WS MoreOrLess: The UK vs Mississippi

Summary

More or Less – "The UK vs Mississippi"

Podcast: More or Less
Host: Tim Harford (BBC Radio 4)
Episode Date: September 22, 2014

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Overview

This episode explores the provocative claim that if the UK joined the United States as a 51st state, it would be the second poorest state after Mississippi, based on economic output adjusted for living costs. Host Tim Harford and guest Chris Dillow critically analyze the numbers and consider what GDP, wages, and prices actually tell us about the comparative well-being of the UK and US states. The episode also delves into the semantics and sensitivities of labeling countries as "tiny," with a lighthearted investigation into Eritrea and Cyprus.

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Segment 1: Debunking the "UK as Second Poorest US State" Claim

(00:13–04:53)

Main Discussion Points

• Origin of the Claim:
  Fraser Nelson’s article in The Daily Telegraph asserts that Britain would be the second poorest US state, after Mississippi, if it joined the USA, sparking public backlash and skepticism.

  • "If you took economic output, adjusted for living costs, [the UK] would actually be ... the second poorest state in the Union. Only Mississippi would be poorer." – Tim Harford (00:26)

• Stereotypes vs Reality:
  Many Brits envision southern US states as poor, but Chris Dillow points out this view is outdated due to strong economic growth there over the past 40–50 years.

  • "You mention the southern states to the typical Englishman, he pictures deliverance and men playing banjos ... But in fact, that's a very outdated image and the southern states have grown very strongly over the last 40, 50 years." – Chris Dillow (01:07)

Numbers Assessment

• GDP Head-to-Head:

  • UK’s GDP (last year): £1.6 trillion
  • Population: 64 million
  • GDP per head (UK): just over £25,000
  • GDP per head (converted): just over $39,000
  • GDP per head (US): just over $53,000
  • Americans appear $14,000 “richer” per person than Brits by this measure (01:31–02:00).

• Wages Comparison:

  • Median full-time male production wage (UK): £556/week
  • Median in US: $860/week
  • Converted, these figures are very close (02:00–02:25).

• Cost of Living Reality Check:
  Many staple goods are much cheaper in the US:

  • "Take a dozen eggs. These cost just over £3 in the UK, but they cost only $1.95 in the US ... Less than half the price." – Chris Dillow & Interviewer (02:48–02:58)
  • Staples like petrol, milk, mince (ground meat), and coffee are also cited as significantly cheaper (03:01–03:07).

Plausibility and Limitations

• Validating the Claim:
  While not a rigorous econometric study, the numbers suggest it's plausible that the UK would rank low among US states by GDP per head and adjusted wages (03:10–03:26).

  • "It shouldn't be surprising to find out that the UK does not stack up terribly well in GDP terms relative to most American states." – Interviewer (03:22)

• Counterpoints:

  • Americans work about 7% more hours per year than Britons, per OECD data.
  • The US spends 7.6% more of GDP on healthcare, which affects disposable income and quality of life.
  • Adjusting for these, the standard of living gap narrows significantly (03:46–04:20).
  • "GDP and incomes aren't necessarily a guide to the quality of life." – Chris Dillow (04:31)

Notable Quotes

• "There's quite a few things that these figures miss ... Americans work more hours than we do… So they're richer than us, in part simply because they work harder." – Chris Dillow (03:46)
• "There may be factors in the quality of life that mean it's better to be English than American." – Chris Dillow (04:31)

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Segment 2: What Makes a Country “Tiny”?

(04:53–09:13)

BBC Trending Apology & the Eritrea Mix-Up

• Background:
  Tim Harford discusses a previous BBC Trending story which referred to Eritrea as "tiny," leading to upheld complaints from listeners.

  • "We did say one thing which was wrong, and that was we called Eritrea tiny." – Mukul Devachand (05:21)

• Statistical Reality:
  Eritrea is the 101st largest country by area out of 252 and six times bigger than Wales.

  • "I now know that the CIA World Factbook have Eritrea ranked as the 101st biggest out of 252 countries in terms of size." – Mukul Devachand (05:38)
  • "Eritrea, it turns out, is six times the size of my homeland Wales." – Mukul Devachand (06:04)

The Hunt for Official “Tiny” Countries

• Proposed Definition:
  Tim Harford muses about an “official” definition: fewer than 1 million people and less than 1,000 square kilometers (07:00).

  • Examples: Pitcairn Islands (pop. 56), Vatican City—"I walked all the way around it one afternoon with my 8 year old daughter." (06:50)

• Cyprus Case Study:
  Under this definition, Cyprus would rank as the world's "largest tiny country." Tim attempts (semi-humorously) to clear the use of "tiny Cyprus" with its UK embassy.

  • "It then became clear to me that Cyprus is so tiny it doesn't have enough people to man the press office phones." – Tim Harford (08:37)

Notable Quotes

• "For obvious reasons, I now will never ever refer to any country by its size alone." – Mukul Devachand (06:32)
• "Perhaps tiny countries could be said to be those which have a population of fewer than 1 million and a land area of 1,000 square kilometers or less." – Tim Harford (07:00)

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Key Takeaways and Memorable Moments

• Main Insight:
  The initial claim about the UK's economic ranking among US states holds up under cursory scrutiny, but context (hours worked, healthcare, quality of life) matters.
• Statistics with Sensitivity:
  Labels like “tiny” are more loaded, and sometimes less accurate, than they seem—highlighting the importance of precision in both data and language.

Memorable Moment:
Tim Harford's call to the Cypriot embassy to get their take on being called “tiny”—and his dry humor when he reflects on embassy phone availability and the etiquette of such terms (08:37–08:53).

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• 00:13–04:53 – UK vs US states: GDP, wages, living costs, Fraser Nelson’s claim scrutinized
• 04:53–06:39 – BBC Trending apology: Eritrea is not “tiny”
• 06:39–08:37 – Tim Harford investigates which countries are truly “tiny”
• 08:37–09:13 – Cyprus and the problem of labeling; episode close

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Tone and Language

The episode is data-driven but playful, often humorous, and intent on showing the nuance behind seemingly straightforward statistics. Tim Harford’s style combines authority with self-deprecating wit, and the conversations balance skepticism with curiosity.

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For listeners seeking insight on how economic comparisons can be misleading and why careful language matters, this episode provides an engaging—in places laugh-out-loud—exploration.

Transcript

[BBC Announcer]

Thank you for downloading from the BBC. For details of our complete range of podcasts and our terms of use, go to bbcworldserveys.com podcasts

[Tim Harford]

hello and welcome to More or Less on the BBC World Service. We're the programme which dances daringly with the data that surround us in the news and in life. And I'm Tim Harford. The journalist Fraser Nelson caused quite a stir recently when he wrote an article for the UK newspaper the Daily Telegraph, in which he said that if Britain were to leave the European Union and become the 51st state of America, the country would actually be, if you took economic output, adjusted for living costs, the second poorest state in the Union. Only Mississippi would be poorer. This comment was met with both skepticism and annoyance by many proud Brits online. But was Fraser Nelson right? Chris Dillo writes for the Investors Chronicle and has a blog called Stumbling and Mumbling. He's been checking the numbers. I started by asking him why so many people question Fraser Nelson's assertion.

[Chris Dillow]

You mention the southern states to the typical Englishman. He pictures deliverance and men playing banjos and he's got all these images of quite a poor country. But in fact, that's a very outdated image and the southern states have grown very strongly over the last 40, 50 years.

[Interviewer (possibly Tim Harford or another host)]

Talk us through how you subjected Fraser's number to an independent assessment.

[Chris Dillow]

UK GDP last year was £1.6 trillion. If you divide that between 64 million of us, you've got GDP per head of just over £25,000. The exchange rate last year was 1.57. So that gives us GDP per head in dollars of just over 39,000. In the US, you've got GDP per head of just over $53,000. So it looks as if the United States are $14,000 per person richer than us. What I decided to do then was to forget that calculation and look at wages. We know from the UK that the median full time male worker gets £556 per week. Now, the typical American worker, this is a man, gets $860 per week. If you convert that at an exchange rate of about 157, they're very close. There's something else which is that a lot of prices in America are a lot, lot lower than in the uk. And this means that in terms of what your money buys, you're much better off in America. So what I thought I'd do was I'd have a look at the prices of actual goods in the shops. Take a dozen eggs. These cost just over £3 in the UK, but they cost only $1.95 in

[Interviewer (possibly Tim Harford or another host)]

the US, which is about £20, something like that. So it's much cheaper. Less than half the price.

[Chris Dillow]

Yeah.

[Interviewer (possibly Tim Harford or another host)]

I mean, I guess we all know about petrol. Petrol's a lot cheaper.

[Chris Dillow]

Yeah, petrol is a lot cheaper, but so are most other staple food stuffs. I mean, milk, mints, coffee. I looked at several things and the picture is pretty similar.

[Interviewer (possibly Tim Harford or another host)]

None of this is super statistically rigorous. It's just a sort of a basic reality check that you're able to do armed only with Google that says, really, it shouldn't be surprising to find out that the UK does not stack up terribly well in GDP terms relative to most American states.

[Chris Dillow]

We can come at this in two different ways. GDP per head tells us that Americans are doing better than us, but so too do wages and individual prices.

[Interviewer (possibly Tim Harford or another host)]

What's the counter argument? That actually the UK is not doing as badly as those economic statistics seem to suggest. And in many ways, life in the UK is better than those statistics would suggest.

[Chris Dillow]

There's quite a few things that these figures miss. One is that Americans work more hours than we do. We've got some OECD figures which show that Americans put in 7% more hours per year. So they're richer than us, in part simply because they work harder. There's also the question of healthcare. And Americans spend 7.6% more of their GDP on health care than we do in the uk. So once you take account of those two facts, the gap between the British and the Americans narrows quite dramatically.

[Interviewer (possibly Tim Harford or another host)]

So you're not saying we should all immediately emigrate, but you are saying, on the face of it, Fraser Nelson's claim, which seemed surprising, surprised you. It's perfectly plausible.

[Chris Dillow]

It is plausible. But there is one other big point here, and that is that GDP and incomes aren't necessarily a guide to the quality of life. And there may be factors in the quality of life that mean it's better to be English than American.

[Tim Harford]

Late last year, BBC trending reported the tale of a musician from Eritrea. He was causing a stir on YouTube with a protest song that appeared to criticise the government. The coverage of the story resulted in several complaints being sent to the BBC's editorial complaints unit. Most were not upheld. Most. I brought BBC trending producer Mukul Devachand into the more or less studio to confess his mistake.

[Mukul Devachand]

We did say one thing which was wrong, and that was we called Eritrea. Tiny.

[Interviewer (possibly Tim Harford or another host)]

Tiny Eritrea.

[Mukul Devachand]

That's right. Tiny Eritrea.

[Interviewer (possibly Tim Harford or another host)]

And the BBC upheld complaints because you weren't supposed to refer to Eritrea as tiny.

[Mukul Devachand]

Yes. I now know that the CIA World Factbook have Eritrea ranked as the 101st biggest out of 252 countries in terms of size.

[Interviewer (possibly Tim Harford or another host)]

And measuring it in terms of square kilometers, that is 117,600. So that's, that's bigger than 60% of all other countries. It's not really tiny at all. It's in the top half of all the countries in the world measured by area.

[Mukul Devachand]

Eritrea. I now know I've not been there. Eritrea is definitely not tiny. And I have to say, as somebody from Wales, the country that often gets referred to as the standard shorthand for small countries, I feel particularly bad for having let that get through. Eritrea, it turns out, is six times the size of my homeland Wales.

[Interviewer (possibly Tim Harford or another host)]

Wales, just over 20,000 square kilometers. Just above Israel in terms of size and just below El Salvador. So Mukul, is Wales. Tiny? Tiny Wales. You come here from tiny Wales.

[Mukul Devachand]

For obvious reasons, I now will never ever refer to any country by its size alone.

[Tim Harford]

Wise man Mukul Devachand from BBC Trending. Eritrea clearly isn't tiny by area. It's larger than over half the world's countries, including South Korea, Hungary and Ireland. It's more populous than Libya, Singapore, Norway or. But it got me thinking that there must be somewhere we could describe as tiny. The Pitcairn Islands have a population of 56. The Vatican City. A country is entirely surrounded by Rome. I walked all the way around it one afternoon with my 8 year old daughter. These places really are tiny, although it might still be rude to say so. So what's the cut off? Well, I've been having a think. Perhaps tiny countries could be said to be those which have a population of fewer than 1 million and a land area of 1,000 square kilometers or less. That's about 60 miles by. 60 miles. By the way, these are nice round numbers. And most countries are larger by at least one of these measures. If we did adopt this twin test as the official BBC definition of tininess, the largest tiny country in the world would be Cyprus. But we didn't just want to assume it would be okay to talk about tiny Cyprus. No, no, no. So we called the press office of Cyprus UK Embassy to find out how they'd feel about it. And so it went on. Not a man to be easily defeated. I called back and went straight to the operator.

[Interviewer (possibly Tim Harford or another host)]

Good morning, this is Tim Harford calling from the BBC. Is the press office open at the moment? Please try.

[Mukul Devachand]

For you one moment.

[Interviewer (possibly Tim Harford or another host)]

Thank you.

[Tim Harford]

On and on the phone rang. It then became clear to me that Cyprus is so tiny it doesn't have enough people to man the press office phones. We'd like to apologise in advance for this feature to Cyprus and to the BBC's editorial complaints unit. Please send your complaints or your comments or your questions to more or lessbc.co.uk. and if you'd like a free download of this program, you are very welcome to it. Just go to bbcworldservice.com more or less. Thank you for your company and until next week, goodbye.

[BBC Announcer]

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