October 03, 2015
Okay, I’m sure it was just an error in editing, but come on. An NYT article on Germany on the 25th anniversary of the unification told readers:
“A new government report showed that gross domestic product per capita in eastern Germany has more than doubled in the past 25 years, but is still one-third the level in the western part of the country.”
I’m sure this is supposed to read that per capita GDP in former East Germany is one-third less than in the western part of country. Even this figure is somewhat misleading since the population of former East Germany is much older and more likely to be retirees than the rest of the country. There is probably still a difference in living standards among the working age populations, but nothing like what would be implied by this sentence.
As BTP readers know, I have my share of typos, but NYT has a bit more resources than my blog.
Note: It appears that even the one-third less number is an exaggeration as Robert Salzberg’s points out in his comment below.
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