If you compare per capita income, the poorest US state, Mississippi, is ahead of France.Image: Imago/Watson
analysis
According to many economists, the USA has left Europe far behind economically.
July 11, 2026, 11:47 amJuly 11, 2026, 11:47 am
In 2014, the average per capita income per year was $37,024 in France and $36,184 in the American state of Mississippi. Ten years later, the average French person earned $46,103 a year, while his counterpart in Mississippi earned $55,876.
Numbers don’t lie, so: Shut up, dead monkey. People in the poorest American state are doing better economically than those in one of the richest European countries. (Incidentally, the Economist presented similar figures for Germany years ago.) All economists who complain about Europe’s decline and all American CEOs who make fun of their European colleagues are right.
Which applies: GDP or PPP?
Or not? Why is it that the affordability crisis is the dominant issue in the US right now? Why do we read that in what is supposed to be the richest country in the world, around half of the people live from paycheck to paycheck (from paycheck to paycheck) and are thrown off their financial path by an unplanned expenditure of $400?
Economics repeatedly claims to be an exact science. But it’s not her. It depends on what you are comparing. If you take the gross domestic product (GDP) – i.e. all the goods and services produced in a country – as a benchmark, then everyone who has already written off Europe is right. However, if you compare the purchasing power, the PPP (Purchasing Power Parity), the whole thing looks different.
As Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman notes, the relationship between the US and France regarding PPP has changed little in the last 25 years. Krugman therefore also recommends a so-called “walking around test”, which means: you walk, look around and let these impressions guide you. In this test, things are looking bad for Mississippi.
With Paris, France has one of the most beautiful, perhaps even the most beautiful, city in the world. And: hand on heart? Who knows the capital of Mississippi? It’s called Jackson and as far as its attractiveness goes: Unlike Paris, it doesn’t really suffer from overtourism.
Likes Europe: the economist Paul Krugman.Image: keystone
Paul Krugman therefore states: “Europe is simply not poor in the same way as Mississippi. What’s more, in many respects Europe can certainly keep up with the United States.”
What is undeniable, however, is that productivity in the American economy has increased significantly more than in the European economy. However, the tech sector is almost exclusively responsible for this. However, everyone benefits equally from Silicon Valley products; an iPhone works the same everywhere in the world.
This also applies to the relationship between the American states. “Per capita income, measured in terms of fixed prices, has increased more in California than in Texas,” says Krugman. “Despite this, the Texas government (…) does not commission any studies to examine the dwindling competitiveness of its state.”
The EU, on the other hand, has done exactly this. Mario Draghi, the former President of the European Central Bank and Italian Prime Minister, prepared such a report in 2023 and listed a whole series of measures on how Europe can improve its competitiveness. How widely they are implemented is another story.
The higher productivity in the USA also has a very banal reason: Americans work more and longer, while Europeans enjoy their holidays and can rely on a better-developed welfare state. “The lower per capita income in Europe cannot therefore be viewed as a problem, but rather as the result of an election,” states Krugman. «As a choice that prefers to consider other things more important than work.»
French people live longer
Seen in this light, it is no coincidence that the average life expectancy in France is 4.7 years higher than in the USA. If you take Alabama – a state that is just as poor as Mississippi – as a comparison, it is nine years.
The Draghi report shows that Europe actually needs some reforms if it doesn’t want to lose touch with the USA and perhaps soon also China. But the oft-quoted fear that Europe will become a big Disneyland is unfounded. In the latest hit parade of cities with the highest quality of life, four European cities are listed – including Zurich and Geneva – but not a single American one.