UK is poorer than Mississippi and not much richer than Italy or Spain or former East Germany (without London in the equation)

[rosetintedmemories2023]

Does this shock you?

A welfare state and free healthcare is generally the preserve of rich countries. It makes sense why the NHS pay is no longer competitive (whether inside or outside London) as the country can only pay proportionately to its wealth (even if you make a policy decision to try to pay essential workers well, there is only so much you can do without overstretching)..

Yep the daily misery feed. So many of these threads going on atm.

London is only "rich" as such because it has sucked the economic life out of the rest of the country. Just think of all the local/regional offices that have been closed down when the entire financial and professional industries centralised themselves within London, all the head offices, etc.

They're making money out of the rest of the UK, i.e. from customers/clients all over the UK, but the income/profits generated are classed as London derived because that's where their head offices are.

If the rest of the UK didn't exist, the "London" firms wouldn't have anywhere near as many customers (many/most of whom are outside London), so their incomes/profits would plummet!

WiFi and 5G/H+ are completely different things, but if you're reliant on H+ you might be in trouble soon with the 3G switch off.

We should definitely care more about economic inequality than we do; and the IFS through the Deaton Review has some excellent resources for people wanting to know more https://ifs.org.uk/inequality/

I would challenge though that the UK is poorer than Mississippi. If we look at life expectancy. people live on average an extra 5 years in the UK. Healthcare, (with all the problems within the NHS) is a big area of difference https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/dec/16/mississippi-miserly-healthcare-system

We do desperately need better education and mental health support for young people- we are building up huge problems within our future workforce. We also need a more balanced economy- which governments have been wanting to address for years, but it has not improved. I think we need a long term, cross political solution to this; the problems are too big

@stickygotstuck I heard a similar line, that the UK is a poor country with some very rich people

It is poorer than Mississipi on a gdp per capita.

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https://www.ft.com/content/e5c741a7-befa-4d49-a819-f1b0510a9802

It will surprise nobody that London accounts for an outsized share of Britain’s output, but the magnitude of the UK’s economic monopolarity is remarkable. Removing London’s output and headcount would shave 14 per cent off British living standards, precisely enough to slip behind the last of the US states. Britain in the aggregate may not be as poor as Mississippi, but absent its outlier capital it would be. '

I posted the graphic but its not very clear if you don't enlarge it. Basically if you take away london, the average gdp per capita across the UK, we are poorer than mississippi. Given that most Britons don't live in London.

you are talking about quality of life. That is important but then it can also be subjective.

Good healthcare is important but that has less to do with wealth than to do with the country's public policy priorities (political) and also demographics and habits. America has a big problem with drugs and guns, the latter has a large part to do with its history. That massively decreases quality of life standards (UK doesn't have that problem). We also don't have a problem with south american drug cartels.

However, gdp per capita are numbers, we can't run and hide from it. Also if you are a wealthy country who makes poor decisions regarding how to allocate your wealth, it is easier down the road to make some better decisions (and prioritize healthcare/equality/well-being). Its a better position to be in than not having the wealth to invest in anything in the first place. I am sure many third world countries out there would love to be able to afford to provide free healthcare and free education (and many do so on paper). But its the money that is the problem.

Yes, you're absolutely correct, my bad. Yes I meant mobile signal. It makes running my business very difficult at times. I understand about the crap WiFi problem too.

This is the kind of delusional thinking that gave us Brexit.

Investment (FDI) flows into London because the north is poor, with few skilled people.

So the skilled, younger folks all flock down to London because they see no future up north.

Thats not going to change.

Until you put more value on education and health up north (both metrics are awful), you won't be seeing much investment that produces jobs because the returns on said capital would be terrible vs other options.

Investors are not charities. They do not put money into projects unless they can get an adequate return on said investment.

There are very few of these opportunities up north for the reasons I outlined.

life goes on. But you can't expect free healthcare and a welfare system and state pensions if the country is poor. Middle class British life (home ownership, retirement, two children on a modest income) is massively subsidised by the state.

If they had to pay for healthcare, rely on private pension (which the state would probably tax/raid at some point due to lack of money), have massive savings due to no free healthcare (less money to spend on home repairs and buying a home), that is a massive lifestyle change. There would be less confidence to spend freely .

Well, I actually think that holding up.Labour run Wales as an example of how Labour may run the country a bit of a red herring. Essentially, Wales is reliant on Westminster for funding so Labour's hands are tied in many ways. Having said that, I did think starmer might be the shining light we need, but having listened to what he's saying for the last few years, I just don't know. I believe he is a man of honesty and integrity, but I just don't know beyond that. Its a clusterfuck, and I'm just really glad I can vote lib dem with a clear conscience.

@TheThinkingGoblin

So the skilled, younger folks all flock down to London because they see no future up north.

They flock to London because that's the only place where they can get jobs! No point in having an Actuarial Science degree and trying to live in Cumbria as there are no insurance firms in Cumbria since Provincial and Prudential relocated to London!

The reality is that graduates all over the UK "flock" to London and a handful of other big cities because there aren't any graduate jobs anywhere else!

The country is completely unbalanced. People would stay in their home/university areas if they could get decent jobs in those areas. Often, unless they go into teaching or the NHS, there are no such jobs, so they have to relocate, which is usually to London.

So, we're imagining that we didn't have London ...and, wait, wait is that the sound of a supervolcano erupting in the distance ... And now we all agreeing this would require some deep concern...are you feeling happier now?

Wales funding is higher pp than England though

That cycle of poverty and poor outcome is concerning. As much as people get annoyed with the wealth in London at least it’s funding the rest

@TheThinkingGoblin

Until you put more value on education and health up north (both metrics are awful), you won't be seeing much investment that produces jobs because the returns on said capital would be terrible vs other options.

You're ignoring all the high quality universities "up north" such as Leeds, Durham, York, Lancaster, Newcastle, etc., which attract good quality students from all over the UK, yes, including London and the SE. Trouble is they can't get jobs locally to their University, so there's a massive flow to London/SE when they graduate.

It's not all about the locals who were born and bred "up north". When there's an influx of high quality students from all over the UK, and abroad, it's a bit stupid that they can't stay in their northern cities after graduation because of lack of local jobs!

The lower educated and lower health "locals" are a different matter, but again, if there were thriving economies in their towns (fuelled by top quality graduates), they'd have more options for improving their lot!

Dooooooooom!

Doom is fashionable.

I know a lot of people who’ve moved to the UK from Hong Kong and they are so excited abiut how much better itnis here.

Was the UK richer and happier in the 1990s? Yes.

Did Brexit make the UK a lot poorer? Yes.

Is the UK comparable to a third world country? Don’t be ridiculous.

Can we vote to go back in?
Now we know how awful life this side is?

rosetintedmemories2023
UK is poorer than Mississippi and not much richer than Italy or Spain or former East Germany (without London in the equation)

How does France compare op - with Paris taken out of the equation?

Or Mississippi without Jackson, presumably?

Not necessarily. How about if, say, insurance firms were spread more over the UK instead of concentrated in London? Their customers/clients are all over the UK anyway, none limit their customer base to London. Then the regions and smaller cities/towns would have big insurance firm offices close to them, employing local people and thus improving the local economy, giving jobs to locals, employees spending their wages in local businesses etc.

Perhaps instead of saying London produces the economic output solely because their head offices are based in London, how about we turn it around and allocate the income/profits of national companies based on where their customers are located. So a customer, based, say, in Cumbria, has the "profit" on their custom allocated to Cumbria, where they're based, instead of London, where the firm's head office is based?

I will always vote YABU if a post doesn't make clear what you're actually asking AIBU about.

Am I shocked at these stats? Not really.

Are they meaningful? Not really. How does the UK without London compare to Mississippi without Jackson? Italy without Milan or Spain without Madrid?

This is a reflection of economic inequality. Am I overjoyed by the levels of inequality in the UK? Not really.

OP of course if you remove the capital city and the south east from the equation the rest of the UK is poorer. But that is the same for all countries. If in my home country we removed our capital and surrounding areas from the equation it would be the same. Yes the UK is getting poorer but don’t fear monger.

I don’t mind things being spread out but I heard an interesting view the other day. It was discussing productivity and the reason cities add to higher productivity. It’s when live together we end up more likely to specialise.

It’s that specialised skill which has high productivity rates

I don’t really get the op though. If we removed London yes we’d all be poorer, but why are we using that as a metric? Each country relies on capital cities for prosperity

They also said we’re very good at ingenuity and creativity we just need to scale up and use attractive tax rates more

I don'think this is a new thing and I'm not remotely surprised.

What makes you think insurance firms are all in London?