The U.S. is up 39% since that time: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A229RX0 [EDIT: Didn’t see it was disposable real income per capita. That figure is 39% not 30%.][1]
The only countries that outperformed the U.S. were former soviet-aligned countries, Malta, and Iceland.
[1] I don’t know if the Fed disposable income calculation accounts for everything the EU calculation does, specifically the value of free services. European growth could be higher if their welfare states and tax burdens have gotten relatively larger during this time.
> Adjusted gross disposable income of households per capita in real terms is the total amount of money households have available for spending and saving after subtracting income taxes and pension contributions, plus the individual goods and services (such as education and health services) received free of charge from government and non-profit institutions serving households. Real means that its nominal value is adjusted for price increases (by the deflator of household actual final consumption expenditure). Per capita indicates that the value was divided by the total population.
The "real median household income" is a per-household number (divided by number of households), while the "EU household real income per capita" is a per-capita number (divided by number of people). Household sizes are different and shrinking at different rates. Also, I think the EU figure is an average, not a median.
As I noted above, the Fed figure may not include imputed income from social benefits. So if social benefits are increasing as a share of European incomes, the comparison above may understate the EU's growth relative to the US.
Because they're so big they drag the mean up. It's like, people sometimes say the USA can't have good public transport because its big and empty, but if Alaska and Nevada stopped being part of the USA the official population density would increase despite nobody getting closer.
As a fact, to cause their removal from the economy and not just modify reporting to understand the economy better?
1. Dutch disease.
2. They might choose to take themselves out of the USA if they decide they're big enough to be able to choose not to submit to US laws, just like some have relocated from CA to TX.
3. There's potential for US or non-US courts to demand breakup or limitations on economic rent extraction (e.g. App Store fees) for monopoly/market abuse reasons.
And to stop them getting so big that #2 is possible. Cyberpunk may appeal to some business leaders, but I don't think any politicians like it.
Same reason anyone removes outliers from any analysis. The average person eats zero spiders per year, if we don't count Spiders Georg. He is not an average person. We count him separately from the average people.
The USA is sick. It's just lucky to have a tech bubble that counteracts its sickness. By analysing minus the tech bubble, we can see that tech is the only thing holding the economy above water.
The only countries that outperformed the U.S. were former soviet-aligned countries, Malta, and Iceland.
[1] I don’t know if the Fed disposable income calculation accounts for everything the EU calculation does, specifically the value of free services. European growth could be higher if their welfare states and tax burdens have gotten relatively larger during this time.