America's Lowest-Spending State Still Outspends Every Country

America's Lowest-Spending State Still Outspends Every Country

Household consumption per person in 2024 ran to $44,396 in Idaho, the lowest of the 50 US states. The top foreign economy on the chart is Bermuda at $40,684, still below Idaho. Germany sits near $32,000, the UK near $30,000 and Japan near $23,000.

This particular measure flatters the United States by construction. When the OECD and Eurostat compare countries they use actual individual consumption, and the difference is the health care and education that governments provide directly. An American family buys insurance and pays medical bills, and every dollar of it lands in household consumption. A Danish family receives the same treatment through a tax-financed system, and none of it does.

The amounts involved are large. US health spending ran to about $14,775 per person in 2024 against roughly $7,860 across comparable wealthy countries, a gap of nearly $7,000. Idaho beats Bermuda by $3,712.

Switch to actual individual consumption and the United States is still the highest in the OECD, around 50% above the average. So Americans really do consume more. What disappears is the tidy result where every single state clears every single country.

The durable part of the chart is scale. The 50 states are 4.5% of the people shown and 19.6% of the consumption, and that holds whichever measure you pick. The fragile part is the ranking between states and countries.

Source: World Bank, US Bureau of Economic Analysis, OECD and the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker (Image: @cremieuxrecueil)