by Ryan McMaken
Mises.org
Last year, I posted an article titled “If Sweden and Germany Became US States, They Would be Among the Poorest States” which, produced a sizable and heated debate, including that found in the comments below this article at The Washington Post. The reason for the controversy, of course, is that it has nearly reached the point of dogma with many leftists that European countries enjoy higher standards of living thanks to more government regulation and more social benefits. What the data really suggests, however, is that even after social benefits are incorporated into the income data, the median American still has a higher income than most European countries.
Since I published that analysis last October, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) based in Paris has updated the numbers. Here is the ranking straight fom the latest “Society at a Glance” report from the OECD: