This series (see here, here, here, here, here, and here) has a very simple purpose.

Simply stated, I want people to understand that none of America’s economic challenges will be solved by copying Europe’s high-tax welfare states.

Today’s column will add two more pieces of evidence.

We’ll start with this visual showing per-capita consumption at various income levels for OECD nations. I added a red line so readers can compare how Americans a the 5th percentile (i.e., very low-income) compare to people in other nations.

The obvious takeaway is that these poor Americans have living standards roughly equal to average people in Sweden, Finland, Canada, France, and the United Kingdom.

And those poor Americans are way ahead of average people in countries such as Italy, Portugal, Spain, and Greece.

The obvious question is whether the United States should be copying Europe, or vice-versa.

If the goal is to have a thriving society, the answer should be obvious.

Here’s another way of comparing nations, courtesy of Our World in Data. It shows how living standards have changed over time (adjusted for inflation) for various income deciles in the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Sweden.

The obvious takeaway is that the poorest deciles in these four nations are somewhat similar, but that every other income group in the United States is better off their counterparts in the other countries.

Looking at this data, we have to again consider the question of whether the United States should try to be more like Europe, or whether Europe should try to be more like the United States.

Seems like a no-brainer, assuming the goal is maximum thriving for the maximum number of people.

I’ll close by noting that not all European nations are the same. As a general rule, Northern European nations are more market-oriented than Southern European countries, so it’s not surprise that they do better (or less worse).

Simply compare Sweden and Greece.

P.S. In the interest of fairness, Greece has moved in the right direction in recent years. Hopefully that trend will continue even though statist bureaucrats at the OECD are trying to drag them in the wrong direction.