Comparing two countries' living standards is better done with GDP per capita than total GDP because it accounts for:

1. A large economy may simply have a large number of people. 2. GDP measures the total size of a nation's economy. 3. GDP per capita is the GDP divided by the population. 4. So per capita figures adjust for population size. _Source: OpenStax Principles of Macroeconomics for AP Courses 2e (CC BY 4.0), Ch 5 'The Macroeconomic Perspective'_