The math adds up when you notice a couple of things:<p>1. The EU added Bulgaria, Romania and other new member states in 2007 that expand the population and thus markets to 440 million in the EU vs 300-something in the US.<p>2. Government makes money from every transaction by its residents (and companies, but for per capita metrics, we look at residents)- income, employment, purchases, etc. The US grows by immigration - but fresh immigrants usually jump into employment in lower skilled / paid jobs. However the EU with its social policies enables more women to be in the workforce due to better childcare availability and hours and allows individuals to carry less savings because of low cost healthcare and other available safety nets. Poorer people with income buy a lot more staples, food and spend a lot more of their income, boosting the local economy. Wealthier middle class is more likely to save or spend money on bigger things- from real estate to investments to education, but that doesn’t trickle into the GDP as much (education is often non-profit and real estate has capital gains rates). When more people are employed in a country - you see a bigger rise to middle class and more spending per capita and income per capita.<p>To raise GDP per capita, just enable more childcare and support for employment of women. However, since the US government uses unemployment of only people who became recently unemployed and are still looking for jobs instead of all unemployed, to measure all unemployment they would irreversibly damage their performance in their favorite self-improving metric, and would have to do more for their citizens.