Additionally, quality of life amounts to more than measures for disposable income etc. If you consider access to education and healthcare the picture might take on greater depth.
If you compare the Quality of Life Index, Austria is 9th, USA is 15th. Freedom Index - Austria is 93, USA is 83. HDI USA is 20th with 0.927, Austria is 22nd with 0.926. Another fun one is Cost of Living index which shows that Austria is significantly cheaper to live in compared to the US (66.8 vs 72.9 out of NYC).
I can go on, but it's frankly ridiculous that you think GDP per capita is relevant, or somehow directly impacts the lives of Austrians and invalidates the good choices Austria and Vienna have made.
You're quite correct he should have used GDP w/ PPP, but I don't think the fact that Austria would rank merely below-average rather than second-worst is a very powerful argument. And there is some truth to this: visit the average American household and they have a lot of material wealth compared to the average European. I remember being particularly shocked by the state Germans live in and find acceptable.
It is, because they were implying that Austria having the social housing policies that it does, it severely impacts GDP; but it doesn't. A tiny mountainous country that was twice in the middle of disastrous wars in the last century, has practically no raw materials... and would be in the middle of the US GDP PPP-wise, which has a much bigger market, a lot more workers, a lot of raw materials, etc etc etc etc. And again, this is assuming GDP matters for the average person's life... and it doesn't.
> visit the average American household and they have a lot of material wealth compared to the average European
At the expense of crippling debt :) https://data.oecd.org/hha/household-debt.htm (don't forget the fact that American savings have to account for losing your job or getting sick, as well as retirement, while in Austria they don't).
Austria got screwed by WWII for sure, but it still had a literate, educated, relatively wealthy population and was once the center of a great empire that amassed great wealth. And, I mean, Vienna was practically the cultural center of Europe for a brief period.
> At the expense of crippling debt :) https://data.oecd.org/hha/household-debt.htm (don't forget the fact that American savings have to account for losing your job or getting sick, as well as retirement, while in Austria they don't).
I'll be the first to argue that the American safety net needs improvements, but Social Security, (retirement and disability benefits), Medicare (65+ government health insurance), Medicaid (poor, unemployed, and disabled health insurance), and unemployment insurance all exist in the US, and together with other benefit programs constitute the majority of US spending. Indeed, US government spending per capita on health care is higher than many European countries. It'd be a good example of where having a higher nominal dollar value doesn't buy as much even adjusted for PPP, since obviously despite this the US doesn't have universal public health care.
This is considered uncouth to say, but household debt is sometimes due to horrible exigencies, but it's much more often the result of easy access to debt and material consumption. It's really shocking to see the people you know cannot be making more than 40-60k driving around 50-70k vehicle, and who also have a nice boat and a huge house. But even people not doing these things tend to live more materially comfortable lives than most Europeans I know.
While the latter have indeed revenues that seem much higher, I would say that there is no doubt that the quality of life of my former Austrian colleagues was higher, based on purchasing power, balance between job and personal life and quality of food and environment.
For health care, there are many publicly owned hospital systems in Mississippi, and of course Medicare is available for everyone 65+. Mississippi is not a Medicaid expansion state, so while Medicaid (free health care) is available for children, pregnant women, and the disabled, there is a coverage gap between that and qualifying for the ACA subsidies for health insurance (aka "Obamacare") which is sort of similar to the German system if you wave your hands; I think Austria has something similar, but I'm not familiar, but obviously the coverage is broader.
Who cares about some silly numbers on a bank account? We live good lives.
If you used housing prices an an indication of desirability (and an attempt to stay on topic) people much prefer to live there than the smallish mid-western town that I bought a house in.
I mean, trees and mountains instead of miles and miles of corn...