alt Hacker NewsFor purposes of comparing countries to each other and the same country over time, it’s not 30% off. The average skews higher than the median everywhere, so it’ll be 1.3/1.x.
If you have reported median incomes that are calculated the same way across countries and over time, that would be better. But many countries don’t reliably track that data, and the ones that do calculate it in completely different ways.
That all sounds reasonable. My concern was with your quote
> GDP/capita aligns very closely with material standard of living for the median person
GDP per capita is an average. This means it does not align with the _median_ person, but with the average. I believe this is factual and undeniable. No doubt it is interesting too to try to find other metrics for different usages as well.
> For purposes of comparing countries to each other and the same country over time, it’s not 30% off
You said the ratio for the same country between gdp mediand and average is 1.30. That means it is 30% off. Again, we can keep moving the goalposts and I could agree, but for the quoted statements i believe the above is true.