Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita is a measure of economic production, which takes the entire output of a national economy during a year and divides it by the population of that country. In the European Union, Luxembourg, Ireland, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Austria come out on top as the countries which produced the most per capita in 2024. Europe's richest countries benefit from multinational companies Many criticisms have been made of using GDP per capita as away to judge a country's economic wealth in recent years, as global capital flows have come to distort the statistics and to give a warped impression of different countries' wealth. This is most notably the case for Ireland and for Luxembourg, which while certainly high-income countries, have experienced dramatic booms in their GDP over the past two decades due to the accounting practices of the large multinational corporations which have their European headquarters in these member states, such as Facebook and Apple in Dublin, and Amazon in Luxembourg. Will the poorest countries converge towards the EU average? At the bottom of the list, two of the most recent member states of the EU, Romania and Bulgaria, come last in terms of GDP per capita. Whether these countries will be able to capitalize on their relatively low-wages to spur economic growth and experience the convergence towards the older member states of the union shown by countries such as Estonia, Czechia, and Lithuania, remains a pressing issue for these poorer member states.

As of 2025, there are **** official candidate countries for membership in the European Union, as well as Kosovo identified by the European Commission as a potential future candidate. A key element of the Copenhagen Criteria - the conditions which must be fulfilled to join the EU - is the existence of a functioning market economy in the candidate country, with the ability of the country to handle the strong competition and economic pressures which come with joining the European Single Market. While the political and administrative/institutional criteria have been considered the key stumbling block which has prevented the current candidate countries from progressing towards full membership, the current state of the economies of candidate countries is also a cause for concern. According to the most recently available data, all candidate countries have lower GDP per capita than even the poorest EU member state, Bulgaria. Ukraine, the newest candidate country, which was granted candidate status by the EU in response to Russia's invasion of the country in 2022, is the poorest candidate country, as measured by GDP per capita. This represents a serious issue, as the EU has never incorporated a country which is so far from the average economic standards of the Union. On the other hand, the chance to join the EU could provide an economic boost to Ukraine, or any other candidate country, as can be seen with the fast rising GDP per capita of countries which have joined the EU since 2004, such as Czechia, Hungary, and Poland.

This data collection focuses on the federal budget deficit and on issues dealing with the rich and the poor in America. Respondents were asked if they approved of the way George Bush, Democrats in Congress, and Republicans in Congress were handling the the federal budget deficit, and who was more to blame for the larger deficit. Additionally, respondents were asked how much money it takes to be rich in the United States, whether they would want to be rich, how likely it was that they would ever be rich or poor, whether the percentage of Americans who are rich was increasing, and whether they respected and admired rich people. Other questions asked respondents if they characterized rich people as more likely to be honest, snobbish, intelligent, and a variety of other traits, whether respondents would be more or less likely to vote for a candidate who was a millionaire/self-made millionaire, and which political party better represented the interests of poor, rich, and middle class people. Background information on respondents includes political alignment, 1988 presidential vote choice, registered voter status, education, age, religion, social class, marital status, number of people in the household, labor union membership, employment status, race, income, sex, and state/region of residence.

The qualitative research was conducted in order to illuminate older people’s quality of life from the perspective of older people themselves. The aim was to paint a picture of the lives of older people and to gain insight into how older people in the region have been affected by the massive societal changes of the last 15 years and how they are coping with the impacts of these changes.

The project involves a mixed method design, combining quantitative analysis of the living standards of older people of recently available household survey data, with qualitative research providing deep insight into the reality of life for older people today. Obtaining greater insight into how the lives of older people have been affected by the socio-economic transformations of the last 15 years, and relative role of the state and family in both providing support to and benefiting from the contribution of, older people will aid the formulation of poverty alleviation programmes. Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Moldova were chosen as countries for qualitative research as these three countries are the poorest of the former Soviet states. In each country, data collection sites were selected to represent different geographical and social conditions. Data collection commenced in each country with the capital city. Data were also collected in a smaller town and a rural location as it was seen as important to investigate any differences in older people’s experiences which might be related to the places in which they live. With consideration for the above criteria, sites were then selected according to safety and accessibility issues and the availability of local contacts.

This project examines the living conditions and sources of finance and social support (both state and family) amongst older people living in the seven poorest countries of the former Soviet Union. The break-up of the Soviet Union and the subsequent transition to market-led economies has been accompanied by a decade of economic and social upheaval on an unprecedented scale. Older people face particular challenges. Having lived their entire working lives under a paternal and relatively generous welfare system, they now find themselves in later life facing a new world – politically, economically, socially, psychologically and physically.

The Kyrgyz Republic suffered severe shocks during the early years of independence, loosing its traditional markets in the Former Soviet Union republics, as well as substantial transfers and subsidies from the Soviet Union, that included a falling GDP during the first five years of transition. These circumstances prompted the Kyrgyz Republic to adopt a wide range of reforms to accelerate the transition to a market economy, emphasizing price and trade liberalization, and the shift of ownership of state assets to the private sector, including land, and most state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Since the mid-l990s, the economy has shown steady signs of recovery. Despite these favorable developments, the Kyrgyz Republic remains the second poorest of the FSU republics, and one of the poorest countries in the world. Absolute poverty affected about half of the population in spite of progress made in 2001, and, although poverty is highest in rural areas, there are large regional disparities, where transient poverty is high as a result of high consumption volatility. Access to public services such as water and sewerage, electricity, district heating, and telecommunication services, is very low. This Public Expenditure Review (PER) has sought to provide a strategic framework for fiscal adjustment and public expenditure reform, consistent with the government's objectives for accelerated growth and poverty reduction. The broad contours o f the strategy are: To stabilize the government's finances through stronger revenue, and expenditure management instruments and institutions, as well as through debt relief; to re-align sector policies with the most essential country priorities, with a general thrust toward improving targeted, and efficient use of resources in both social and public infrastructure sectors; to revamp the public administration to improve policy implementation and service delivery; and, to secure external financial support. Given the fragile external debt situation and the extent of poverty, priority has to be given to fiscal adjustment and the expenditure reform agenda. Government performance needs to be monitored, particularly at the grass roots levels, through systematic diagnoses of institutional problems, and through quantitative performance indicators, to monitor progress and competition in public service delivery.

The gross domestic product (GDP) of California was about 3.23 trillion U.S. dollars in 2023, meaning that it contributed the most out of any state to the country’s GDP in that year. In contrast, Vermont had the lowest GDP in the United States, with 35.07 billion U.S. dollars. What is GDP? Gross domestic product, or GDP, is the total monetary value of all goods and services produced by an economy within a certain time period. GDP is used by economists to determine the economic health of an area, as well as to determine the size of the economy. GDP can be determined for countries, states and provinces, and metropolitan areas. While GDP is a good measure of the absolute size of a country's economy and economic activity, it does account for many other factors, making it a poor indicator for measuring the cost or standard of living in a country, or for making cross-country comparisons. GDP of the United States The United States has the largest gross domestic product in the world as of 2023, with China, Japan, Germany, and India rounding out the top five. The GDP of the United States has almost quadrupled since 1990, when it was about 5.9 trillion U.S. dollars, to about 25.46 trillion U.S. dollars in 2022.

The estimated per capita income across Sikkim was the highest among Indian states at around *** thousand Indian rupees in the financial year 2024. Meanwhile, it was the lowest in the northern state of Bihar at over ** thousand rupees. India’s youngest state, Telangana stood in the fifth place. The country's average per capita income that year was an estimated *** thousand rupees. What is per capita income? Per capita income is a measure of the average income earned per person in a given area in a certain period. It is calculated by dividing the area's total income by its total population. If absolute numbers are noted, India’s per capita income doubled from the financial year 2015 to 2023. Wealth inequality However, as per economists, the increase in the per capita income of a country does not always reflect an increase in the income of the entire population. Wealth distribution in India remains highly skewed. The average income hides the disbursal and inequality in a society. Especially in a society like India where the top one percent owned over ** percent of the total wealth in 2022.

In 2023, the state of California added about 3.2 trillion chained (2017) U.S. dollars of value to the U.S. real gross domestic product (GDP). Total real GDP amounted to about 22.7 trillion chained (2017) U.S. dollars.