Canadian born economist Noah Smith sets some journalists straight on basic mathematics involving population size and GDP –
“China’s population in
2013 was 1.357 billion while the U. S.'s was 316 million. That’s a ratio of
4.29 to 1.
Just to help the
reader understand this size disparity, imagine that the U.S. was an average
American man, weighing 191 pounds. If population were weight, then China would
weigh the same as an 819-pound adult male grizzly bear.
…
Here is a fact: If
every Chinese person of working age had a job for 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a
year, those workers would only need to make $9.15 an hour for the Chinese
economy to be larger than that of the U.S.”
See my previous post on a related topic: