"Personal consumption" is a comprehensive measure of the goods and services consumed by households. It is the World Bank's preferred indicator of material living standards due to "practical reasons of reliability and because consumption is thought to better capture long-run welfare levels than current income." The latest available data (2021) show that the United States has the highest average consumption per person among an elite group of wealthy, developed nations. The U.S. advantage is so great that even the poorest 20% of people in the U.S. consumed more goods and services than the national averages for ALL people in most developed countries in 2010 (latest data). Nevertheless, a scientific survey conducted in 2020 found that 55% of voters were ignorant of these facts. Prominent people on both the left and right have misled the public to believe that material living standards are higher in other nations than in the United States.