Why Is Barbados Three Times Richer Than Jamaica?

Barbados vs Jamaica, explained: why the average income per person in Barbados (about US$27,000 in 2025) is about three and a half times Jamaica's (about US$7,800), when both islands were British sugar colonies that won independence in the 1960s with the same laws and the same kind of parliament. From Bridgetown to Kingston: the Barbados dollar peg, the Jamaican dollar, the IMF, Canada's money and Jamaica's debt comeback.

In 1975 one Jamaican dollar bought about US$1.10. Today one US dollar buys more than 150 Jamaican dollars, while Barbados has held its dollar at two to one since July 1975. Two economists who compared the islands (Henry & Miller, American Economic Review, 2009) argue the d…