🇬🇧 State of the Nation

Over the past two decades, average annual wages across major developed economies have generally trended upward—but with some important divergences.

🇺🇸 The US Leads by a Significant Margin
The United States consistently outpaces other countries in wage levels, with average annual wages climbing from around $63,000 in 2000 to over $85,000 by 2023.

This dominant position widened especially after 2015, suggesting strong wage growth in the post-recession period and possibly the effects of a tight labor market and tech-driven productivity gains.

🇨🇦🇩🇪 Canada and Germany: Strong Mid-Tier Performers
Canada (CAN) and Germany (DEU) show solid, steady wage growth.

Germany overtook Canada slightly during the early 2010s, but both countries remain closely aligned, reaching around $66,000 by 2023.

🇬🇧 UK (GBR): Flatlining Wages
The UK saw notable wage growth up to 2008, but since then, growth has stagnated.

By 2023, UK wages hover just below $60,000, lagging behind other major economies like France and Germany.

This stagnation reflects broader concerns around UK productivity, austerity impacts, and inflation-adjusted wage pressures.

🇯🇵🇮🇹 Japan and Italy: The Laggards
Japan (JPN) and Italy (ITA) have experienced virtually no real wage growth.

Their wage levels remain at around $46,000–$50,000, nearly unchanged since 2000.

This highlights structural challenges in both economies, such as aging populations and sluggish economic reform.

🔍 COVID-19 Dip and Recovery
A dip around 2020 is visible in several countries, reflecting the economic disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The US and Canada bounced back strongly, while the UK and Japan show weaker recoveries.

🇺🇸 The United States remains the global outlier, spending a significantly higher share of its GDP on healthcare—around 16.5% to 18.5% throughout the period. The sharp peak in 2020 reflects a surge in health spending during the COVID-19 pandemic, combined with a shrinking GDP denominator, pushing the figure above 18%. Despite a slight decline after the pandemic, U.S. healthcare spending as a share of GDP remains far above that of other countries, pointing to ongoing systemic inefficiencies and cost inflation in the U.S. healthcare system.

🇩🇪 Germany (DEU) and 🇫🇷 France (FRA) are the next-highest spenders, consistently allocating 11–13% of GDP to health. Like other countries, both saw a pandemic-driven spike in 2020, followed by a moderate correction. Their spending reflects robust universal healthcare systems that expanded capacity during the crisis.

🇬🇧 The UK (GBR) experienced a noticeable COVID-driven jump in 2020, but its spending levels have since fallen below pre-pandemic trends—suggesting possible post-COVID fiscal tightening or NHS strain.

🇯🇵 Japan (JPN) and 🇮🇹 Italy (ITA) maintain lower but steady levels of health spending, ranging between 8.5% and 11% of GDP. Italy, in particular, shows a decline after 2021, hinting at either reduced public investment or a relative rebound in GDP not matched by health spending growth.

🔴 Children
Children have persistently faced the highest poverty rates among all groups, consistently above 28–30%. Despite some improvement in the early 2000s, child poverty saw a renewed uptick post-2010, indicating enduring structural issues related to low household income, benefit changes, and housing costs.

🟦 Working-Age Adults with Children
This group has followed a similar trajectory, with poverty rates hovering around 25%, remaining elevated and relatively flat over the past two decades. This underscores the financial vulnerability of families raising children, particularly amid wage stagnation and cuts to in-work benefits.

⚫ All People (National Average)
The overall poverty rate has been relatively stable, around 22–24%, masking disparities between household types. It provides a baseline that highlights how children and parents consistently fare worse than average.

🟩 Pensioners
There has been a remarkable reduction in pensioner poverty, falling sharply in the early 2000s and stabilizing at the lowest level of all groups, around 14–16%. This reflects the success of pension reforms, guaranteed income programs, and targeted support like Winter Fuel Payments.

🔷 Working-Age Adults without Children
This group has the second-lowest poverty rate, just above pensioners, and has seen modest fluctuations. The relative economic stability may be due to fewer dependents, dual-income households, and eligibility for in-work support.

🇺🇸 United States (USA):
The U.S. consistently shows the highest post-tax income inequality among the included countries, with Gini values hovering around 0.39–0.40. Despite minor fluctuations, inequality remains elevated, highlighting structural disparities in income distribution, limited redistribution via taxes and transfers, and persistent wealth concentration.

🇬🇧 United Kingdom (GBR):
The UK also exhibits relatively high inequality, with a Gini index around 0.35–0.36, and noticeable fluctuations across the decade. While the country’s redistributive mechanisms lower pre-tax inequality, they appear less effective than in continental Europe, especially in the wake of austerity and welfare reforms.

🇮🇪 Ireland (IRL), 🇮🇹 Italy (ITA), 🇩🇪 Germany (DEU), 🇳🇱 Netherlands (NLD):
These countries form a mid-tier cluster, with Gini values between 0.29–0.33. Their moderate levels of inequality suggest more robust redistribution policies than Anglo-American economies but less equality than Nordic-style systems. Ireland's line shows some volatility — possibly linked to irregular GDP reporting and tax-based corporate distortions.

🇫🇷 France (FRA), 🇨🇦 Canada (CAN), 🇯🇵 Japan (JPN):
France and Japan consistently show the lowest Gini coefficients (close to 0.28–0.30), implying more egalitarian income distribution. France’s trend is particularly stable, pointing to enduring redistributive effects from its tax and welfare systems. Canada has a slightly higher but stable profile, reflecting moderate inequality tempered by public policy.

🧾 Overall Insight:
The chart reinforces a key dynamic: Anglo-Saxon economies (USA, UK) exhibit higher inequality, while continental and East Asian nations tend to compress income distributions more effectively. Notably, COVID-19 does not cause a dramatic spike, suggesting income support policies in many nations buffered household-level inequality during the crisis.