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Comment by legitster

8 hours ago

The US also has GDP per capita of $90k and Japan has a GDP per capita of ~ $35k.

Put another way, in both countries a hip replacement surgery is almost exactly 1/8 of someone's per capita GDP.

Too bad Walmart greeter isn't making "per capita GDP".

  • Some quick googling suggested cashiers at Seiyu in Japan earn $7-9/hour USD while Walmart is about double that.

  • They make more than they would in Japan. But people can make $0 in any country. Regardless, part-time Walmart greeters are fortunately not paying full price for health insurance in the US.

“someone” in this case is in the 73rd percentile in the USA and ~40th in JP.

So the USA is still significantly more expensive as a portion of actual income. “GDP per capita” is a relatively useless figure

This feels like a misleading ratio, it's just saying the cost is the same in per capita terms but says nothing about the absolute cost or more importantly cost as a percentage of income, which matters for the majority of people in the denominator of the GDP per capita calculation.