I’ve been pontificating in favor of school choice from the early days of this column, in part because I believe in the benefits of competition and in part because there’s such overwhelming evidence that government schools have deteriorated.
In recent years, I’ve shared good news about states implementing and expanding school choice, with Arizona and West Virginia deserving special praise.
But I’ve always wondered which states do the best job and which states do the worst job with education policy.
Thanks to the Heritage Foundation, we now have an answer. Its Education Freedom Report Card looks at four variables (choice, transparency, regulation, and spending) to rank the states.
As you can see from this map, Florida is in first place for overall education policy, followed by Arizona, Idaho, Indiana, and South Dakota.
The worst state isn’t a state. It’s the District of Columbia.
New York is next, followed by New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.
The best part of the report is that you can also see how states rank in the four categories.
As a fiscal policy person, I’m naturally interested in how states rank with regards to spending, especially since that variable shows that you can get good results without spending a lot of money (congratulations to Idaho for winning that category, followed by Utah and North Carolina).
Very similar to the “ROI data” on cities that I looked at back in 2015.
But the data that really intrigues me is the ranking on school choice.
For background, here its some of what’s written in the report.
Our report card measures four broad categories (School Choice, Transparency, Regulatory Freedom, and Spending) that encompass more than two dozen discrete factors. .
..Florida is the top-ranked state across the board. Families looking for a state that embraces education freedom, respects parents’ rights, and provides a decent ROI for taxpayers should look no further than The Sunshine State.
But I want to focus specifically on school choice. On that basis, Arizona is in first place, followed by Indiana, Florida, Missouri, and Oklahoma.
Hawaii is in last place, followed by Massachusetts and North Dakota.
Here’s some discussion of the report’s methodology.
States with more education choice have more educational liberty. “Education Choice” has five sub-categories: (a) Private School Choice, (b) Private School Choice Program Design, (c) Charter Schools, (d) Homeschooling, and (e) Public School Choice.
Charter schools are better than regular government schools, so it’s good they’re included.
And ranking states on their homeschooling laws is even better.
P.S. There are very successful school choice systems in Canada, Sweden, Chile, and the Netherlands.
P.P.S. Getting rid of the Department of Education would be a good idea, but the battle for school choice is largely won and lost on the state and local level.
International Liberty 
[…] P.S. I can’t wait to see the 2023 version of this report. […]
[…] P.S. I can’t wait to see the 2023 version of this report. […]
[…] I can’t wait to see what this map looks like next […]
[…] I can’t wait to see what this map looks like next […]
[…] I can’t wait to see what this map looks like next […]
[…] I can’t wait to see what this map looks like next […]
[…] the study looked at results in Florida, I’ll close by observing that Florida is ranked #1 for education freedom and ranked #3 for school […]
[…] I can’t wait to see what this map looks like next […]
[…] I can’t wait to see what this map looks like next […]
[…] I can’t wait to see what this map looks like next […]
[…] I can’t wait to see what this map looks like next […]
[…] I can’t wait to see what this map looks like next […]
[…] I can’t wait to see what this map looks like next […]
[…] I can’t wait to see what this map looks like next […]
[…] I can’t wait to see what this map looks like next […]
[…] I can’t wait to see what this map looks like next […]
[…] I can’t wait to see what this map looks like next […]
[…] I can’t wait to see what this map looks like next […]
[…] the study looked at results in Florida, I’ll close by observing that Florida is ranked #1 for education freedom and ranked #3 for school […]
[…] the study looked at results in Florida, I’ll close by observing that Florida is ranked #1 for education freedom and ranked #3 for school […]
[…] the study looked at results in Florida, I’ll close by observing that Florida is ranked #1 for education freedom and ranked #3 for school […]
[…] P.S. North Carolina also is close to being among the 10 best states for educational freedom. […]
[…] P.S. North Carolina also is close to being among the 10 best states for educational freedom. […]
[…] I’ll close with an upbeat prediction that Iowa won’t be the only state to adopt comprehensive school choice this year. So I fully expect big, positive changes in next year’s version of this map. […]
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[…] the study looked at results in Florida, I’ll close by observing that Florida is ranked #1 for education freedom and ranked #3 for school […]
[…] the study looked at results in Florida, I’ll close by observing that Florida is ranked #1 for education freedom and ranked #3 for school […]
[…] the study looked at results in Florida, I’ll close by observing that Florida is ranked #1 for education freedom and ranked #3 for school […]
You write: “I have said nothing about all the rest of your education data and comments…” I think a fair read would say that that includes my comments about multiple issues around the world.
Of course, if you want it to be read as only my comments about education, I’ll go along. Fine. But the fact of the matter is, you did react to my comments about other issues. The only problem is, you couldn’t back things up very well.
So, continuing that theme: as usual, you won’t address my many varied points.
Enjoy your greater-than-European living space.
Yeah, PHK, you’re really proving me wrong about you.
As usual, I won’t address all your many varied points. Just one minor point. When I said “I’ve said nothing about all the rest of your EDUCATION data and comments because I’ve only addressed one narrow point,” obviously I was referring only to the topic of school choice. Obviously.
Can you show me some evidence for that from a reputable site?
LOL!! You write: “I have said nothing about all the rest of your education data and comments because from the beginning I’ve only tried to address ONE narrow point: your Newsweek article is not good evidence for assessing school choice effectiveness.”
OMG, you have addressed countless points about income and poverty and taxes and a host of other issues. In fact, if we go back to the beginning, we would find that very little of the sum of your writing had to do with the Newsweek article.
You write: However… you also say “Quality of education is implicit in the study…” And, “there is something to be said for going to high school over not going to high school…” And, “I think it would be fair to say that [high college graduation rates are] indicative of quality high school education.” And, “I suspect you bailed out of the education debate because I showed you that of the ten states that produced the greatest number of college grads, seven came from Dan’s least favored list and only one came from his favored list.” That’s exactly right.
You failed to notice that when I wrote, “many years of education do not necessarily equate to high quality education” that the key word there is “necessarily.” I also added, “But the odds certainly go up.”
One thing you left out that I mentioned is the importance of a high school education in getting a job. And they don’t pay much attention to the quality of the high school education. Heck… a GED is adequate.
Whatever the shortcomings of my argument, at least I showed an interest in the importance of spending time in school (the Newsweek article). Dan doesn’t seem to give a hoot about that.
You write: “I’m not going to address all your other points. It has become clear to me that your understanding of most of these issues is less than you think it is. I could share many more of my viewpoints, but I won’t for three reasons. One, you seem more interested in scoring points than learning. Two, I find you too belligerent in challenging me to refute your points, and that makes the contrarian in me resist obliging you.” I think you left out a fourth reason: I’m not capable of it.
Could you be a bit more condescending in your comments on my “understanding”? Just how great is your understanding? You don’t even provide data, but just throw out “stuff.” You question my interest in learning. Who is it who has done a ton of research during this ongoing conversation? Finally, you have consistently failed to provide evidence for some of your most outlandish statements (that’s why I had to ask you to “refute” my points) At least, when I screwed up data on tax brackets, I apologized for that and then sought to correct it. Meanwhile I still wait for you to back up your claim that the people in the Nordic countries pay twice what we pay in taxes. Or that the person at the 20th percentile in the U.S. is as well off as the person at the 50th percentile in Europe. I also wait for you to recognize all the advantages of life in Europe, the HDI Index, the UN World Happiness Report, and a host of other things. But I don’t think you’re up to the task. You probably wouldn’t have a clue as to how to begin to respond to the fact that almost all the western European countries rank higher than us on the Happiness Report. And I might add that I don’t know of any western European country in which there is actually talk of civil war, as there is here, with some seriously minded people deeply concerned.
I have to admit that it’s hard for me to take seriously someone who thinks that the fact that a poor person in the U.S. might have more living space than the average person in Europe is more important than education, health, retirement living, safety, longevity, and happiness. It doesn’t get much more shallow than that.
It is big news that the schools K-12 are teaching bad stuff. Perhaps you missed that.
rmorris,
No (to answer your question in a word), but I think the large majority of American high schools are pretty good places (and some are outstanding). Are there some that teach useless or even harmful stuff? Oh, I’m sure there must be. But I think they are a very small minority.
Here is one way to look at it. When outfits that rank the world’s greatest universities release their findings, U.S. schools tend to dominate the rankings. Now we do get a fair number of foreign students, but the large majority of students at U.S. universities would come from the U.S. I suspect. How could those U.S. universities retain their lofty reputations if there wasn’t a large pool of qualified high school applicants from which to draw?
Here is another way to look at it. If there were a significant number of American high schools teaching useless or even harmful stuff, this would be pretty big news. Where are the reports of this? Where are the whistleblowers? My guess is, we’re not hearing anything because there is just no significant story there.
And again, good luck down there in AZ. 🙂
PHK,
Any fair reading of your comments would conclude you did indeed try to use the Newsweek article as evidence that school choice produces worse results. You responded to Dan’s post, saying “Some of us care not only about school choice, but also about educational outcomes,” and citing the Newsweek article as evidence that school choice states produce worse outcomes. I respond, saying the Newsweek article is about years of educational achievement in a state, which isn’t very good evidence of school quality. Eventually, you do agree with that point. However… you also say “Quality of education is implicit in the study…” And, “there is something to be said for going to high school over not going to high school…” And, “I think it would be fair to say that [high college graduation rates are] indicative of quality high school education.” And, “I suspect you bailed out of the education debate because I showed you that of the ten states that produced the greatest number of college grads, seven came from Dan’s least favored list and only one came from his favored list.”
I have said nothing about all the rest of your education data and comments because from the beginning I’ve only tried to address ONE narrow point: your Newsweek article is not good evidence for assessing school choice effectiveness.
I’m not going to address all your other points. It has become clear to me that your understanding of most of these issues is less than you think it is. I could share many more of my viewpoints, but I won’t for three reasons. One, you seem more interested in scoring points than learning. Two, I find you too belligerent in challenging me to refute your points, and that makes the contrarian in me resist obliging you. Three, the comments section of another person’s blog is not really the best place to write the thousands of words we’ve been doing. Perhaps you should write your own blog instead of trying to do it in Dan’s comments section. You could even make the topics of your posts counterpoints to Dan’s posts!
You say: “many years of education do not necessarily equate to high quality education. But the odds certainly go up.” If the schools are teaching useless or even harmful stuff, then does graduation from such a school increase the odds?
JMW
Um… you’re not reading very well. The Newsweek piece wasn’t about the effectiveness of school choice, and I never tried to say it was. That’s why what you wrote was irrelevant. Contrary to what you seem to think, the Newsweek piece merely cited data from Stacker which ranked the 23 most educated states in the country. It had nothing to do with school choice and I doubt if they’ve ever heard of Dan Mitchell. I just happened to notice the rather astonishing fact that 17 of Newsweek’s most educated states came from the list of Dan’s 20 least favorite. They are, in no particular order: WY, CT, KS, MN, NJ, DE, NE, RI, OR, VA, MD, NY, ND, WA, MA, HI, and AK. I find that rather astonishing. You can draw from it what conclusions you want, but please don’t try to put words in my mouth.
I went on to add (in agreement with you): many years of education do not necessarily equate to high quality education. But the odds certainly go up. There is something to be said for going to high school over not going to high school. There is a reason, after all, that many jobs require at least a high school education.
Furthermore, I pointed out to you that of the ten states in the country with the highest college graduation rates (I think it would be fair to say that that is indicative of quality high school education), seven of them are on that list of 17 states I gave before that were all on Dan’s list of 20 least favorite states. Two were from his yellow, or middle, group, and only one was from his list of 20 favorites. You had nothing to say about any of the data I presented.
Did Dan call us the richest nation on the planet? In his Sept. 6, 2022 piece, Dan wrote, “High marginal tax rates can discourage labor supply, which helps to explain why people work more hours in the United States than in Europe. And that’s true even though Americans are much richer,…” If we are “much” richer than Europeans, I think that would probably make us the richest nation on the planet. Or, if not, we are so close that any difference between us and the richest country must be negligible. But, in fact, there are several European nations richer than us, and some of them are much richer than us. His famous chart of average consumption showed us well ahead of even the wealthiest European countries. If that wasn’t a deceptive attempt to make us out to be the wealthiest nation, I don’t know what would be.
Perhaps a better explanation of why Americans work more hours is that they are given far less vacation time (and many in the U.S. don’t even use the vacation time they are given). Or perhaps they have to work extra jobs just to make ends meet, because so many jobs don’t pay a living wage and there is little help from the government for day care or taking care of the elderly (or transportation or education, among other things).
The data on GDP (PPP) does indeed make us look good. That’s because we are one of the wealthiest nations in the world. I’ve never denied that. And I am a big proponent of capitalism. As you look around the world, it is the nations that have been significantly touched by capitalism that have prospered the most. Those who went the socialist/Marxist route withered on the vine. But we aren’t the wealthiest. Not even close. You seem to want to diminish the standing of some of the others because they are small or abundantly blessed in resources (oil is the one you mention). The U.S. has also been blessed with tremendous natural resources and has also been blessed with a high degree of economic freedom (even if it’s been slipping of late). I agree that economic freedom is important to prosperity. But be careful about assuming that you can wash away a nation’s advantage over us just because they are smaller than us. There are a lot of countries that are small and poor. There are also a lot of nations that are large and poor. I haven’t seen much correlation to suggest that one can guess the wealth of a country by its size. And don’t forget that in our growing years (and even today) we have been lucky to be bounded on our west and east by the world’s two largest oceans and on our north by only one neighbor, a friendly one at that, and lots of ice.
I don’t see what data supports Dan’s viewpoint over mine. I have never argued against economic freedom (it does require some restraint from government – just as free speech does – which I’m sure Dan would agree with).
Of course I don’t believe that countries like Cambodia, the Philippines, and Namibia have less poverty than we do (but what was I supposed to do? chop up the chart?). You have to compare like-to-like. And when you do that, you find that while the UK, Greece, and Croatia have higher poverty rates than we do, the following central and (mostly) western European countries all have lower poverty rates: Luxembourg, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, Poland, Germany, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Austria, Ireland, Norway, Denmark, Hungary, Finland The Czech Republic, and Iceland. A few of these countries are wealthier than us. But most are not. And, as an American, I find it a little embarrassing when I see some of the countries with lower poverty rates than we have. We can do better. If we don’t believe that trying to reduce poverty is a moral imperative than I feel we have lowered ourselves. Will we ever reduce all poverty? No. Some will be poor because they don’t want to work. But there are millions who work long hours but receive such low wages that they can’t break out of the poverty cycle. Others have mental or physical health issues that make it impossible for them to break out of that poverty cycle. Others simply don’t have the education. I’m not for higher minimum wage laws (for reasons I won’t go into here), but I do like the plan first put forward in this country way back in 1962 (by the great libertarian, Milton Friedman, of all people) for a guaranteed minimum wage. I find that most conservatives/libertarians don’t like to talk about that even though the idea was championed by one of their greatest heroes.
Are you aware of the Human Development Index? “The Human Development Index (HDI) is a statistic ranking countries around the world by level of human development. It is expressed as a value between 0 and 1. Since 1990, the HDI has been published in the annual Human Development Report of the UNDP. Highly developed countries have a HDI value of at least 0.8. The HDI is based on a large number of indicators, including, life expectancy at birth, literacy rate, education levels and gross national income (GNI) per capita.” • Human Development Index – country ranking 2019 | Statista
The U.S. ranked 17th in their most recent ranking. Not bad, but behind, Norway, Ireland, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Iceland, Germany, Sweden, Australia, Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, Singapore, the UK, Belgium, New Zealand and Canada. Clearly, some of those material items you were looking for (food, housing) would very much affect a nation’s score. Speaking of housing, Wikipedia’s entry on homelessness (an admittedly difficult thing to measure; but what isn’t?) has us with more homeless than Liechtenstein, Japan, Honk Kong, Switzerland, Spain, Norway and nine other countries that have been mentioned frequently in this conversation. On the other hand, we have less homeless than the Netherlands, Austria, Germany, Hungary, Sweden, Luxembourg, France, Australia and the UK.
Is life material enough for you? The World Bank Group lists U.S. life expectancy at 77.28 years. That ranks 54th in the world. As you might guess, that trails all of the countries we have been paying attention to in this conversation. We trail Spain by five years and Norway by six years.
The World Health Organization ranks us 40th, but that still leaves us behind all of western Europe and even some of eastern Europe.
List of countries by life expectancy – Wikipedia
You write now: “I still maintain my “double the income tax rate” point is correct. None of the data you mention disproves my point. I didn’t say anything about France, or OECD avg, or tax % of GDP, or tax brackets, or payroll taxes.” But earlier you wrote that what you said about the Nordic countries “may be true of Europe generally”:
“Regarding double and triple higher tax rates, I looked at my work from a few years ago. My comparison was only to the four Nordic countries, not wider Europe, if that makes you feel better. The sales tax point is still definitely true for wider Europe, as a moment’s thought should make clear. European VATs are 20-25% while US sales tax averages around 7-8%. The point may or may not be generally true for income taxes.”
If you are, in fact, going to limit your claim to the four Nordic countries, then I don’t think you’ve made much of a point. You write, “What I said is that the effective (meaning overall average) income tax rate paid by the avg earner in the Nordic countries is double the rate paid by the avg American earner.” Says who? Where do you get that from.
My charts in my P.S. were indeed wrong and I should have realized it. I know they pay much higher taxes than the charts suggest. But that’s what I got when I Googled something like “tax brackets in Sweden” for example. The only sense I could make of it was that there must be some other tax at work that I wasn’t aware of (wealth tax?) for Nordic overall rates to be what they are. But I was mistaken. I went back to look into the brackets again and came to realize that these are just multipliers one encounters as one’s income moves up the scales, not the actual tax rates. I apologize for the error.
Long ago you did write, “the average European pays double the income tax and triple the sales tax compared to the average American.” You rescinded that after I showed you that the average American pays about 23 percent more (not 100 percent more) and started talking about the Nordic countries alone. Again, please show me the evidence. I know it’s not true for the top brackets or bottom, but it is harder to get information about those in the middle.
At the top, the highest tax brackets in the Nordic countries are Denmark at 55.56%, Finland at 51.25%, Iceland at 46.22%, Norway at 47.2% and Sweden at 57%. These are high, but none come close to being double that of the U.S. highest bracket, 37 percent. Another road in is to look at tax as a percentage of GDP. Denmark leads the Nordics at 46.0 percent (France, by the way, is two percentage points higher than that), Sweden comes in at 44.0, Finland at 43.3, and Norway at 38.2. The U.S. lags behind at 27.1, but again, the Nordics do not come close to doubling the U.S. tax burden measured this way. So, pray tell, what is this hidden evidence you have found?
Year after year the Nordic countries continue to dominate the UN’s World Happiness Index. They are democratic countries. They could choose to do other than they do. But they seem quite happy with life as it is. There is no right or wrong answer as to what is the better way to do things, the U.S. way (medium weight safety net) or the Nordic way (strong weight safety net). Maybe longer and safer lives aren’t a bad choice. One hundred years from now, what will people think was the more moral choice?
We evolved as social creatures. Cooperation is in our genes (am I getting complex enough for you?). Freedom is a relatively new phenomena (and a good one I think). But is it more important than helping out those who are struggling, even if it means paying higher taxes? Again, perhaps 100 years from now people will be able to look back and make a more judicious call than we can at this point in time.
PHK, I’ve told you 2-3 times that “number of education years” (i.e., the Newsweek article) is not a meaningful measure of school choice effectiveness. Now, you tell me “That’s irrelevant.” Um… it was you who claimed the Newsweek article was evidence of school choice failure.
I don’t know if Dan calls America “the richest country on the planet,” but I can say that your list of PPP GDP per capita makes US performance look pretty good. Most of the countries listed above the US are MUCH smaller, with high GDP per capita because of oddities like they’re tax havens, or they produce large quantities of oil. The only exceptions are Singapore, Ireland, and Switzerland, and those three have long ranked high in economic freedom. This data supports Dan’s viewpoints, not yours.
When I said a poverty metric “should be some measurement of material poverty in an absolute sense,” I meant an accurate poverty metric would measure in absolute terms how many people are inadequately fed, clothed, and housed. As opposed to measuring poverty in relative terms, which measures how poor Person A is compared to Person B. Relative poverty tells us more about income distribution than true poverty. I’m sure the World Bank data you provided is based on relative poverty… probably the percentage of the population who earn less than half the median income. As a definition of poverty, this is nonsense. Do you really believe DOZENS of countries have less poverty than the US? Including places like Cambodia, the Philippines, and Namibia? Utter poppycock.
I still maintain my “double the income tax rate” point is correct. None of the data you mention disproves my point. I didn’t say anything about France, or OECD avg, or tax % of GDP, or tax brackets, or payroll taxes. What I said is that the effective (meaning overall average) income tax rate paid by the avg earner in the Nordic countries is double the rate paid by the avg American earner. As for the tax bracket data you provide, I’m afraid you got something quite wrong. The top personal income tax rates for Norway and Denmark are much higher than the 17% and 18% you show.
I don’t mean to be rude, but as far as I can tell, you seem to think life is less complex than it is, or economic data is more trustworthy than it is. If you’re interested in economic truth, I suggest you try to understand the data more deeply. It doesn’t always mean what it superficially seems to mean. Comparisons across decades and across countries are even more fraught with peril. Also, data is good, but a solid understanding of economic theory is even more important.
JWT… P.S.
Follow up:
Norway’s Income Tax Brackets
Income between NOK 0 – 190,349 No bracket tax
Step 1 Income between NOK 190,350 – 267,899 1.7% bracket tax
Step 2 Income between NOK 267,900 – 643,799 4.0% bracket tax
Step 3 Income between NOK 643,800 – 969,199 13.4% bracket tax*
Step 4 Income between NOK 969 200 – 1 999 999 16.4% bracket tax
Step 5 Income over NOK 2,000,000 17.4% bracket tax
Switzerland Income Tax Brackets
Tax Bracket (yearly earnings) Tax Rate (%)
€0 – €13,600 0.00%
€13,600 – €29,800 0.77%
€29,800 – €39,000 0.88%
€39,000 – €52,000 2.64%
€52,000 – €68,300 2.97%
€68,300 – €73,600 5.94%
€73,600 – €97,700 6.60%
€97,700 – €127,100 8.80%
€127,100 – €166,200 11.00%
€166,200 and up 13.20%
Denmark Income Tax Brackets
Tax Bracket (yearly earnings) Tax Rate (%)
kr0 – kr389,900 3.67%
kr389,900 and up 18.67%
All of the above are well below U.S. income tax rates. I’ve already shown you one (France) that was pretty comparable to ours. Here is another that is pretty comparable to ours (Finnish rates):
National tax rates
National tax rates for 2022 applicable to earned income are as follows:
Taxable income (EUR) Tax on column 1 (EUR) Tax on excess (%)
Over Not over
19,200 28,700 8.00 6.00
28,700 47,300 578.00 17.25
47,300 82,900 3,786.50 21.25
82,900 11,351.50 31.25
This last one obviously didn’t copy and paste well, but you can see it by simply Googling: “Finnish income tax rates.” That’s also how I found the others.
JMW,
(Note: data charts don’t copy and paste well on this site, but you can see them more clearly if you go to the source – which I believe I have provided in every case.)
I’m not trying to score points, but just get at the truth. You wrote, “But no, I still think that years of education in a state is not a meaningful measure of school choice effectiveness.” That’s irrelevant. In my last post I talked about number of college grads. I suspect you bailed out of the education debate because I showed you that of the ten states that produced the greatest number of college grads, seven came from Dan’s least favored list and only one came from his favored list. Do you have more compelling data? Maybe someday that lopsided ratio will change, but for now it is what it is.
Yes, the U.S. leads Switzerland and the Scandinavian countries in consumption. But what does that prove other than that we are big spenders? It doesn’t necessarily mean that we are more prosperous than them (in fact, I will show below that we are not the most prosperous). Imagine that I made $100,000, spent $70,000 of it and invested the other $30,000. Now let’s imagine that you made $80,000 and spent all of it. So you spent $10,000 more than me. You lead me in consumption, but I don’t think anyone would say that you are the more prosperous of the two of us.
The IMF, the World Bank, and the CIA all track GDP per capita, adjusted for cost of living in each county. That is what the “PPP” represents in the chart below. Some charts will only show you GDP per capita, but that is very misleading. In the chart below you can see that several European nations have a greater, cost of living adjusted, GDP per capita than does the U.S. I wonder why Dan has never put up this chart, which is much more meaningful than the consumption chart he continually pushes. It’s not perfect, but the IMF, the World Bank, and the CIA have probably come closer than anyone to tracking nations by how prosperous the inhabitants actually are.
GDP per capita (US$ PPP) by country or territory
Country/Territory UN Region IMF[5][6] World Bank[7] CIA[8]
Estimate Year Estimate Year Estimate Year
Monaco * Europe — 190,513 2019 115,700 2015
Liechtenstein * Europe — 180,367 2018 139,100 2009
Luxembourg * Europe 140,694 2022 118,360 2020 110,300 2020
Singapore * Asia 131,580 2022 98,526 2020 93,400 2020
Ireland * Europe 124,596 2022 93,612 2020 89,700 2020
Qatar * Asia 112,789 2022 89,949 2020 85,300 2020
Macau * Asia 85,612 2022 57,807 2020 54,800 2020
Switzerland * Europe 84,658 2022 71,352 2020 68,400 2020
Isle of Man * Europe — — 84,600 2014
Bermuda * Americas — 80,830 2020 81,800 2019
United Arab Emirates * Asia 78,255 2022 69,958 2019 67,100 2019
Norway * Europe 77,808 2022 63,198 2020 63,600 2020
United States * Americas 76,027 2022 63,544 2020 60,200 2020
List of countries by GDP (PPP) per capita – Wikipedia (if you want to see the complete list)
Dan is simply lying when he continues to call us the richest country on the planet. We are neither the richest nor the freest. That’s okay. This is a good country and it has done a lot of good for the world. I’m proud to live here. But I have no need for us to be #1 all the time.
You are right that poverty is a tricky thing to measure. You say you don’t want to measure it as a percentage of the median income. You write: “Real poverty should be some measurement of material poverty in an absolute sense.” I don’t even know what you mean by that last sentence. So if I have three TVs in my house, the guy who has only one is impoverished? The most readily available data we have is income data and so that is what the experts have to use.
Here, according to World Bank, are the countries with the lowest poverty rates in the world (I chose to pick those below 20 percent; obviously that’s very arbitrary, but I couldn’t have picked a whole lot lower or I would have missed the U.S. Obviously the Chinese figure is a joke. They lie about everything. But note that most of the OECD nations have lower poverty rates than we do (the poverty rate is the first number after the name of the country).
Jamaica 19.90% 2012 62.01% 29.93%
Georgia 19.50% 2019 78.18% 42.00%
Botswana 19.30% 2009 76.94% 57.61%
Iraq 18.90% 2012 86.46% 48.29%
United Kingdom 18.60% 2017 2.13% 0.86%
Laos 18.30% 2018 90.71% 69.51%
Croatia 18.30% 2018 9.73% 2.14%
Greece 17.90% 2018 13.88% 2.86%
United States 17.80% 2018 2.75% 1.75%
Cambodia 17.70% 2012 – –
Luxembourg 17.50% 2018 1.34% 0.58%
Namibia 17.40% 2015 73.74% 54.08%
Portugal 17.20% 2018 6.11% 1.64%
Sweden 17.10% 2018 2.16% 1.21%
Malta 17.10% 2018 0.59% 0.27%
Israel 16.90% 2018 10.00% 2.47%
Bosnia and Herzegovina 16.90% 2015 11.70% 2.01%
Philippines 16.70% 2018 84.34% 56.12%
Switzerland 16.00% 2018 0.84% 0.14%
Japan 15.70% 2018 2.49% 1.21%
Jordan 15.70% 2018 58.66% 16.25%
Poland 15.40% 2018 16.77% 1.20%
Tunisia 15.20% 2015 54.47% 16.41%
Germany 14.80% 2018 1.24% 0.50%
Belgium 14.80% 2018 0.42% 0.16%
Cyprus 14.70% 2018 0.73% 0.08%
Turkey 14.40% 2018 30.48% 10.20%
Albania 14.30% 2012 66.45% 29.86%
Uzbekistan 14.10% 2013 93.21% 75.14%
France 13.60% 2018 0.41% 0.11%
Netherlands 13.60% 2019 0.71% 0.34%
Austria 13.30% 2018 1.53% 1.04%
Ireland 13.10% 2018 0.72% 0.40%
Norway 12.70% 2018 0.63% 0.36%
Solomon Islands 12.70% 2012 96.17% 83.38%
Vanuatu 12.70% 2010 92.99% 73.44%
Russia 12.60% 2018 22.42% 3.27%
Denmark 12.50% 2018 0.57% 0.26%
Australia 12.40% 2018 1.48% 0.74%
Hungary 12.30% 2018 6.77% 1.94%
Finland 12.20% 2019 0.30% 0.19%
Slovenia 12.00% 2018 0.62% 0.07%
Canada 11.60% 2018 1.50% 0.74%
Mauritius 10.30% 2017 41.70% 10.30%
Czech Republic 10.10% 2018 – –
Thailand 9.90% 2018 37.20% 6.17%
Indonesia 9.40% 2019 83.31% 52.84%
Uruguay 8.80% 2019 16.77% 3.16%
Iceland 8.80% 2017 0.23% 0.04%
Chile 8.60% 2017 18.61% 3.38%
Bhutan 8.20% 2017 62.16% 28.98%
Maldives 8.20% 2016 16.90% 1.98%
Moldova 7.30% 2018 59.56% 10.44%
Vietnam 6.70% 2018 55.23% 19.87%
Azerbaijan 6.00% 2012 3.69% –
Malaysia 5.60% 2018 10.14% 1.39%
Algeria 5.50% 2011 68.30% 20.83%
Belarus 5.00% 2019 6.76% 0.24%
Morocco 4.80% 2013 61.66% 24.10%
Kazakhstan 4.30% 2018 40.98% 3.67%
Sri Lanka 4.10% 2016 74.61% 37.32%
Ukraine 1.10% 2019 25.39% 2.48%
China 0.60% 2019 43.34% 14.10%
Iran – 2019 47.25% 16.57%
South Korea – 2019 2.50% 0.74%
Taiwan – 2019 0.50% 0.25%
Somalia – 2019 99.63% 97.87%
United Arab Emirates – 2019 0.73% –
Turkmenistan – 2019 63.98% 30.33%
Slovakia – 2019 6.13% 2.45%
Trinidad and Tobago – 2019 22.15% 6.12%
Guyana – 2019 53.95% 23.84%
Suriname – 2019 62.34% 38.31%
Cape Verde – 2019 65.72% 34.23%
Belize – 2019 77.63% 53.77%
Nauru – 2019 67.19% 27.29%
Poverty Rate by Country 2022
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The typical poor American may have more living space than the average European, but the average European will have better transportation, greater safety, better medical care, better education, more vacation time, and a much longer life span. I know what deal I’m taking.
I don’t believe that Americans at the 20 income percentile have the same income as the Europeans at the 50th percentile. It’s simply impossible, mathematically, when you look at incomes of European nations versus the U.S. (in other words, if you looked at the complete list of GDP(PPP) per capita for all the countries in the list above (the one where I only took it down to the U.S.). Can you show me data to back up your claim?
I’ll give you your dues. You are right about the VAT/sales tax issue (although the fact that U.S. property taxes are twice that of OECD nations tempers that somewhat).
You are not right about income tax, however. All western countries have progressive tax rates. But you can see from the chart below that U.S. income taxes are not double that of other OECD countries. Furthermore, you can also see that income taxes here are very much in line with other countries in terms of how much of GDP they represent. I’m not about to start checking just how progressive each country’s tax rates are, but I did look at France as an example and learned that hardly anyone pays their top rate and middle earners are very much like in the U.S. So, contrary to what you say, much higher income rates for average (or mean) European taxpayers would indeed be a surprise.
“In practice, only 44% of inhabitants in France pay any income tax at all; only around 14% pay at the rate of 30%, and less than 1% pay at the rate of 45%.” So the large majority of taxpayers are paying between zero and 30 percent (sound familiar). And they have all kinds of tax breaks available to taxpayers just as we have in the U.S.”
Source:
Income Tax France: French Income Tax Allowances (french-property.com)
Country / Tax as % GDP Maximum Income Tax Sales Tax/VAT
Switzerland
30% of GDP Income Tax
13.20% Sales Tax
8%
Czech Republic
35% of GDP Income Tax
15.00% Sales Tax
20%
Denmark
48% of GDP Income Tax
18.67% Sales Tax
25%
Slovak Republic
29% of GDP Income Tax
19.00% Sales Tax
19%
Estonia
34% of GDP Income Tax
21.00% Sales Tax
20%
Norway
41% of GDP Income Tax
24.55% Sales Tax
25%
Sweden
46% of GDP Income Tax
25.00% Sales Tax
25%
Spain
31% of GDP Income Tax
27.13% Sales Tax
16%
Canada
31% of GDP Income Tax
29.00% Sales Tax
5%
Finland
43% of GDP Income Tax
30.00% Sales Tax
22%
Mexico
18% of GDP Income Tax
30.00% Sales Tax
16%
Poland
0% of GDP Income Tax
32.00% Sales Tax
23%
Iceland
34% of GDP Income Tax
33.00% Sales Tax
26%
Korea
26% of GDP Income Tax
35.00% Sales Tax
10%
Turkey
25% of GDP Income Tax
35.00% Sales Tax
18%
United States
31% of GDP Income Tax
35.00% Sales Tax
10%
New Zealand
31% of GDP Income Tax
35.50% Sales Tax
13%
Hungary
39% of GDP Income Tax
36.00% Sales Tax
25%
Luxembourg
38% of GDP Income Tax
38.00% Sales Tax
15%
Chile
18% of GDP Income Tax
40.00% Sales Tax
19%
France
42% of GDP Income Tax
40.00% Sales Tax
20%
Japan
0% of GDP Income Tax
40.00% Sales Tax
5%
Ireland
28% of GDP Income Tax
41.00% Sales Tax
21%
Slovenia
24% of GDP Income Tax
41.00% Sales Tax
20%
Italy
44% of GDP Income Tax
43.00% Sales Tax
20%
Australia
28% of GDP Income Tax
45.00% Sales Tax
10%
Germany
37% of GDP Income Tax
45.00% Sales Tax
19%
Israel
38% of GDP Income Tax
45.00% Sales Tax
16%
Greece
29% of GDP Income Tax
45.00% Sales Tax
19%
Portugal
0% of GDP Income Tax
46.00% Sales Tax
20%
United Kingdom
34% of GDP Income Tax
50.00% Sales Tax
18%
Belgium
43% of GDP Income Tax
50.00% Sales Tax
21%
Austria
43% of GDP Income Tax
50.00% Sales Tax
20%
Netherlands
0% of GDP Income Tax
52.00% Sales Tax
19%
Source: International Tax Rates – Tax-Rates.org
But when all is said and done, how could you continue on this path of claiming that Europeans pay double and triple in taxes compared with us AFTER I showed you the following in the previous post: Meanwhile, after taxes and benefits, the take-home pay of an average single U.S. worker was 77.4% of their gross wage, compared with the OECD average of 75.4%.6 (Average American Taxes (thebalance.com) That difference is too minimal too even be worth our time talking about.
Sorry, no time to proofread.
PHK, yes, I’m sure you are glad I didn’t mention anything further about education. Because you seem to really enjoy trying to score ‘points’ as an internet kibitzer. But no, I still think that years of education in a state is not a meaningful measure of school choice effectiveness. I stopped commenting because you seem incapable of accepting that.
On consumption, please remember I’m not comparing anything. We’re talking about Dan’s consumption bar chart. And contrary to what you’re saying, that chart DOES already compare to individual countries like Switzerland and the Scandinavians. You just don’t like the answer.
Since I’m honest, I’ll not pretend I’m knowledgeable about US vs European poverty levels. I’d be careful about how poverty is measured. It’s not as straightforward as you may think. If ‘poverty’ is measured as a percentage of median income, I don’t accept it. Real poverty should be some measurement of material poverty in an absolute sense. On the one hand, I can believe the US has more poverty, because freedom means freedom to succeed OR fail. On the other hand, it seems unlikely that poor Americans have less material prosperity than poor Europeans. I seem to recall that US incomes at the 20th percentile are equivalent to European incomes at the 50th percentile. And I believe the typical poor American enjoys more square feet of living space than the average European.
Regarding doubly and triple higher tax rates, I looked at my work from a few years ago. My comparison was only to the four Nordic countries, not wider Europe, if that makes you feel better. The sales tax point is still definitely true for wider Europe, as a moment’s thought should make clear. European VATs are 20-25% while US sales tax averages around 7-8%. The point may or may not be generally true for income taxes. However, much higher income tax rates for average (or median) incomes for broader Europe would not be surprising. The US tax code is more progressive. High income Americans don’t pay high taxes, BUT middle class and poor Americans pay very low tax rates.
JMW,
I’m glad to see that you’ve given up on the education argument.
You write that “it is a factually correct statement that the average American enjoys significantly greater material consumption compared to the average European.” You do realize, I hope, that you are comparing a single, wealthy nation, against a huge group of nations, some of which have only recently enjoyed developed status. Why don’t you compare the U.S. with Switzerland, Luxembourg, and the Scandinavian countries?
The use of average hides the fact that there is twice as much poverty in the U.S. as there is in Europe. That is why Dan will not use median figures.
Consider the following: The eleven citizens of country A have incomes of 2,2,2,2,3,3,3,4,4,10, and 19. The eleven citizens of country B have incomes of 3,3,4,4,5,6,6,6,6,6, and 7. Dan would say, “Look, the average person in country A has an income of six, which is 20 percent higher than the average income in country B.” But what country do you think most people would find to be more pleasant to live in?What Dan WOULD NOT tell you is that the median income in country B is 6 and that is 100 percent higher than the median income in country A (which is 3)! In this situation, I would argue that median gives you a better picture of what people are making. The average warps things considerably. That is not to deny that there are times when average is the most relevant number.
I don’t believe your data on taxes paid by the average European compared to the average American. That is not to deny that Europeans pay higher taxes. But they don’t have to. They could vote to change that. I wonder why they don’t. Perhaps it is because they think there is a certain moral decency in living in a country with only half as much poverty.
I wonder how the rankings compare to academic results.
Chuck Wright
PHK, it is a factually correct statement that the average American enjoys significantly greater material consumption compared to the average European. Even if Europeans are closer at the median, the higher American incomes at the top still reflect well on the American system, and over time will contribute to even higher incomes at the median and below.
It is completely true that the average European pays double the income tax rate and triple the sales tax rate. I’m not going to waste my time looking it up just to satisfy you. I know I’m right.
JMW, actually I do agree: many years of education do not necessarily equate to high quality education. But there is something to be said for going to high school over not going to high school. Imagine we took 100 random 18 year-olds who had not gone to high school and 100 who had. Give all 200 18 year-olds some kind of college prep test or test of general knowledge. I’m willing to bet that those who went to high school would do significantly better (at least 15 percent higher scores). Would you bet against me? There is a reason, after all, that many jobs require at least a high school education.
Apparently, the Stacker data backs me up. Of the ten states in the country with the highest college graduation rates (I think it would be fair to say that that is indicative of quality high school education), seven of them are on that list of 17 states I gave before that were all on Dan’s list of 20 least favorite states. Two were from his yellow, or middle, group, and only one was from his list of 20 favorites.
I have never argued that median is some perfect metric and that average doesn’t matter (can you show otherwise?). I have merely been trying to argue that Dan is the one who doesn’t understand that both matter. Of course we know why he doesn’t want to talk about median. He knows the fact that the U.S. has much greater wealth in its upper one (or ten) percent than European countries, and those huge numbers (and they are huge and that’s okay – I’ve made the point before that I think that sufficiency, not equality, is the moral imperative) will make the average look much, much better (for his cause) than would the median. Someone making five million is going to raise the average a lot more than someone making $20,000 is going to lower it. There is a place for average and there is a place for median. But it’s intellectually dishonest of Dan to not deal with that reality and to simply ignore median figures.
I don’t believe that “the average European pays double the income tax rate and triple the sales tax rate compared to the average American.” Prove me wrong. Show me some evidence from a reputable source.
[…] Source link Author Dan Mitchell […]
PHK,
You’re right, it’s about post-8th-grade not postsecondary. That does weaken my point somewhat, but it’s still more about volume of education more than quality. I’m certain you won’t agree, but many years of education do not necessarily equate to high quality education.
Still going on about median??? I told you I prefer to see both average and median. And I told you I think that particular OECD dataset provides only average. Give it up! Median is not some ‘perfect’ metric. It’s fine if your main concern is equality and you want to see how the midpoint is doing. But it leaves you blind about what is happening above and below the midpoint. Average gives some visibility of the TOTAL income that median doesn’t see. And that matters, too.
I don’t address all your points because you go on too much. But to address one other consistent complaint of yours, I don’t bother providing citations, references and so on because I am merely commenting on a blog. If I was writing a book, article, or blog post I’d be more formal about it. I know stuff like the average European pays double the income tax rate and triple the sales tax rate compared to the average American because I’ve researched it in the past, not because I just looked it up.
JMW,
You would preach to me about being narrowly analytical without broad understanding when you were the one who thought there was no problem with Dan using average rather than median and not even considering the latter? This despite the fact that I showed you that the median income for a single adult in this country is nearly 50 percent higher than the average! LOL!!
The study I pointed to was not just about the volume of post-secondary education in a state. It was also about just getting past eighth grade!
Quality of education is implicit in the study as one is highly unlikely to get into college without having done well in high school (assuming the individual even went to high school), and one is unlikely to get into grad school without having done well in college.
Obviously, we would not expect to find improvement in performance after one year of school choice (examples?). But now you’re really getting desperate. You’re going to have to do a lot better than that when 17 of Dan’s least 20 favorite states (orange and red sections) rank among the 23 most educated states in the country.
But at least you are trying to talk about school quality, even if you’re stretching the bounds of credulity to do so. Dan doesn’t even talk about quality. He has literally nothing to say about the quality of education in the states he favors (or doesn’t favor, for that matter).
rmorris,
If you take a look again at my post, you will see that this was not Newsweek’s study, nor did they set up the metrics. They were simply passing on the results of a study done by Stacker. Stacker is rather new, so here is the first paragraph from their page “About Us” which is more or less a mission statement, I guess. I’ve also included the link in case you want to read the whole thing:
“We founded Stacker in 2017 with a simple vision: provide publishers with engaging, data-driven stories. News organizations have long relied on legacy newswires to fill coverage gaps and complement original reporting. We saw the need for approachable journalism that combines rigorous data analysis with rich editorial insights—and we rapidly became a go-to source for data-driven features.”
https://stackermedia.com/about/
But here is the really important question. Does Dan even care about how much education is actually going on in these states? I don’t see any evidence of that. So when you say that you suspect that “Google and Newsweek use a different standard than does Mitchell in determining whether the education is good or bad,” my question would be, what standard of Mitchell?
BTW, I did see your other post and sympathize with your concerns about teacher unions. I have no problem with charter schools, and teacher unions have fought them tooth and nail. Teacher unions have also made it all but impossible to get rid of bad teachers. And I suspect that they are behind some of this pushing for CRT craziness to be taught in our schools.
Good luck to you down there in AZ!
[…] Which State Gives Parents the Most Choice in Education? — International Liberty […]
PHK, as usual, you are being narrowly analytical without broad understanding. First, school choice doesn’t necessarily have any bearing on the ‘VOLUME’ of post-secondary education in a state. Second, even if you had cited something relevant, like comparing the QUALITY of education, we might not see congruent results at any given point in time. For example, if a state historically produced horrible education quality, then started a wide school-choice program in 2020, would their 2021 education quality look tons better? Probably not.
I suspect, but have not checked, that Google and Newsweek use a different standard than does Mitchell in determining whether the education is good or bad.
Some of us care not only about school choice, but also about educational outcomes. Google: “best educated states” and you will find that a large number of the states in Dan’s favorite sections (green and light green) are among the least educated states in the country and that a large number of states in Dan’s least favorite sections (orange and red) are among the most educated states in the union.
From Newsweek: “To help understand areas with the highest educational attainment, Stacker used data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates (released in December 2020) to construct a weighted index that measures the relative education level for every state. This index evaluates each state’s population older than 25 across seven educational tiers, ranging from individuals not educated past eighth grade to those with graduate or professional degrees.” https://www.newsweek.com/most-least-educated-states-america-ranked-1583019
It is rather amazing that 17 of Dan’s least 20 favorite states (orange and red sections) rank among the 23 most educated states in the country. They are, in no particular order: WY, CT, KS, MN, NJ, DE, NE, RI, OR, VA, MD, NY, ND, WA, MA, HI, and AK. There would appear to be a strong correlation between less educational choice and greater educational achievement.
I’m also in Arizona and have noticed the same. While the report looks good, I have a hard time trusting that is entirely accurate (unless other states are just abysmally bad). I’m hopeful, though.
Even though we rank high, here in Arizona, it is a constant battle with the teacher’s unions, Democrats (I guess they are the same), RINOs and gutless Republicans.