If you include the incentives across the entire business, rather than just fixating on a single employee, you discover a figure equal to around 5% of the $171B in gross revenues. It should be noted that even this is a conservative estimate, as General Motors licenses and contracts to third-party businesses with their own administrative expenses.
How much do you think Chinese factory workers get paid?
This matters for the debate over which of the US or China has the larger economy because, measured at market exchange rates, US GDP is still around 40% larger than that of China. (See Chart 1.) But when measured at PPP exchange rates, China’s economy overtook that of the US in 2016 and is now about 20% bigger.
Because of the cheap cost of living in China, their factory workers can earn less on paper and still live much higher on the hog. Often literally (Chinese consumers eat about 5kg more pork per capita than their American peers). But also in terms of home ownership rates (90% in China to 60% in America) and retirement age (54 in China compared to 59 in the US) and life expectancy (78 in China compared to 76 in the US).
If you consult the Gini Index, the US and China are within 2 points of each other as of 2021.
This is largely thanks to the big public works financed and administered by a unified national government. A relatively poor country can produce quality of life superior to the global leader simply by doing the old FDR style tax-and-spend tricks that put America at the front of the pack 80 years ago.