipedia article[1] lists countries based on average annual working hours (OECD, 2022).

Based on this, we can deduce that:

* Americans are paid $13.3/hour

* Norwegians are paid $16.9/hour

It's worth noting that even though Norway doesn't have a "general" minimum wage, except for some jobs, it's considered to be $21/hour.

[0] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/median-in...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_a...

e12e3• 3 years ago

Fwiw those numbers look sensible for Norway - but note that median household income after tax is about double (590k nok):

https://www.ssb.no/statbank/sq/10090867

Not sure how that compares to the us numbers.

dudul2• 3 years ago

Is GDP per person even useful? Ok, the country is rich, cool, now what? GDP pp doesn't tell me anything about how the citizens benefit from it.

Mizza• 3 years ago

I think these calculations are essentially horseshit.

Norway is an oil company with a nation state subsidiary. Salaries and purchasing power are significantly lower than the in US. Is there an alternative to GDP that doesn't include externally invested oil profits?

epolanski4• 3 years ago

Why do people feel personally offended by these statistics?

It's a GDP per capita with some adjustment ranking.

Don't understand why is it triggering you. The news isn't about average salary or purchasing power.

kwhitefoot• 3 years ago

In Norway we distinguish between offshore and onshore GDP [1]. The ool income goes straight into the oil fund and that does not invest in Norway and neither does a large amount of the income generated from it get spent in Norway.

So yes, there is an alternative, just do the statistics properly.

[1] https://www.ssb.no/nasjonalregnskap-og-konjunkturer/nasjonal...

RadixDLT2• 3 years ago

it's not just Norway, all the oil rich countries float to top on this list. So indeed they are calculating how rich is the country's bank accounts because the money is distributed through social services, which is basically free money.

sgt101• 3 years ago

This is where aggregates are really tricky. I think that they are using means at the average - this is a serious issue.

The thing is WHO is this money for? If the long tail of the population are subsisting on $20k a year while the top 1% are living large on $1M a year then things are going to feel very hard for the "average" Joe/Joanne.

refurb3• 3 years ago

I think one has to be careful with the “hours worked”. I noticed Singapore takes a huge hit, but after working there, the hours often include a 2hr lunch, and frequent breaks.

At least at the company I was at, people got less work done in 10 hours than my American coworkers did in 7.

RadixDLT2• 3 years ago

there are 100 ways to calculate who is the richest country and you will get 100 deferent results

the countries on the list also happen to be the most socialists who distributes half of your paycheck to everybody else

refurb3• 3 years ago

You have to be careful with GDP because for some countries that money goes offshore.

Ireland is a tax haven for corporations. Google sells their IP to Google Ireland, then charges for it across a swath of markets. Then the money flows back to Ireland as GDP.

But it doesn’t stay there, it flows back to Google USA.

throw0101b• 3 years ago

Is there a list of the happiest countries in 2023?

(Aren't most people, to use a particular phrase, pursuing happiness (in the Aristotelian sense?)? Of course, money can certainly help with that.)

The Richest Countries in 2023

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