Average Household Wealth In Countries Around The World, Visualized

America is the richest country in the world, it is often said, but how much richer are we really? One way to answer that question is to look at the average household's net wealth — the amount of money they have saved and invested, minus their debt. Personal finance site HowMuch has put together a clever visualization of many countries' average household wealth, using data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. 

We'll let HowMuch explain the logic of the visualization:

Our visualization roughly corresponds to the geographic location of each country on the map — the US is furthest "west" and Japan is further "east." The size of each bubble represents average household wealth for each country, or assets minus liabilities. This takes into account things like savings, securities, stocks and loans (but not real estate). We then color-coded each bubble based on the average disposable income for each household, which equates to the amount of income left over after taxes and transfers have been taken out. Basically, it's how much you can spend on living expenses and other discretionary purchases.

[HowMuch]

Although the United States' dominance when it comes to household wealth might seem like a good thing, there's a not-so-sunny interpretation of America's standings in the chart. "Whereas European countries maintain social programs that provide for a secure retirement," HowMuch points out, "many workers are largely left alone in the US to save for their golden years." Americans have to save if they want to survive; people in countries with more robust safety nets know that they will be taken care of regardless of how much money they personally squirrel away. That's good news for Americans who have a lot of money on hand — and not so great news for everyone else.