In this post, we’ll walk through a map of global wealth — with data on incomes, cost of living, and purchasing power across 110 countries.

The Wealth of Nations: income, cost of living, and purchasing power for 110 countries

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2024-10-02 10:00:04

In this post, we’ll walk through a map of global wealth — with data on incomes, cost of living, and purchasing power across 110 countries.

The data is visualized below in three ways: a geographic map, scatterplot chart, and a tool to compare countries head-to-head.

All data is shown as a relative index, where the value for the United States equals 100. An index value of 120 means “20% higher than USA”, while an index value of 75 means “25% lower than USA”.

The drop-down menu lets you choose between analysing cost of living, income, or purchasing power [1]. Countries are color-coded based on their index value (brighter colors = higher values).

Note [1]: “Purchasing Power” is a metric that takes into consideration both income and cost of living, to determine whether one country is richer/better off than another country.

For example, average income in Switzerland is 19% higher than average income in the USA. However, cost of living is 26% higher in Switzerland. Therefore, on a purchasing power basis, people in Switzerland are ~6% poorer (they can buy less goods and/or save less than the average American).