The Roy Howard Community Journalism Center’s “What Is True?” team investigated social media claims that Mississippi is wealthier per capita than the United Kingdom.
CONCLUSION: It depends, but it’s mostly true.
There is a case to be made that Mississippi is wealthier per capita than the United Kingdom, but it depends on how you measure it.
Read the full fact-check below to understand how this claim spread:
Mississippi is the poorest state in the union by median household income and is often used as a benchmark to measure the failure of other territories – i.e. if a country or state is poorer than Mississippi, that’s a bad sign.
However, over the past year, some economists have reported that while Mississippi is still behind most other states, it is now ahead of many European countries in GDP per capita.
According to the World Bank Group DataBank, “GDP per capita is the sum of gross value added by all resident producers in the economy plus any product taxes (less subsidies) not included in the valuation of output, divided by mid-year population.”
Though it might seem baffling that Mississippi can be ahead of Britain, there are many reasons this may be possible. Mississippi economist Douglas Carswell has pointed out several reasons Mississippi’s GDP per capita is higher. Carswell notes Mississippi’s lack of occupational licensing, a lack of more expensive green energy in Mississippi and Mississippi’s rising educational success among other causes.
Research from the Mises Institute claims that even the poorest states in the U.S. are wealthier per capita than most European countries. The institute also claims that when you calculate social benefits, the United States ranks above all European countries other than Luxembourg.
However, as Newsweek pointed out, Americans use more of their take-home pay on social services than Europeans. The United Kingdom deducts the cost of social benefits from taxes. The U.K. also has a long list of social benefits that the United States doesn’t have, with a lower barrier to entry.
Although the poorest state in the U.S. having a higher GDP per capita is a catchy headline, this metric is not the be all, end all. Quality of life and government assistance are important to consider when assessing the wealth of a country.
