EU dominates quality of life metrics globally.

[u/Rude_Priority_]

[u/takesshitsatwork]

Huh, the US did much better than I expected and beat the EU in several key areas, like overall happiness.

[u/According-Gazelle → u/takesshitsatwork]

What else did you expect? Alot of the States like Massachusessets , Colorado , Minnesota and alot of New England states have the same HDI as Norway or Switzerland.

[u/machine4891 → u/takesshitsatwork]

US is weird and suck in many areas but if one start to believe reddit about this "3rd world country" nonsense, one can only blame himself.

[u/agent00F → u/machine4891]

Europeans just don't like to admit that the US is just a considerably wealthier country.

They still have this elevated sense of themselves when even much of Asia shares a similar quality of life.

[u/Olibirus → u/agent00F]

Don't forget that a huge part of their wealth is extremely concentrated on the top 1%, much more so than in Europe for instance.

[u/Jensbert → u/takesshitsatwork]

EU is not France, Italy, Germany, Spain.. it´s also Bulgaria, Romania, Estland, Lettland, etc

[u/litritium → u/takesshitsatwork]

The US ought to be performing better, considering the amount of money spent over the last 15ish years.

Around $1.5–2 trillion pumped into the economy annually since US realised that they could print money en masse without hyper inflation under Obama.
And unlike certain European countries that have used debt to fund welfare and pensions, Trump has been completely cynical and uncompromising in pumping money into the moneymaking elite - without regard for the environment, the climate, or the debt burden.

I always get awestrucked when I check the finances of the US big corp. The 5-6 big tech companies are raking in half a trillion dollars in profits. Every year.

[u/GrapefruitNo3808 → u/litritium]

Exactly what do you think the main drivers of US deficits are? They're Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, and other transfer programs. Poverty and child poverty is at an all-time low, violent crime and property crime have been in decline for the last 3 decades with another 20% drop in homicides projected for this year, drug overdoses and obesity rates are going down, & PISA scores are higher than in all but a handful of European countries (Poland, Estonia, Ireland, UK, Switzerland).

[u/Culpirit → u/GrapefruitNo3808]

But you forgot than on Reddit, the US not being hell on earth and this not being the worst moment in history are unpopular ideas

[u/litritium → u/GrapefruitNo3808]

A large part of the debt have paid for tax cuts through the last decades. The succes of the education system is partly linked to the succes of the private sector, which pours money into research. Both the US health and education sector are investing their holdings back into the private sector because it is lucrative.

And yes, American students living in affluent suburbs perform well in reading and science.

US has undoubtful improved significantly over the past few decades. I still remember a USA struggling with gangs, homicides and ghettos before the country launched a spending spree.

But I think US might have seen more sustainable and broad improvements if they had spend more money on general welfare vs taxcuts. Then again, had US created the same corporate winners? Hard to say.

[u/No-Confidence-9191 → u/litritium]

Sorry mate, I think you got your numbers mixed up, and massively so. The big tech companies like Microsoft, Apple, Nvidia, Google, Apple...all had revenues in the range of 200-400 billion. Not profits. Revenue. As in: Every single thing which they earn pre-taxes, pre-spendings they had to do etc.

[u/Tight_File2220 → u/takesshitsatwork]

The "happiness" is a misleading metric which combines a few quality of life measures that can be perfectly high even if you are clinically depressed.

[u/takesshitsatwork → u/Tight_File2220]

The US also beat the EU in air quality and HDI. I guess those are also misleading.

[u/Tight_File2220 → u/takesshitsatwork]

Those are pretty specific and well-defined as far as I can see.

[u/icankillpenguins → u/takesshitsatwork]

You should go check out the happiness of poor and shitty countries or dictatorships, people are often very happy in those. Turkey for example, had its happiness increased significantly last few years as Erdogan threw everyone who speaks against him or wins elections agains him in jail. People get surprisingly happy when they no longer have expectation from the politics and just mind their business and have family time.

[u/Moosplauze → u/takesshitsatwork]

Yeah, Americans are happy when they can watch their military drop bombs on TV.

[u/takesshitsatwork → u/Moosplauze]

Weird comment. Americans are very anti war and that's a promise Trump ran on and broke -and will cost him dearly in the upcoming election.

[u/super__hoser → u/takesshitsatwork]

" Americans are very anti war"

Having lived beside them my whole life and visited several times, I doubt your statement strongly. 

[u/takesshitsatwork → u/super__hoser]

I'm an American buddy. Americans in 2024 desired no wars and that's why many voted for Trump.

Your small experience with whatever group you associated with isn't very meaningful.

[u/BS0404 → u/takesshitsatwork]

Americans in 2024 didn't want are more wars.

Me: Okay, okay, I'm listening.

And that is why they voted for Trump.

Me: Buahahahahahahahahhah.

Oh wait, you're serious. Let me laugh even harder.

BUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

[u/Weirdo9495 → u/BS0404]

Yeah very funny, meanwhile in France, Germany etc. half the voters are voting far right or far left and also claim they are "anti-war" after just witnessing the "anti-war" Trump in action.

[u/Moosplauze → u/Weirdo9495]

well, they are also subscribed to russian and us propaganda outlets.

[u/Weirdo9495 → u/Moosplauze]

Russian and US outlets are simply fuelling the fire that we have lit ourselves. You can not create this out of nowhere from the outside. Especially as Trump is at record unpopularity domestically and even Russians are slowly starting to realise the war is not so easy to cheerlead on when you get hit back.

[u/BS0404 → u/Weirdo9495]

Sure, I'll give you that, but do you want to know what the difference is? Trump was actually elected before, and won't you believe it, his first presidency was so shit he eventually won again. So no, I don't think it's exactly the same.

[u/Weirdo9495 → u/BS0404]

Wanna also know another difference? We have many parties here in Germany or France. It's considerably easier to avoid the shittiest option than when you only have 2 choices. And again we are electing our Trumps while at the same time watching Trump be at record unpopularity in the US.

[u/takesshitsatwork → u/Weirdo9495]

There are multiple political parties in the US. But more importantly, within the main two, the GOP and the Dems are smaller groups that caucus together.

[u/agent00F → u/takesshitsatwork]

Americans pretend to be anti-war until the war propaganda starts.

The country has been continuously at war since its inception which is hardly some kind of accident.

[u/takesshitsatwork → u/agent00F]

That just isn't true and is evidence of deep ignorance of American history.

[u/agent00F → u/takesshitsatwork]

It is literally true that the US has only not been at war for a few years in its entire history, but in fairness basic facts are not meant for Reddit level tards.

[u/Moosplauze → u/takesshitsatwork]

rofl, you have no idea what you're talking about. war and bombings are extremely popular tv event, the history channel which broadcasted ww2 footage 24/7 in the past decades (before streaming got popular) was watched by millions every day. they love to see their military in action. you probably never lived in the usa, did you?

[u/Knightfaux → u/Moosplauze]

Oh you think the USA is monolithic? I guess that means all of Germany backs the AfD.

[u/takesshitsatwork → u/Moosplauze]

Guess who did most of the bombing during World War II?

[u/Moosplauze → u/takesshitsatwork]

USA I would assume, don't think the UK did more if you thought so.

[u/takesshitsatwork → u/Moosplauze]

Ah, I guess you forgot about the stars of the show --the Germans.

[u/Peanutcat4]

I wouldn't call 5/9 dominating lol

[u/Old-Pudding6950 → u/Peanutcat4]

Well, admittedly, the rest is 3/9 for the USA and 1/9 for China

Moreover, in the 3 the US is better (HDI, happiness and air quality) the EU is extremely close, whereas the USA is often 2, 3 or even 5 times worse in the other categories

In this sense it’s quite remarkable and pretty dominating imo

[u/GrapefruitNo3808 → u/Old-Pudding6950]

Using relative multiples for exceedingly rare events like homicide exaggerates perceived differences. A small absolute difference can translate into a very large ratio. For example, saying the EU has 15× Singapore’s homicide rate makes the disparity sound more dramatic than the underlying absolute difference.

[u/Old-Pudding6950 → u/GrapefruitNo3808]

Right, well made point!

Still, it seems quite significant the US has such a bigger homicide rate compared to the EU

Singapore is a wealthy city state, and such an enforced one that analysts speak about it being a “police-state”, the stat makes sense

I also imagine a big difference with China is immigration, since poorer people tend to commit more crimes

The EU and USA both are gigantic territories, high immigration, very similar political structures

How come that the USA has 5 times the amount of people killed? There are probably some structural weaknesses in the way things get done, no?

[u/GrapefruitNo3808 → u/Old-Pudding6950]

It's a New World phenomenon. Almost every country in the Americas is more dangerous compared to their peers in Europe and Asia at comparable levels of economic development. The consequences of things like indigenous displacement/marginalization, chattel slavery, codified racial discrimination & extractive economic structures, and honor culture still reverberate in the present day.

Even Greenland, which gets access to the very generous Danish social safety net, still has an incredibly high homicide rate, suicide rate, and drug/alcoholism problems.

[u/scrandlle → u/Old-Pudding6950]

Its guns. The US has about 1.2 civilian owned guns for every civilian. Give 1.2 guns to every EU citizen and guess what would happen with homicides?

[u/folk_science → u/scrandlle]

Not much.

Number of guns in the US is increasing but its homicide rate keeps falling. If you want to see something that is highly correlated with homicide rate, look at the Gini index.

[u/According-Gazelle]

US homicide is 4 per 100K for last year. 5.78 is outdated by 2-3 years.

[u/NeedleGunMonkey]

These kind of stats exists for politicians and do nothing morons to dunk on one another as if big picture societal achievements are their doing.

What's the suicide rate/deaths per 100,000 people? What's the demographic pyramid like? How are young people doing? How many seniors are abandoned?

[u/CharmingJackfruit167]

US air quality number is interesting

[u/takesshitsatwork → u/CharmingJackfruit167]

It is but then we need to remind ourselves that the US is huge and takes it's national parks very seriously. The EU is far more urban and has a larger population, which contributes to bad air quality.

The US is also big on nuclear energy while the Germans chose to burn coal.

[u/CharmingJackfruit167 → u/takesshitsatwork]

I hope they measured PM2.5 in the cities and not in the parks.

But there is something to this, I really think the air quality in Europeans cities is inferior. Due to decades of diesel obsession I believe.

[u/bobbyd123456 → u/CharmingJackfruit167]

You are correct. I live in the NYC area(which can get bad in the summer), but most European cities seem to have much worse air than Manhattan.

[u/CharmingJackfruit167 → u/bobbyd123456]

Sea/ocean also helps, even in Europe.

[u/takesshitsatwork → u/CharmingJackfruit167]

Ha, or maybe they took an average across all areas? I'm not sure how they measure these.

[u/No-Consequence-1863 → u/takesshitsatwork]

They are almost definitely not putting sensors in the middle of Kansas corn fields for air quality measurements. The EPA did a ton of work to fix the air quality or the last few decades.

[u/bobbyd123456 → u/CharmingJackfruit167]

We use way less diesel for automobiles and actually have pretty strict particulate regulations. This is why VW had to cheat.

[u/1988rx7T2 → u/bobbyd123456]

It much coal left either, and that includes steel making which uses coal.

[u/faitingu]

Now do Australia, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Canada, Iceland, UK

We should expect to beat everyone in this list but the US handily. Including Russia, even if it wasn't a warmongering autocracy. Most of these countries are emerging or developing countries. Beating the US on nearly everything the majority of indicators (let's be honest) is the actual achievement.

[u/machine4891 → u/faitingu]

I think the idea was to compare big EU block to other big regional powers. The moment you selectively start to pick 500k pop. country like Iceland or city-states like Singapore it loses its merit. Maybe Japan would make some sense here.

[u/CharmingJackfruit167 → u/faitingu]

the majority of indicators is either total bonkers like "Happiness" and "Human-development index" or a numbers that are strongly influenced by the actual methodology. Say, a victim's death could be classified as homicide if police arrived to a dead body, or could go to a completely different excel cell if happened in the hospital in next 24h.

One thing you can't twist however, the life expectancy.

Also, statistics or not, infant mortality in India is nuts and has no excuses. Guys, you are the largest generic drugs producer in the world! Unless it's infanticide..

[u/faitingu → u/CharmingJackfruit167]

I didn't want to be too harsh.

At least, while cherry picked, many of these indicators are ones that pop up regularly in discussions on QoL

[u/CharmingJackfruit167 → u/faitingu]

no but srsly this something-something indexes, especially "adjusted", remind me of the official inflation data. which is always some innocent couple of percents while I know the stuff I but not just got 30% more expensive, but the standard package shrinked.

Then you look into the official inflation data and realize that they excluded the skyrocketed stuff and substituted it with some shitty ersatz because "this is the structure of demand now".

[u/2in1day → u/CharmingJackfruit167]

A of the indicators use GPD per capita, US has high GDP per capita so does well, such as HDI and I think happiness.

[u/Ynneb82]

As our continent is getting poorer they will get worse, sadly.

[u/BigBangBoomerang → u/Ynneb82]

Europe isn't getting poorer. That'd require GDP to be negative for a while. Europe just isn't getting as rich as fast as other places.

[u/halee1 → u/Ynneb82]

It's not getting poorer, it's getting richer. It's just getting poorer compared to other destinations because they're growing faster.

[u/Jensbert]

1000s of way to die in the west... especially the road deaths number still puzzles me

[u/2in1day]

So Europe has:

• infant mortality not significantly better then Russia or China
• double the homicide rate of China
• worse air quality than Brazil
• lower HDI than the US
• is no happier than Brazil

Australia and NZ are looking pretty good right now 😅

[u/JDHC96 → u/2in1day]

Apparently the US has better air quality too

[u/MartinBP → u/2in1day]

There's no reason to exlect Russia and China to have a high infant mortality rate. They're not prosperous but are still developed enough. Not sure how much I'd trust Chinese homicide data but it is a totalitarian state after all. And air quality is kinda expected, Europe is much more densely populated than Brazil and most of Brazil's population is along the coast or surrounded by jungle while many major EU cities are in valleys.

[u/Chao-Z → u/MartinBP]

In the modern day, infant mortality is often more a question of how often home births happen in that country than a question of how effective its infant care is.

[u/BertDeathStare → u/MartinBP]

I believe China's homicide rate. Every country has good and bad things about it, safety just happens to be a good thing about China. It's not just low homicide rates either but also the feeling of safety. Youths bothering people on the street isn't really a thing there. You can walk alone at night anywhere and never feel sketched out.

[u/No-Consequence-1863 → u/MartinBP]

Why do you think China isnt safe? Do you have an actual reason to not trust the number?

[u/2in1day → u/MartinBP]

China and Russia don't have high infant mortality. Europe is 3.3 per 1,000 Russia is 4 and China 4.1

China is much safer than Europe, but you don't trust it because.. 

Brazil is literally burning down the Amazon and burn farms every year to clear. The cities are packed with slums yet Brazil still has better air quality... 

To think Brazil is all "jungle" wtf.

[u/EduardBon → u/2in1day]

We are fucked here in Brazil

[u/EmptyBodybuilder7376]

Europe - not EU.

You think Norway and Switzerland are worse off than the average EU country?

[u/AromaAdvisor → u/EmptyBodybuilder7376]

These countries have HDI and health metrics similar to states in the US like Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Colorado etc etc etc.

[u/DizzyDentist22]

If we're including road deaths and homicide rates, we should add in heat-related deaths per capita as well. EU numbers would look terrible, though, so I understand why that was cherry-picked out lol.

[u/gookman]

Buddy you can't be posting positive things about Europe on this sub! We need doom and gloom! The nerve on this person!

[u/Wijnruit]

Missing a couple of countries I feel

[u/spaltedsplinters]

Shit like this kind of drives me nuts. I understand why, but we should not look at things like the EU v the U.S. , etc. we need to look at things as people that want liberal democracy v. People that want authoritarian models. Just because the Orangeman, AFD and “geek” wilders are around, doesn’t mean their whole country supports them.

[u/MewKazami]

Now try JP

[u/RevalianKnight → u/MewKazami]

JP Life expectancy — 84.0 Infant mortality — 1.8 Homicide — 0.23 PM2.5 — 9.8 HDI — 0.925 Inequality-adjusted HDI — 0.845 Happiness — 6.130 Forced labor/modern slavery — 1.1 Road deaths — 2.7

Absolutely destroys the EU lol

[u/Extension-Put309]

Dang India really took a beating

[u/AnyRegular1]

These “happiness” metrics always throws me off, especially when nordics where sun doesn’t show up for majority of the year constantly top the charts.

I’ve lived around and met plenty of nordics, they’re the most depressed people you’d imagine walking the earth. And I live in Austria, the country that always tops rudest people on earth charts.

Probably the same numbers juicing EU numbers here.

[u/A_normal_Potato3]

I knew homicide rate in USA was stupidly high but Russia and Brazil? Wtf man

[u/J_Khokam_Toko]

EU is not a country

[u/PatienceHere]

USA is matching India in road deaths? We have a lot due to poor road conditions and some part due to bad drivers, but damn, USA drivers must be pretty bad or self-righteous.

[u/Definitely_Human01]

Hypernova vs dying ant type of post.

[u/Dh0ine]

Anyone bare to explain why US homicide rate is so low here?

[u/BigBangBoomerang → u/Dh0ine]

US homicide rates have been falling for decades. It's not GTA over there.

[u/rcanhestro → u/Dh0ine]

you think that's low?

that's 5x higher then the EU.

[u/scrandlle → u/Dh0ine]

Violent crime and homicide rates have been going down since the 90s, outside of three COVID years. Last year was the lowest recorded levels for both, which beat the previous record from two years before that, this year is likely to beat the record again.

[u/vkarabut]

Russian numbers are bullshit, their demographics statistics are classified.

[u/Ok_Paramedic_9283]

I don’t buy that road death number in China. Need source.

[u/machine4891 → u/Ok_Paramedic_9283]

All of their data is with *. You compare it for entertaining purposes but I wouldn't advice taking it seriously.

[u/Redfive88888]

Too many smokers are in Europe. Its air quality can't be good.

[u/No_Guitar7903]

Is this a joke? Other than the US, the other 4 are much poorer developing countries.

[u/Moosplauze]

Americans are more happy, ignorance is bliss.

[u/Culpirit → u/Moosplauze]

Eh.. it's very nice here.

[u/Moosplauze → u/Culpirit]

as a rich white male, for sure.

[u/2in1day → u/Moosplauze]

Ironic many immigrant groups in the US earn more than white people. 

Whereas in Europe non white immigrants are pushed into ghettos and are an underclass. 

The US is an example of how to integrate immigrants while Europe is the lesson of what not to do.

[u/GrapefruitNo3808 → u/2in1day]

Yep, immigrants also enjoy longer average life expectancies and are considerably less likely to suffer from violent crime.

[u/Tight_File2220 → u/Moosplauze]

I was happy there even when I wasn't rich. Even happier because I had plenty of time as a student.

[u/Moosplauze → u/Tight_File2220]

okay, and?

[u/Culpirit → u/Moosplauze]

Look, it's generally really nice. Walk around most cities. Lots of happy families. Children, women, men, students, businesspersons, many languages, races, creeds. I don't like the way some of the political institutions have become over the past few years, but it's a beautiful country with a huge amount to offer. And explore some of the parks, they're among the most beautiful in the world. I feel like many fellow European nationals too fixated on political systems might underestimate how happy life can be in America, it's probably the single country with the most diversity in terms of landscapes, climates, vibes, cultures and value sets. There can be a bit of something for everyone.

[u/Moosplauze → u/Culpirit]

i lived in the usa, i know what it's like. as a priviliged white male i had a good time - i even had health insurance.

[u/Culpirit → u/Moosplauze]

My nonrich nonwhite friends feel the same way

[u/Moosplauze → u/Culpirit]

that's great, isn't it?

[u/Quickjager → u/Moosplauze]

Majority of the country isn't white male.

[u/Moosplauze → u/Quickjager]

obviously

[u/No_Management_6773 → u/Moosplauze]

Just take L bro, Eurocope is fo funny.

[u/Moosplauze → u/No_Management_6773]

rofl

[u/2in1day → u/Moosplauze]

What's the equivalent for Europeans? Arrogance is bliss?

[u/Moosplauze → u/2in1day]

no, the saying goes for all people regardless of nationality. but some nations have more idiots than others.

[u/Culpirit → u/Moosplauze]

I can think of a very representative example, right here

[u/Moosplauze → u/Culpirit]

you might not understand the meaning of the saying, but that again proves it.

[u/bobbyd123456 → u/Moosplauze]

Are you going to continue this thinking after AFD and RN are in power?

[u/Econ_Orc → u/Moosplauze]

Middle class and up is statisticly just as happy or happier than Finland or Denmark that usually tops the list.

It is just that the poor people in the US are a lot more unhappy than Finnish or Danish poor people, and there is also a lot more of them.

[u/GrapefruitNo3808 → u/Econ_Orc]

EU also includes a lot of formerly communist Eastern Bloc countries where people tend to have a more cynical outlook on life.

[u/faitingu → u/GrapefruitNo3808]

Which may explain the gap between EU and US in the happiness stat pretty well

What poor people, which have it harder to get out of their relative poverty in a state with less state support, are for the US, are the poorest regions of Eastern Europe for EU, which have it harder to catch up to the EU median by overcoming the decades of socialist mismanagement.

[u/Boreras → u/Moosplauze]

One must imagine you happy.

[u/Xuanxuanzi_reddit]

Noticed not a single thing is money related😅😅