Britain poorer than Mississippi

[BritishMississippi]

Our GDP per capita has now dipped to the level of America’s poorest state. It’s not dipped below due solely to London. We’ve been on a spiral for the last twenty years that means our children are facing not being able to find jobs and even the jobs they can find have miserable wages attached to them. AIBU that we need to engage quite seriously with how to bring the country out of this spiral in a meaningful way?

Those..

People forget how desperate the UK was to join the EU. Our more relaxed labour laws meant we went from the poor man of Europe and we're a hub for investment for the UK.

People on this thread have commented on how our growth has outpaced some EU countries at times since brexit- but it would have done so by more if we were still in the single market.

The purse strings are tightening for everyone and now labour are arguing over defence spending. realistically it doesn't matter who is in power. The country is getting poorer and there'll be constant arguing over how to slice up a shrinking (in real terms) pie.

I know GDP per capita is a poor metric for looking at how well people are doing on average but this article is interesting - thanks.

I'll tell you what is working - the Stock Market! Crazy levels of returns, not many people in the UK invest in it (apart from their pensions - which they seem blissfully unaware of) compared to Americans.

No it doesn’t count because the article specifically pins the decline to just after the 2008 crash. The Tories have been in power for most of the last 18 years.

The argument is this:

GDP per person in the UK has declined.

This strongly suggests that, on average, each individual is working less effectively (maybe fewer hours, maybe less efficiently) than in 2008.

The question is why given we also know that wages and salaries have been going up in this period.

One strong contender of an explanation is that more people are choosing to work fewer hours or even decide not to work at all.

A number of factors might influence people to do this. Our tax system has some cliff edge thresholds which means people may manage their earnings to stay below these thresholds.

An explanation which is controversial but plausible too is that the significant increase in benefits over the period has led to some people choosing not to work because they can still have a decent standard of living on benefits.

@TheFrendoCan you point to any economic data supporting your assertion that our per capita gdp has fallen due to immigrants? All I can find either says it’s a positive effect or neutral. I do think this is an important point to hash out because it’s often trotted out.

Interesting article. Thank you.

How much did they cost?

It’s ok I saw it said “back of the envelope comparison” which means it’s probably just a random excel screenshot created by an X user.

10 years down the line and still blaming and blaming and blaming. Start looking for some solutions and ideas to move on. It's getting really old. One of the reasons the UK is in such a mess and polarised is people like yourself with their righteous ingination and inability to see anything but their own point of view and just won't accept a democratic decision and always blame and label. All you do is entrench political thinking.
History is full of poor decisions, politicians misrepresenting situations for their own ends with devastating consequences and society having to embrace and change to realities. We were mislead on Brexit, as we are misled every political campaign there has ever been. But it's history now. Solutions and leadership is needed.
What do you actually achieve by this constant labelling and blaming. Does it make you feel superior or something.

What frightens me the most about all of this is AI hasn’t even kicked in yet. Over the next three years there’s going to be more and more job losses and I’m honestly not sure what happens then. I’ve listened to so many podcasts and can find nothing to put my mind at ease. Swathes of middle England is going to be unemployed and suddenly reliant on benefits.

I often read quite disparaging comments on the US on Mumsnet. I am no fan of trump, but it should be acknowledged that the US is significantly richer and that for average professional people, teachers, accountants, lawyers and para legals, IT people etc wages are not just a bit higher , they are considerably higher. The difference in my view is that the economy is more dynamic. Risk takers are valued and welfare is very limited indeed. We do have the NHS that is true, and in the US poorer people really do suffer. However, for middle and higher earners medical outcomes are often very much better. Turning up at A&E in 2026 feels very third world and there is quite a lot of data which suggests a number of people die unnecessarily before they get treated. Makes you think doesn't it.

I see why you say this but I actually believe you are thinking about Musk wrongly.

He is undeniably successful and an amazing innovator. He has done things that no one else has done. Every time a govt tells you it will do something, think how much quicker and cheaper it would be with Musk.

Starlink and SpaceX especially are gamechangers.

Musk doesn't need to be a trillionaire when he is a billionaire. I believe he actually cares about the human race and he genuinely believes that we, in the UK, are making huge mistakes.

You do not have to agree with him, but I think it's an error to dismiss him so easily.

I'm no statistician and I admit to not having much knowledge about GDP etc., however would a better comparator be a similar sized country in the EU? For example, France, Germany, Sweden or wherever. Countries that have plenty of immigration both visa led and asylum seeker, have very generous social supports and benefits, have affordable and efficient health care.

The result might be even worse than comparing UK with Mississippi!

My point is that leaving the EU was catastrophic. UK is the very epitome of an isolated island now.

The only polarisation is in your post. All I've done is post bare facts.

We were mislead on Brexit

I wasn't. I did my own thinking which obviously led me to know that it would be a disaster. From the tone of your post I assume you're one of the delusional fantasists who voted for it, and are angry on being called out for what you have done to this country.

Well, tough luck. I know it's difficult to accept that you were fooled, that you're a mug, and that's why you're lashing out at me for pointing out the truth, but that's not my problem.

10 years is nothing. You don't get to handwave this away because it's been that long. The cost is HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF POUNDS and continues to cost us, as it will for DECADES.

Every one of the points on my list is the fault of Tory/Reform/Brexit supporters/the right wing/whatever you want to call them. And now those people have the absolute nerve to say that the solution is more of the same.

You won. Get over it.

As the Newsweek article quoted above explains, GDP is not the whole picture:

"The 'perception' of higher disposable income comes from the way Americans are forced to spend money out-of-pocket on things those other countries fund through taxes and social programs. If I'm paying 50 percent in taxes elsewhere but get real benefits like public transportation through infrastructure spending, pensions for retirement and universal healthcare, then sure, it looks like taxes are higher, but the costs are bundled differently."

The fact is that, in most European countries including the UK, people generally have a better overall quality of life than Americans. Also, one really needs to visit Mississippi - or many of the poorer US states like West Virginia or Alabama, to see what real, abject poverty looks like.

As for the UK, until we come to an agreement to rejoin the single market, Brexit will continue to slow us down. It’ll probably take well over ten years to rejoin the EU, but ultimately that is the only sensible solution. Of course we’ll never regain the very favourable terms we had before we left.

The Gini Coefficient has the USA 25th highest (higher the less even wealth distribution) in the world on wealth inequality and UK is 140. Nothing to do with how much wealth per Country but how it is distributed within the Country. So despite what we may think, the wealth we create is fairly evenly distributed compared to the rest of the world. Which is why you need to look at the whole picture.
Worst European Country is Sweden and best European Country is North Macedonia.

What on earth are you talking about?

Who do you think is staffing the NHS, care homes, working as home carers, working in fields picking your fruit and veg, delivering your fast food and Amazon parcels?

Watch turd towns on YouTube. Its been going on far longer than Brexit

Yep that’s really bad, Labour seem silent on this. After hitting the labour market already.

We have 1 out of 8 people 16-24 are now NEET (not in education, employment or training. There simply aren’t the jobs. Education isn’t matching the jobs that are available. We need an education system tied to an economy that produces opportunities. The decline of the Uk over the last 20 years is WELL documented and not false news. We need a serious conversation beyond rejoin the EU. We could have done things to mitigate the effects of leaving the EU and did not. We continue to do very little.

Net contributors are stuck somewhere around 46% which means most people are taking rather than giving to the system. By region ONLY london, the SE and the east of England are contributors. This really should shock more people how reliant we are on a small part of the country. It shows systemic failure. We are tied up in conversations about who uses which bathroom while the very fabric of society is being worn so thin it may fail.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/young-people-and-work-interim-report/young-people-and-work-interim-report

Hating on Elon Musk is pretty ridiculous. As another poster has said he has started unique businesses from scratch. He’s not some oligarch that’s robbed from
the state.

Elon Musk is the modern-day equivalent of Henry Ford.