The USA:
GDP 4.4 %
GDP per capita: $40,100
Population below poverty line - 12 %
Poverty USA: The Working Poor
More than two-thirds of all poor families with children included one or more individuals who worked in 2003. What’s more, family members in working-poor families with children typically worked combined totals of 46 weeks per year.
The U.S. Census Bureau defines poor families as those with cash incomes of less than $14,680 a year for a family of three – or $18,810 for a family of four. In 2003, the average poor family had an income of $8,858, or $738.00 per month.
http://www.usccb.org/cchd/povertyusa/povfact3.shtml
Comparing China and the USA should be like comparing apples to oranges. However when you realize the per capita income in China is based on the fact the population there is 3.7 times more people. the per capita income in China if there was the same population as the USA would be about $20.720. China is also a socialized system whereby there is government health care. So, the spending dynamics are different. China has a lot of problems but with a GDP of 9.1% as of 2004 which is the year all these statistics are based things are getting better all the time.
China:
GDP - 9.1%
GDP per capita - $5,600
Population below poverty line - 10%
The Chinese Economy
By October 1, 1999, the PRC had undergone a glorious yet tortuous course of 50 years, amid great changes in Chinese society.
Before the founding of New China in 1949, China's highest yearly outputs of major industrial and agricultural products were 445,000 tons of yarn, 22.79 billion meters of cloth, 61,880,000 tons of coal, 320,000 tons of crude oil, 6 billion kwh of electric energy production, 150 million tons of grain, and 849,000 tons of cotton.
Since the founding of New China, especially in the 20 years after the start of reform and opening to the outside world in 1978 China has made great achievements in economic construction and social development.
In 1998, the GDP was 7,955.3 billion yuan, an increase of 6.4 times over 1978, at constant prices; the outputs of some major industrial and agricultural products, such as grain, cotton, meat, edible oil, coal, steel, cement, cloth and TV sets, leapt from a backward position to first place in the world.
http://www.asianinfo.org/asianinfo/china/pro-economy.htm
TABLES
GDP per Capita
http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?c=ch&v=67
Population below poverty line
http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?c=ch&v=69
