January 2008, John Schmitt and David Rosnick
This issue brief finds that a forecast by Oxford Economics suggesting that the United Kingdom’s living standards will exceed those of the U.S. in 2008 is misleading. CEPR found that the forecast relies on a basic misunderstanding of standard methods of comparing international standards of living. Using the appropriate economic method, in 2008, the GDP per capita of the United States will exceed that of the United Kingdom by almost 19 percent.