Personal income per capita can already tell a different story being defined as 'an individual's total income from wages, passive enterprises, and investment interest and dividends (). The argument has been made by Davezies (2008) for France. His thesis,for the time being, seems to hold primarily for richer (capital) regions such as Ile de France. Davezies' thesis is thatb the rest of France, referred to as the French desert, is better off than the capital region in terms of personal income if one takes into account: public employment expenditures; pensions, commuter revenues, and torist spending; social ytransfers other than pensions. For the system to remain durable, it is vital that Ile de France maintains its top position as creator of wealth. France cannot live on income transfer alone. But, gradually, GDP creation may shift to the rest of France.
Regions cannot live on income transfer alone. Hence the importance of boosting innovation as a way out of the present crisis (Drewe, 2010a,b). A 'sluggish recovery', leave alone a 'lost decade' are not very promising scenarios. Much will depend on the Flagship Initiative 'Innovation Union' (European Commission, 2010).
Personal income per capita still menas that prosperity or poverty are measured in monetary terms. For many years now scholars and international organizations have pleaded for the use of non-monetary indicators (closer to social cohesion) that is: happiness, well-being, quality of life, satisfaction, human development and the like (see ). Creating alternative national and regional accounts:
-  one may obtain a more balanced and intellectually more satifying view on cohesion: without overestimating the real wealth by taking into account social costs, but also without estimating it by includig social benefits (social costs and benefits relate to production, distribution and consumption).
- but one may also console the 'monetary' poor that they are not so poor or even rich in other ways. By doing so, however, one ignores the difference between absolute and relative poverty (or the relevance of reference groups).
At the end of the day, the nitty-gritty of social cohesion pivots on (un)employment, in particular on youth and long-term unemployment. What yardstick to adopt for regional disparities (another EU-27=100?) and what eligibility threshold?