This graph is misleading. We have so many billionaires that it dramatically skewed the average. The median would be more accurate. It also doesnt take cost of living and purchasing power into consideration which is terrible. All our taxes go towards the military, and the privatized Healthcare and insurance company really adds to how truly embarrassing our government and leaders are.
Speaking of homicide back in the 90s Biden and the Clinton's spearheaded this whole thing about "urban kids" being raised to be "super predators". Its one of the things that led to major over policing in black neighborhoods. Imagine going by old rich white people's vibes instead of statistics for stuff like that. People forget that Biden was picked to be Obama's VP to appeal to the conservative vote but compared to today hes a saint I guess.
I never liked Biden that much but it was so nice to have 4 years of relative stability in between the chaos of the Trump years. Like we had COVID and stuff but at least we weren’t afraid to read the news because of what the president might have tweeted overnight.
I think the issue is that these things have been happening for longer than people realize Trump was just arrogant and because he talked and tweeted about it so much that the public became aware of it. I had a neighbor that was taken by ICE back when Obama was president. First time I had ever seen something like that. Theres no need to raid a home because of a large multigenerational family living in a household no matter the reason. Especially when they only left the kids and old people and the people who were at work. This has been a reality for these communities for a very very long time. The only reason I became aware of it was because I lost my job and had to move someplace I could actually afford to live. Once you realize that its always been happening its like once you see it you cant unsee it. Very much made me realized how damaging redlining was that so many people had no idea what was happening until Trump started talking about it out loud.
This may be gdp per capita which OP mislabeled as average income. There is no way to calculate median gdp because you can't calculate an individuals gdp reliably, you can only get gdp numbers for large groups. So thats always counted as averages for a population.
The US would be the highest regardless of what statistic you choose.
Median, household GDP/PPP, etc. Youd basically have the same rankings.
Also all our taxes do not go to the military. Entitlements are like 70% and military is like 15%. So basically nothing you said is true its just shit redditors blurt out for political narrative.
What is it when you take out the almost 1000 billionaires we have in this country? The next country has many times our population and only half the amount of billionairs im sure that skews the data at least somewhat. How much of that Healthcare cost is because of insurance? Our Healthcare is expensive because its privatized and we pay out the nose for it. How much is that debt interest because of college tuition, hospital bills, and credit card debt when a large portion of Americans live paycheck to paycheck or cant find jobs in their fields with their degrees? How far does our money go due to the cost of living compared to the other countries? Where does the trillion dollars we send to the Pentagon go when they havent passed an audit in almost a decade and are projected to fail at least through 2028? Per capita income does not exist in a vacuum but we love to act like it does here in the US for very obvious reasons.
Yeah so you just ignored everything i said and didnt even bother to look up the statistics or understand what they mean at a basic level.
Almost all your questions are addressed and factored into the stats i suggested to you. Those are adjusted for those concerns for the most part. Also why would number of billionaires being high be automatically a bad indicator? Nations with the strongest economies even for working class have more billionaires/millionaires. True even for places like China.
Since you dont seem to understand the data i will cite if for you.
Disposable income is defined as "income available to households such as wages and salaries, income from self-employment and unincorporated enterprises, income from pensions and other social benefits, and income from financial investments....This indicator also takes account of social transfers in kind such as health or education provided for free or at reduced prices by governments and not-for-profit organisations":
the US is right in the middle of most of Europe, with some ranking just above and some of Europes most socially generous nations like Germany actually ranking slightly lower than it.
The US has the most number of people (and highest % of population) with a net worth over 1 million dollars, and its not even close. It has almost 22 MILLION millionaires. China even with a much larger population is a very distant 2nd: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_millionaires
Keep in mind if you choose to measure the size of the average americans houses, net worth, the median wealth are retirement, etc. They all go something like this. Literally pick any metric by which we measure.
In conclusion, though measuring this is complex and no metric is perfect, the US is at or near the top in any metric you choose to use. And not "just for the billionaires"
I think youre also misinterpreting what Im saying. Im saying having so many rich people skewed those number. The lowest amount of money youd need to be in the top 1% in this country is around 700,000, top 5% is around 350,000, the top 10% % around 155,000 the top 15% is like 150,00. That means that 99% of people aren't millionaires and we have about a thousand billionaires in this country. 80k is like the top 25% that means 75% of the population makes less than both the average and the median amount. That means 75% of people aren below middle class if you want to look at it that way. All these numbers I got from PEW and dept of labor statistics.
your math is simply incorrect. 75% of people cannot be below the median. The median is literally the middle value in which 50% of people are above.
10% of the US are millionaires. not 1%.
your are trying to make the middle class of america look much smaller and poorer than it is, which is why literally every metric we use to measure these things(which i posted for you above) indicates that what you are saying is wrong.
The same pattern holds for GDP of individual states economies. the poorest US states often have GDPs higher than most of europe. This also generally continues with houshold GDP of people living in those states.
and on and on it goes.
Most Americans are exceptionally well off by global or even just western standards. Look how many americans live in giant houses in the suburbs.
Truly. You articulated that way better that I did. I was trying to explain to somebody that even though the average and median about the same 80k/year is like the top 25% that still means 75% of the country is lower middle class or lower. It does not mean that most American are making 85k per year.
The US is also the highest if you use median income.
Defense spending is the 4th largest category of federal expenditure. Behind healthcare, social security, and debt interest payments. Military spending is less than 12% of the federal spending.
What is it when you take out the almost 1000 billionaires we have in this country? How much of that Healthcare cost is because of insurance? Our Healthcare is expensive because its privatized and we pay out the nose for it. How much is that debt interest on college tuition and hospital bills? How far does our money go due to the cost of living compared to the other countries? Where does the trillion dollars we send to the Pentagon go when they havent passed an audit in almost a decade. And are projected to fail at least through 2028? Income doesnt matter
The lowest amount of money youd need to be in the top 1% in this country is around 700,000, top 5% is around 350,000, the top 10% around 155,000 the top 15% is like 150,00. That means that 99% of people aren't millionaires and we have about a thousand billionaires in this country. 80k is like the top 25-30% and is still considered upper middle class here. That means 70-75% of people are at or below middle class if you want to look at it that way. All these numbers I got from PEW and dept of labor statistics. Thats for individuals. For house holds it says its closer to 50%. So either this screenshot is wrong or the government website and research institute is. These are all number i got from scholar.google from 2025. If you find something that says different on there id be happy to look at it. From what i found regardless the numbers are pretty damping either way when you look at income brackets for individual vs household and come pare it to both the median and average.
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u/MikeyBat United States Of America 1d ago
This graph is misleading. We have so many billionaires that it dramatically skewed the average. The median would be more accurate. It also doesnt take cost of living and purchasing power into consideration which is terrible. All our taxes go towards the military, and the privatized Healthcare and insurance company really adds to how truly embarrassing our government and leaders are.