February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
By 2005, Ireland will have reached the wealth levels American economy had in 2000, and if Ireland were currently a U.S. state, it would be the 12th poorest, making it richer than states such as Florida, Alabama and Montana.
Timbro used the U.S. state model as a novel way to illustrate wealth patterns and projections for the European Union.
Though it may never reach U.S. wealth levels, Ireland is the one country catching up fastest.
“The differences between the American and the European economies are very great, so great that most of the European countries will need 15 years of normal growth to catch up on the American economy as it now stands,” the report states.
The UK, Italy and France would be with the five poorest U.S. states, Mississippi, West Virginia, Montana, Arkansas and Oklahoma.
Greece, were it a U.S. state, would be the poorest of all.
Timbro concludes: “Quite simply, the USA has succeeded with something in its growth policy (or rather absence of policy) where the European countries have not.”