Stop complaining? Poland is rich. Even the CIA admits it.

For decades, public discourse in Poland has referred to our country as a “country of achievement”. You still hear such a diagnosis from time to time. It is often used by those who are against more generous social policies. You know the phrase: “We can’t start giving now, we have to make some money first.” Today, we can say with a clear conscience that “we have already done it”. Poland is a wealthy country – one of the richest countries in the world.evidence?

Central Statistics Bureau In early August, he published an analysis that our GDP in terms of purchasing power parity (i.e. adjusted for prices) is 80% of the EU average. This is really significant considering two things: that European countries are an elite club of the world’s richest economies, and the level at which we started.

Eurostat can tell us about the second question. Eurostat data The background that interests us dates back to 2012. At that time, Poland’s GDP accounted for only 67% of the EU. What is important is not our comparison with the EU as a whole, but with the Eurozone, which mainly gathers the “old” core of the Community (Lithuanians also use the European currency, Latvians, Estonians and Slovaks).

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So by 2023, this group will have a per capita GDP adjusted for purchasing power of 104% of the EU average. Much more than we have, but not as much as some people think. To make these figures more concrete, let’s look beyond our western borders. Last year, Germany’s GDP grew by 115% of the EU GDP.

But what’s most interesting right now is that – both with our Western neighbors and with the Eurozone countries – we’ve seen a narrowing of the advantage on this indicator over the past decade. In 2012, the eurozone GDP grew by 114%. Community and Germany – 124We are getting richer faster! Western countries are not getting poorer at all. Quite the opposite – they are getting richer. But the GDP of the new EU countries is growing faster.

Now let’s move on to absolute measures. When creating its economic development tables, the World Bank divides countries into the following categories: low-income countries, lower-middle-income countries, upper-middle-income countries, and high-income countries. However, the institution does not use the GDP measurement that we are used to, but Gross National Income Given in US dollars.

What is national income? In short, it is the value of goods and services produced in a given year by factors of production belonging to the citizens of a given country. So, the Polish DNB calculates the income of our company’s investments in Germany or Ukraine.

So where do we rank according to the World Bank’s measure? You guessed it – we are a “high-income” country (the threshold for entering this group is a GNI per capita of $14,000). Where do we start? Platform Our World in Data Data on this topic since 1987 are compiled.

Poland was classified as a lower-middle-income country until 1995. Then we moved up a notch; according to the World Bank methodology, we became a high-income country in 2010, about fifteen years ago.

This is another interesting thing. According to data from the Central Intelligence Agency (yes, that CIA) Poland ranks 54th in the world in terms of purchasing power adjusted GDP per capita. That’s not overly impressive, but it is if we consider that a dozen of the entities in the ranking are tax havens with GDP artificially inflated to ridiculous levels, and the next few are small oil exporters with very “monolithic” economies.We are currently ranked among the top 30 countries in the worldThe Czech Republic and Lithuania are ahead of us, but we have already surpassed Portugal. What’s more, with GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power of just over 44,000 zlotys. dollars, we are approaching Japan (46,000), Spain (just over 46,000) or Israel and New Zealand (less than 49,000).

Some people interested in this topic might say that these are just large-scale accounting tricks. After all – critics would say – GDP, and even some strange indicators of gross national income, say almost nothing about living standards. But this is not true – GDP is closely related to prosperity. There is no low-income (or middle-income) country whose population lives truly “comfortably”. On the other hand, there is no high-income country where a large proportion of the population lives in poverty and is excluded from basic public services.

Let’s recall here another measure that aggregates not only the rather abstract (but important!) gross domestic product (GDP), but also the life expectancy of residents of a particular country and their educational attainment – good indicators of well-being. This was created by the United Nations Human Development Index.

In theory, the scale ranges from 0 to 1, but no country is at such an extreme. The least developed country in the world is South Sudan (HDI 0.381), and the most developed is Switzerland (HDI – 0.967). Poland has a human development index of 0.881, which ranks 36th in the world and is called a “very developed country”. We are only eight points away from… France. In the early 1990s, when the United Nations began to count, we were in the “high” development stage. But in his bass.

Still not convinced? Many people might say (quite correctly) that the measure of a country’s development is the quality of life of its poor citizens. The measure that shows this is the so-called poverty risk rate. Here – and this may surprise many readers – we are one of the leaders in Europe. The average for the entire EU is 21%. At risk of poverty. In our country it is “only” 16%. Only Finland, Slovenia and the Czech Republic are better in terms of this indicator. And yet we are talking about the main group of the world’s most developed countries.

Why is the situation so good? From several overlapping trends. First, from the growth of GDP, to which I devoted a lot of energy above (this is mainly due to the integration of our economy with the EU economy and the result of European funds). Second, the amazing situation of the Polish labor market – we are also one of the world leaders in terms of the level (or more precisely “low”) of unemployment. It is worth mentioning that this is not only a result of these or other rulers, but also a result of demographics. For many years, more people left the labor market than entered it. Third, the 500+ program launched by the Ministry of Law and Justice, now extended to 800+, played an important role. Its presence can be seen in many happiness charts, including subjective happiness.

It is also worth adding here that real wages (i.e. wages adjusted for inflation) are currently growing at the fastest rate in the past 30 years. In addition, the minimum wage is high compared to average wages.

We are no longer a nation of achievers, we should get used to thinking of our nation as a nation of prosperity. This is an important moment in our nation’s history. One that can be used for progressive reforms, whether in the housing market, the labor market, or improving the lives of the poorest.

Just because we got promoted doesn’t mean the story is over and everything is settled. After all, experience tells us that reality is still problematic in many places. There is something to be done. Of course, you can also wait for the market to sort out. There are at least two problems with this approach. First, markets work slower than intentional regulation – we can wait for years of income growth to reduce child poverty. However, “doing a simple trick” is enough to almost get rid of the problem. Second – and perhaps more importantly – some things may never be solved by the market.

The level we have reached provides a unique opportunity to create certain tools that will almost completely eliminate some social problems. We can no longer use the mantra “we are a country of achievers”. Poland is one of the first countries without homelessness? And why not! In a year or two, such an ambitious goal is definitely achievable. We are proud of Poland because it solved a problem that other developed countries could not cope with. Sounds good, right? Well, it rings true.

Kamil Fejfer, journalist who writes about business, economy and culture, co-founder of the podcast and YouTube channel “Ekonomia i inne”