Quality of life comparison
If you lived in Iowa instead of Belgium, you would:
Health
be 85.6% more likely to be obese
In Belgium, 20.9% of adults are obese as of 2024. In Iowa, that number is 38.7% of people as of 2022.
Economy
be 44.2% less likely to be unemployed
In Belgium, 5.9% of the labor force is unemployed as of 2025. In Iowa, that number is 3.3% as of 2025.
be 14.6% less likely to live below the poverty line
In Belgium, 12.3% live below the poverty line as of 2022. In Iowa, however, that number is 10.5% as of 2023.
Sources: World Bank (2022–2025), World Health Organization (2024), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (PLACES) (2022), Bureau of Labor Statistics (2025), US Census Bureau (American Community Survey) (2023). How we calculate this
