In his regular Sunday sermon, yesterday, Prime Minister Robert Abela said that Malta’s national wealth per person is equal to that of Sweden. First of all, it would not be surprising that Malta has a high per capita wealth and income ratio due to the very large discrepancy between the precarious-work economy and the high-income earners group.
However, the Prime Minister is not correct in his statement.
First of all, Sweden has an average gross salary of at least €40,000 per year. Malta’s average gross salary is up to €33,500. More statistics by Eurostat show that the Gross National Income of Malta per person is at €40,000, but in Sweden is at €46,300.
Sweden’s GDP per capita is at €66,000 and Malta’s is up to €42,000.
From where did the Prime Minister get his statistic? He got it from a BS Global Annual Report which you can download it here. The report does indeed present data that shows that Malta has a higher national wealth per capita than Sweden. the problem with this statistic is that it means absolutely nothing if you do not provide the necessary economic context such as the data presented here. The figure can say much or nothing at all, because if there is a very large discrepancy in wealth, the figure becomes meaningless.
In fact, the figure is indeed an indication that ta has a very large discrepancy in wealth – probably larger than in Sweden. If the median wealth per person in Malta is higher than in Sweden, while GDP per capita and average wages are higher in Sweden, there is indeed an indication that something is off.
The other indication that the UBS wealth scale is not very accurate and clear without the necessary context is that Italy, comes even ahead of us in the scale – and of course it does. Italy, which is literally becoming poorer and has a stagnant economy, has many more rich people than Malta along with an even higher wealth discrepancy. (Italy and Greece are the only EU countries getting poorer since the start of this century according to Eurostat). The fact that Spain is also even higher than Malta is a dead give-away that the figures are very nuanced without the proper context.
Statistics can be confusing without the proper context. The same report lists Bulgaria coming in the third place after Belgium in the scale of growth in average wealth per adult in Europe. Without any context these statistics mean nothing.
The bottom line is this. Are the Maltese relatively richer than Swedes? The simple answer is no. Not even near.
You can listen to his discourse here.
Website Editor
Historian and Publisher
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