Those worried about China passing the USA can have a freakout before 2030 looking at individual income

The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) does not believe that China will match the US on per capita income on a purchasing power parity basis for another 74 years. The AEI believes the US is still almost 75 years ahead of China when we consider the more important measure of economic output per person. China and the US are both producing about the same amount of economic output this year, but China’s population is 4.25 times the size of the US population (1.355 billion vs. 319 million). Therefore, on a per-capita basis the IMF estimates that the US will produce $54,678 in economic output per person in 2014, which is more than four times the expected per-person GDP in China of only $12,893. The chart above shows that the US produced that amount of real GDP per person (about $13,000) back in 1940, almost 75 years ago.

The American Thinker believes the per capita GDP-PPP parity between China and the USA could be reached by the mid-2030s.

Nextbigfuture believes that although China’s per capita income will not match the United States, the top 320 million in China will be at current US levels by 2030.

The top 10-20% of China’s population are already wealthier than official figures indicate because wealth is being hidden.

The Euromonitor has a forecast of China to US GDP on a purchasing power parity basis to 2030.

The richest 25% of people in China will match up to the US population of 370 million on individual wealth basis before 2030

Even if China is only 50% bigger than the USA on an overall GDP basis and the average per capita PPP income in china is less than 45% of the US average per capita PPP. China will have people in the top 25% who will roughly match the individual wealth of the people in the USA. In 2030, China individual wealth will be like a combination of the United States (top 370 million) and then two South Americas (double 500 million populations with lower per capita income to get the bottom billion of China’s 1.4 billion).

Provinces with the top 25% of population have about 140% of the national GDP PPP average

The 2012 PPP numbers were not adjusted for a 2011 IMF study that boosted China PPP GDP by 25%

The Top 20% of China’s population are actually over 200% richer than the average when hidden wealth is factored

The top 10% have moved up over 50% from the 2010 figures from Credit Suisse. The top 136 million in China have over US$32,000 of disposable income for the year of 2014 and will have over $36,000 of disposable income for the year of 2015 .