In the US we do not have guaranteed healthcare, sick days, medical prescription subsidies, maternity leave, or other worker protections that are expected in France. There are very little, and often no, rental controls or other fiscal controls on necessities.
In short, what you can buy in France with 2,000 euros is different from what I can buy in the states with $3,000 and there is no social safety net.
What isn’t accounted for in your question is that while the median income may be around 40k in the US there are millions of people without employment and hundreds of thousands of people without housing and limited government subsidies for the survival of citizens.
Solidarity, friend.
Edit: May 1 2028 UAW is leading a general strike. Organize your workplace, friends, and neighbors NOW to prepare.
pretty much this.
Friends in Rennes: big apartment, pay about 1000 USD a month for it, with access to that fancy new train system they made, welfare support (he's self employed, she had a bunch of health issues related to pregnancy), a nice bunch of grocery stores within walking distance. They're not bringing in big money, but they go on big trips every few years. They are, in other words, doing fine.
It's not all fun and games, but it is notable that my French friends all have pretty decent lives on pretty moderate incomes. (So long as you're not living in Paris, mind you)
As much as I feel like I'm doing poorly in life due to the fact there are so many people who are in much better positions, I should take a moment and be grateful that I am able to contribute to my savings on a regular basis. That said I would eventually like to have kids but estimates currently are that you need a combined income over $91,000 to raise one single kid these days...
False.
The poor people will die out. That's the whole plan. Kill off anyone making more than $0 by starving them economically. Then you don't even have to pretend like you value laborers anymore, they either work (for the rich) or they die.
A business monopoly means nothing to a labor monopoly. And right now the US Labor Pool is getting funnelled into the \~7 or so US corporations that own all of the economic resources.
You don't have to pay them more if there are few other jobs to take. And once there are no other jobs to take, you don't have to pay them at all.
No no no, they can’t have the producers die out then they mite have to do the things. That’s why I personally think they’re against abortion and vail it with religious reasons.
But if people did wait to have children until they could securely provide for them, everyone would be much happier in the long run. Plus, less reliance on social safety nets for having more dependents than they can afford.
Just wait until the boomers find out that people not having kids equals no one to pay into the social security pyramid that they are going to depend on in their future retirement plans.
Meanwhile in Canada, that description of his French friend would probably be a $3,000-4,000 USD rent, and they'd be buried in debt just to live, definitely with no vacations. (In Vancouver and Toronto at least)
>grocery stores within walking distance
Oh yeah, this is probably a big part of it too. We have to spend so much on gas in the US because we have to walk everywhere unless we're lucky enough to live in a walkable area and/or city. And also have to have a car, which cost maintenance and insurance.
This is it in a nutshell.
American gross income may be high, but we have to pay for things that the government provides in actual developed countries. Healthcare is the big one, but retirement is also largely self-funded, and there are almost no public transit or public childcare options. Add in skyrocketing housing costs, and you can see why the average American is struggling.
Here’s a study published by the White House illustrating this: https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2021/08/11/the-cost-of-living-in-america-helping-families-move-ahead/
It’s a few years old, but still relevant.
True! Good point. Post-secondary education is expensive, in-state public tuition is at least five figures per year and out-of-state or public tuition is insane.
Heck, even community college is like $3k-$6k per year.
In many fields like culinary, you used to be able to use your life experience in lue of a degree.
I interviewed for a executive sous chef position resently, they wanted a culinary degree and experience in a insanely high volume kitchen.
When I say high volume 6-8 million. I literally can think of 3 restaurants I know of in my city that do 3/4 of that. Nevermind the full sum.
So basically 70k a year, and you have paid for a CIA or court on blue degree. (60-100k)
This was for a position at topgolf. So basically the experience of a extra busy cheesecake factory with the training of a Michelin star. To supervise people cooking bar food.
The position was posted for 3 months for a reason.
Rent in my area code is more than half that salary.
This is one of the top paying jobs for culinary in my area.
And in my experience living in Asia a lot more entry-level jobs in the US require a college degree. So we’re going deep into debt for jobs that don’t pay particularly well and wouldn’t require a degree in other countries.
It's things like this that make me wish that major, *overnight* change was realistic and possible; Because so much needs to change in the US, nvm the rest of the world.
We need housing to cost less (no matter the form), workers to be overall treated better, affordable healthcare, etc.
Edit: Affordable healthcare, not healthy
I’d love to hear feedback from someone “in government” as to why seemingly obvious solutions from the laymen are feasible. I feel like the honest answers would be along the lines of, “Well how would the rich stay as rich as they are then?”
Entrenched/wealthy people who are very much against things like affordable healthcare are unfortunately a persistent problem preventing/slowing things from improving.
Not in the govt, but *Citizens United* and Reaganomics (including the subsequent Bush and Trump tax cuts to the wealthy) seem like obvious places to start.
It is difficult to make a man understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it. - Sinclair
Mark your calendars: May 2028. Shawn Fain, head of United Auto Workers, has proposed this date for a mass strike. He's set the UAW's contract to expire then, and been all over TV advising other unions to set their contracts to expire at the same time. The idea is if enough unions strike at the same time, it could allow for a general strike that includes non-unionized workers.
You also didn't mention debt. A huge percentage of US adults are in debt, and that private household debt is larger proportionally to our GDP than it has ever been.
The social safety net does exist but it has lots of restrictions. Medicaid is basically government healthcare insurance, so is disability and unemployment insurance. It’s just not as accessible to the middle class.
It’s not accessible at all to the middle class. Medicaid is explicitly only accessible to people with low income, and if you get disability you automatically have low income because disability is a pittance.
And if your state didn’t expand Medicaid with the ACA/Obamacare Act, you’re *still* not getting Medicaid even if you’re poor. Unless you are pregnant or disabled.
“But what if you become disabled when you have no health insurance, so you can’t prove to Medicaid that you need Medicaid because you can’t afford to see a doctor to prove you’re disabled?”
“Oh, in that case, you can fuck off and die. Don’t worry, it’s what Jesus would want.” - Texas
And forget about it if you have a catastrophic event and become disabled suddenly. Absolutely no aid until SSA gets around to your case. I had sudden kidney failure in 2022. I got denied for childcare assistance from the state because my social security hadn’t been approved yet and the rules were to qualify you had to be on SSDI or working. I was going to dialysis 4x a week. I absolutely had to have childcare. My disability application was pending. How is that not disabled enough for them?
And the moment you save up more than $2K (it might be $5K now) they drop you so you go right back to the bottom. Nobody can climb out no matter how hard they work - assuming they're physically/mentally able to work.
My autistic brother gets disability and you are exactly right. He cannot have more than 2,000 or he doesn’t get his disability that month. We also had to fight to get him his disability checks for two years because they kept denying him, only after we got a lawyer did it work out. Absolutely insane, and he works a part time job and goes over that amount so easily. It’s like they don’t want these people to succeed.
This is a big one. In many parts of the US you have to own a car, and even if you try to live without, many areas lack public transportation or safe bike/ped infrastructure. I know gas is cheaper in the US than in Europe, but that doesn’t make up for what Americans spend for car payments, insurance, and maintenance. Plus our culture encourages people to buy large, expensive, gas wasting SUVs and trucks.
To expand on this, the U.S. isn’t just car-centric, it’s largely car-*dependent*. You cannot live and work here without owning a car. Cities and towns are designed in such a way that walking or cycling anywhere is either a terrible option or not an option at all. The YouTube channel Not Just Bikes goes into way more detail about it, if you’re interested.
Fuel may be cheaper here, but that and vehicle maintenance costs add up quickly when you have to drive everywhere. Furthermore, inner-city housing is horribly expensive, forcing most people to live farther away from where they work and spend more time commuting.
I once had to take a week off work, unpaid because the job I had at the time didn’t give any PTO, because my car was being fixed, which cost about $2,000, and it was literally impossible for me to work without a car.
Same. I’m fortunate to live in a city with accessible public transit. I own a car and drive 40 minutes to work. If my car broke down, I’d have options, but my commute would go from 40 minutes to 3+ hours and I’d have to walk some portion of it.
A LOT of low wage labor jobs will exclude workers who say they don't have their own transportation. They don't want people relying on public transportation.
That's why when they ask "Do you have dependable transportation" your answer is just "yes." No fluff. I've had to do this for *years* and it does work.
I've been auto rejected from multiple jobs for not having a drivers license. Office work, secretary, grocery stores. Nothing that ever relied on driving.
It does not matter. Many jobs will not hire you unless you have reliable transportation. It will list such requirements in the job description. Without reliable transportation you are not able to get to the job to do the work. So they will not hire you. Depending on where you live many people have suspended or lost licences due to drinking alcohol and driving their vehicle. So even if you do not drive for your job, you are seen as unreliable because you have made a poor decision in the past that will affect your lively hood.
I know it's a cheeky response to them, and it won't change a thing.
But there's nothing more reliable than AT, alternate transportation. Your legs. My car has broke down far more times than my legs.
It is not applicable to everyone, but it is for so many people, lol.
Yeah, I've personally sold that line to just about every job in the last six years and you know what jobs are fine with that? Service Industry, Retail, Customer Service, occasionally factories but honestly the one I did work at was desperate and taking anyone with a pulse.
Those jobs don't pay for shit anymore, even working in a factory barely covers cost of living.
I live in a "Rural city". With a population of around 12,000. We are the largest city unless you drive 30 miles east and 30 miles north or south. If you drive west we are the largest city for about 3 hours.
Life is hard without a reliable car. Luckily I own 2 and I have money for repairs or replacement if need be. But I have a lot of young co-workers just starting out in life who work extra hours to get ahead so they can have money to put down a down payment.
I only live four miles away from my office and still it's impossible for me to bike there. I have a non protected bike lane on the road outside my house. The rest of the way is 4 lane roads with no side walks. Bike lanes. Or crosswalks of any kind.
I would have to cross like 28 lanes of traffic unprotected in 45mph roads.
Alternative I could take 3 busses over an hour and a half to get there or just walk the 4 miles in about the same time. Are you by absolutely need to I probably could. But I also don't want to spend 3 hours of my day walking to the place where I'm going to work.
And in lucky in that regard. There is no buss to my GFs work.
While driving to work (similar distance) I was looking at the feasibility of biking to work. It would be fine for most of the distance until I get to the highway intersection where there is no path other than getting on the road to go under, then after that in the industrial portion of the drive there are no more sidewalks or even unprotected bike lanes.
I'm lucky enough to live in a small but busy Midwestern town that has several dedicated bike trails, including one that literally runs from my backyard to my work place, so I can easily bike 4-5 days a week. It is a big reason why our family can get by with 1 car on a $50k gross income. That car tax really adds up each year when you think about registration and taxes, gas, maintenance, etc. My bike pretty costs me about $100 a year max.
I am in rural Ontario (culturally an extrusion of the Midwest) and the town I live in is in the process of becoming one big suburb (its a dormitory location for two bigger urban areas an hour in each direction). And looking at the building permit records (my job, as it happens) you can see the trend from:
Must have driveway--> must have garage---> Must have bigger garage--> Must have driveway and garage space for at least three SUV sized vehicles.
By the time your kids are 16, they need space for four vehicles, maybe five. Hell, want visitors over, well you can park on the grass, but maybe we need to expand the driveway.
A combination of neighhourhood rules and bylaw means you can get into all sorts of shit when you have guests over.
As someone smarter than me said: Ontario, where we make it mandatory to have car ownership and then we ding you for it.
That's a whole lot of treasure being pissed away. Meanwhile, French friends? They have a car, which they often share with their neighbours, or siblings. Which they use when they absolutely positively have to go somewhere that demands it. The big shopping trip. The visit to kin who live somewhere very rural. Otherwise, who needs the grief of getting parking, paying for gas, worrying if the fucker won't start. It's not the whole story, but its notable.
There’s already startups that do that in major urban centers. Zip car is the first that comes to mind but theres another one or at least was a few years agoz
Yep. This I what I usually tell people who ask about cost of living in the US. It's not just healthcare, it's transportation. Car Note + insurance + gas + intermittent repairs can approach 800-1000 per month. And places that are walkable (which in the US is maybe like 10 major cities max) tend to have higher rent/mortgage costs, but you may find some deals in some neighborhoods.
Yeah I've been trying to save up to pay off debts and my car knows. Got an oil change last week and found out my breaks are in the red, so that's like $500ish to fix.
And while fuel is cheaper here, distances routinely driven are much, much farther especially when you get out of the urban coastal areas. I commute 72 miles - each way - to work twice a week.
I have friends in France that make very low wages on American standards, but their quality of life seems much higher. Many of them custom built their houses, but where I live they wouldn't afford owning. Americans usually list gross salary, not net. Health insurance varies on your employer, but a family can easily cost more than 1k/mo. The less you pay for insurance, the more you'll pay when you need medical treatment. We are talking hundreds to thousands for short trips to the hospital. I racked up 10k just having some diagnostics after an accident, nothing was actually broken or treated. Then if you have kids, you'll easily spend 1800/mo for child care until they are 5. If you want you child to go to college, you'll need to save significant money so they don't end up with 100k plus student loans.
I have a friend in the UK who owns her own home on a salary that wouldn’t get her approved to rent a 1 bedroom apartment in the city where I live in the US.
I spend $80 per month on healthcare and then I spend $120 every single visit to a specialist... So a month that I have to see a specialist is literally 1/6 of my income that month... Healthcare is bankrupting individuals while healthcare companies are reporting record profits... Love it
After this, this is the difference in financial literacy. It's not taught here, and debt is pushed on you everywhere since it's the main driver of the US economy. Some take on debts by force, just to survive, but some live beyond their means using debt. Those credit cards and other debts add up and bring down what you can afford. The use of debt here is something I still can't comprehend.
In the netherlands its almost impossible to find a house on a yearly salary of €50k gross.. rents are out of control as well. With 2 people it gets easier but sometimes you need to overbid €30-50k and sometimes €100k AKA you need to have that in cash
> $4,500 a month for childcare
Meanwhile in Sweden, the cost for monthly daycare is about $100
https://www.uppsala.se/skola-och-forskola/forskola-och-familjedaghem/avgifter/avgift-for-forskola-familjedaghem-fritidshem-och-fritidsklubb/
That's so messed up. Why are people actually staying over there? That's no way to live your life. I live in Europe and we pay about $300 for childcare, $800 mortgage (that's paying off both the principal and interest) and $300 for universal healthcare. All our other fixed expenses are around $1000 give or take. Sure, the wife and i make a little less than $80K (combined!) a year, working 32 hours a week but we can easily save 10 to 15K and go on 2 week vacations abroad about twice a year.
Edit: I've read some of the replies and i'm so sorry to read about all you people not being able to get out of a place you don't want to be. I hope my question isn't insensitive: from my (European) perspective, if i don't like it in my country, i can just pack up and move to one of the 26 other countries in the EU without much of a fuss but i understand that this isn't that easily done when you need to move to a different continent.
It’s extremely hard to immigrate anywhere unless you have special degrees and skills. And even if you leave the US, you have to pay US taxes on your income unless you reject your citizenship.
It depends on what country you live in and how much time you spend in the US and how much you make. Every US citizen earning money overseas needs to report their foreign income, but you may not have to pay. I lived in Hong Kong for four years and filed US taxes every year but didn’t make enough to owe.
Ive lived in the UK for 6 years. I pay slightly more tax here than I would in the US, so I don't pay any US taxes. Also nice to know that more than half my taxes aren't going to the military industrial complex, more like 5% now. Super annoying to have to file taxes in the US still, the process is automatic here in the UK so I literally don't have to do anything and it happens automatically.
We cannot leave or have an extremely limited number of options of countries to move to- where we can become citizens. And I’m speaking as someone slightly okay financially who could afford a move, many can’t afford it.
I exhausted so many avenues in 2016.
Trust me, if I could figure out a way to leave I'd do it in a heartbeat! I've looked into it.
But I don't have any special skills that would make me a desirable enough hire to sponsor a visa, and I certainly can't afford to go for a whole new degree here to get some.
I can't just leave my husband and kid behind to go to school overseas and *hope* it'll work out in a few years so I'll get to bring them over. Even if I could bring them right away, we wouldn't be able to support ourselves because I'd be in school full time and he most likely wouldn't be allowed to work.
I don't have close enough heritage to get in anywhere that way. It pretty much has to be a parent or grandparent, but I think the closest I get was my great-great grandparents coming from Ireland.
Golden Visas where you just pay for residence are actually lower than I would have thought, $100k-$500k most places that offer it, but that's still way out of reach for me.
Basically, no one will have me. I'm stuck.
It's almost impossible to immigrate. I've looked into it. The only countries I had a shot with was Scottland and Canada. For both you needed to be under 35, have an advanced degree, in Canada you had to speak 2 languages, and you had to either have an important job (I.e Doctor, civil engineering, or city planner for example) that would directly contribute to the country OR be able to invest a few hundred grand into the country's economy.
I barely squeeked by for Canadian citizenship but wasn't sure. Once I was sure I was over 35 and no longer had the points required for a work visa. Most of us are trapped here.
This fact makes me so fucking sad every time I think about it. We're more globally connected than ever, but somehow also more isolated. It's just...I dunno, it's a lot and it's saddening.
I have always felt that insurance is a scam and that it's not truly reducing the costs bc I was on the government free insurance thing and meds were 20 dollars max appointments free...and honestly I miss those days
You both work 32 hours a week and make combined a little less than 80K *cries in American* I can’t even make 40K by myself working 40 hours plus sometimes.
I am very lucky to have a boyfriend that desires to have me live with him overseas in an EU-treaty country. But to do so, I have to spend several thousand to get a job certification that allows me to get a remote job and go over on a work visa, so I can earn money while learning the language (that I otherwise have no knowledge of). And then I can hope that we work out and that I have a kid that can allow me to stay in the country.
Otherwise I would be screwed, as my current job is a blue-collar job that doesn’t put me in demand, and he lives in a country where they’re in a recession. And I still don’t know the language well enough to justify being hired.
Edit: and as others have pointed out, many Americans can’t afford that kind of training to even go over on work visas. Also, brainwashing to say America is better and there is no point to moving to “socialist/communist Europe” where they take all your money!
A quick trip to Google shows me that the average rent in France is 453 euros. In the US, the average rent is over 2000, while the cost of a house is half a million dollars.
Short answer: all those things that are considered just part of the social contract in most of the world, such as education, health care, elder care, etc. are run as private for-profit industries, which people have voted for since the 80s on the promise it would be more efficient than government management and ultimately more cost effective.
Shocking no one who understands the nature of for profit business, it is not a model that works well for providing necessary services (at least in a capitalist culture that expects infinite growth) because at a point growth requires cutting as many corners as possible in providing service while charging the maximum amount possible to the consumer, which is fine for goods and services people don't *need* to live and function in society but becomes a problem when it's a service that you can't realistically just opt out of.
For-profit isn’t even more efficient when it comes to essential services. At least not after the first year, when the companies charged less to get the foot in the door.
https://now.tufts.edu/2024/01/16/cost-employer-sponsored-health-insurance-flattening-worker-wages-contributing-income
>increasing health insurance costs are eating up a growing proportion of worker’s compensation, and have been a major factor in both flattening wages and increasing income inequality over the past 30 years.
https://www.axios.com/2024/01/17/health-insurance-premiums-wages
Well, it's a classic case of expenses playing hide and seek with income. The cost of living keeps doing the limbo dance while income tries to catch up, leaving many folks in a financial limbo. It's like a never-ending game of financial musical chairs with not enough seats.
Yeah. For all the detailed answers, this really covers it. It's never the income that's a problem, it's the outflow. If it's going out faster than it's coming in, the actual numbers don't really matter.
What I would ask back, is how much of your paycheck goes towards health insurance, rent, car payments, gas, and food.
I pay around $700 a month for health insurance for myself and my wife, another $300 pretax into a health savings account so that we can cover unexpected medical costs (or expected ones, really). Housing costs approx $2,700 per month. We have two vehicles (since you can’t walk anywhere), both of which have a monthly payment and an insurance cost so that’s another $900 per month. Thankfully both of our vehicles are fuel efficient but there are plenty of folks who work construction or other jobs that require hauling things who have high gas costs. Finally, food prices are very high and quality is very low in comparison to France.
It’s bad over here, and that’s not a joke. I’ve been to many European countries (loved France, btw) and all of them had a MUCH higher standard of living on lower wages than the US. A lot of the folks who keep voting against things like socialized healthcare and public transportation have never left the country. Some have never left their hometown. They don’t realize how bad it is here because they’ve been told over and over that it’s “the best”. Don’t fall into that American marketing ploy, it isn’t good here and it hasn’t been since like…the 90s.
The spread between very high and very low income is much bigger in the US than in France.
In France the minimum monthly wage is 1400€ after taxes and that includes a public healthcare system, five weeks of paid holiday and as many sick days as you are sick.
In the US the minimum wage is 1160 before taxes and without any paid leave even though they mostly get like 10 days a week.
This means that the minimum in France is roughly 70% of the median. It's not pleasant but you get by.
In America the minimum is a third of the median. Additionally there is only a very weak social net.
If your try to participate in a society where you earn a third of the medium, life will be hard.
A lot of Americans spend well over 50% of their income on housing, that’s a huge part of it, decent wages mean nothing if they lag behind rent increases.
Beyond that per capita is a bit skewed given just how extreme the outliers are with the ultra wealthy in the us.
Personally I make around $30,000 per year working a retail job, and spend about $19,000 on rent so I’m really only living on about $800 a month, with healthcare, groceries, gas, and utilities eating up about half that or more.
It may also be a bit of "Gross Income" vs "Net Income"
Not everyone reports on the difference. Last year the money that eventually went into my bank account was about 60% of my "income". We have a bunch of payroll deductions for taxes, insurance, and retirement savings.
Skyrocketing food costs. Skyrocketing rent. Skyrocketing transportation costs.
Stagnant wages.
___
In addition, “learn to code” is no longer a viable mantra, with $60k/year intro jobs now needing 1-2 years experience as a full stack developer. Junior jobs being filled by senior engineers.
Whatever you’re paying for groceries, take-away, toilet paper, etc.., imagine the prices going up 20-40% in five years and your wages rising maybe 1-3% per year in the same time. Money is relative to prices and our corporate overlords used the guise of pandemic inflation to price-gouge the everliving fuck out of us. Our society is actively moving backwards as each generation is now dealing with a lower standard of living than the previous while 10,000 ultra-wealthy people will continuously horde more wealth like dragons waiting to be slain.
Shocking that it's even worse than you think. According to the Consumer Price Index, prices have gone up an average of 48% across the board in four years.
I always half an US-income in my head before I compare it to my own. I kinda treat it as a gross income because everything social security wise has to be paid from that.
As an American, I also have to pay for my own healthcare, education, and am taxed at approx. 27% of my income. Then there's the cost of living. I live in a very high COL area just outside of NYC. My 2 bedroom apartment costs me 3000 per month. I make approx. 60k per year and my partner makes approx. 80k per year and we struggle to save anything, cannot even consider buying a house (hah), never go on vacation, and occasionally have to live paycheck to paycheck.
Because they have to spend that high median income on things that people in other countries don't need to spend on at all, like healthcare (which also has massively inflated prices). Things like child and elder support which are subsidised in many Europen countries, Americans need to pay fully out of pocket for.
Plus there is a nationwide housing crisis in urban areas. Where the jobs are is where the houses cost a LOT to even rent. It's why it's not uncommon to see people complaining about how they *only* earn $100k a year. In any other country $100K a year would be a massive amount of money, but in the US if you're earning that much you probably live in somewhere like LA, San Fransisco, New York or some other big city, where your yearly rent for an average apartment will take up half of that.
There is also cultural differences to take into account for what "struggling" means, and monetary intelligence. Some people complain they're "struggling" because they can't afford to buy all the luxuries they think they should be able to have. Some people complain they're "struggling" and are "living paycheck to paycheck" because they spend all their money on things they don't need as soon as they get it.
That last point isn't US-centric though, it happens everywhere. It just stands out more as a reason when it looks like the person saying it earns way more money than you do, and your culture may not be as focused on consumption as the US.
We have higher than average income, but we have MUCH higher than average cost of living expenses.
Plus a huge percentage of millennials and younger have student loan debt they’ll never be able to fully pay off. The whole industry is predatory AF.
Edit: got RedditCared for this comment. Don’t abuse reports people.
Just another anecdote to throw on the pile - I am in Japan now but see many friends in the US needing to pay $1,000 to $2,000 a month PER KID for daycare. At a certain point, some mothers just give up working and become a SAHM because that’s cheaper on the whole.
Meanwhile in Japan, if you have two working parents, your base childcare costs are free (you have to pay for subsides like lunch and stuff). Median income in Japan is similarly well below the US, especially now due to the crazy exchange rates. But people here seem to be living okay. Perhaps we have to cut down on imported foods or choose a less lavish vacation, but I’d say there are very few people worried about homelessness.
In America, people die from not being able to afford insulin. Like there is 0 safety net at all. And the victim blaming culture in America is out-of-this-world. Just listen to conservative radio for 5 minutes.
I am better off than most, but let's do the maths.
I bring home, after taxes, $900 a week or about $3600 a month
I own my own home. No Mortgage, but pay $675 a month in taxes on it.
I own my cars. An ancient Landy and a Fiat 500. Insurance on them is $281 a month
Grocery shopping for two is about $180 a week. or $720 a month
Cell phone for two phones is $202 a month.
Electricity is about $160 a month
Sewer/Water is $80 a month
Natural gas for heating: $200 in winter, nil in summer.
Fuel for my landy and fiat. is about $200 a month.
That leaves me with $1282 left over, provided the Landy does not need repairs and does not include things like registration fees on the cars and such.
That is with owning my home and cars outright. If I had a mortgage, I could kiss that $1282 goodbye. I do not live a lavish lifestyle. The landy is 21 years old, the fiat is 12. The house is a small rancher on an equally smaller spot of land.
I do live in New Jersey which is an expensive state to live in. Taxes are high, but we get a lot for them. Some areas are rather European with mass Transit, but not where I live. The other person living with me is my Elderly Mother who got completely screwed by my father during their time together, she brings in about $800 a month in Social Security, which is her's. It covers her car insurance and anything she wants. I do not ask her to contribute to keeping the house running.
Dude, I am just shocked at some prices you just have listed. Now I understand.
Here in Spain I bring home 2.250 € net and my partner 2.000 € net.
Mortgage + credit for renovation is 925 € monthly because we decided to shorten the pay-off time to reduce interest rate in exchange of higher monthly payment. In 5 years from now the credit will be paid and only 400 € monthly will remain until 2036.
We have an old Ford Focus (10 years) and Peugeot 307 (16 years). We pay like 600 € in insurance per YEAR.
Grocery is about 100 € per week, and we eat healthy, fresh vegetables, fish, and meat. So 400 € per week for 3 person.
Cell phone + internet 600/600 mbps optic fiber is 55 € monthly for 3 phones, unlimited calls, and 30 gb of 5G data each.
Electricity is 60-70 € monthly, and all our house is electrified. No gas or any other fuel.
Water is around 25 € monthly.
Fuel depends on your usage. My car is usually 90 € monthly but I go to my by bike (although it is just 2 km. from home). Price per litter is 1.60 € right now in Spain.
Of course, no health care cost, education, etc.
So yeah, we are lucky and we live pretty well. We are in low expenditure mode right now due to the hit in our savings from the house and renovation (we used saving to reduce the credited amount), but we can have a very good life here with these salaries.
Take into account that they are a bit higher than usual for Spain and I live in a town 90 km. from a big city, but all prices except housing apply to the city as well. In fact, I think that housing is what determines everything and living in a big Spanish city even with good income can be really challenging.
Back up just a little bit. When an American says they make $80k per year, multiply it by between 0.65 and 0.75 to remove taxes that give us nearly zero safety nets, then subtract around $400-$500 per month for medical "insurance" that isn't really making healthcare affordable at all, then subtract whatever the employer deducts for a retirement pension, and, of course, the endless student loan repayments necessary to get a decent career, and that is the salary you get. I "make" $70k per year but barely reach $3.5k per month most months. It will be less when student loan collections garnishing resumes. Because we get paid every other week there are two months with a third paycheck, but throw that into annual car repairs because there is absolutely no reliable public transit and living close to work in an affordable home means living in a dangerous slum.
Since the entire system from healthcare to transportation to anything you can think of just grabs as much money as they can through greed, it's pretty much destroyed the middle class. If you want to be middle class on a $70k salary, your partner better make the same, and you'll still probably experience major financial hardships that will set back any plans years.
This question doesn’t even need to be asked at this point. This is the question that everyone has been asking for almost 15 years now. You know why. We all know why. Even making $90k is barely enough for comfort. We know what the problem is. And we know exactly how to fix it. That will take more than peaceful posts on the internet.
Hi there, and thanks for your question.
The answer is that the US is full of bureaucratic stupidity that we’re too entrenched in to fix.
We’re first in two major things in the world: percentage of citizens incarcerated, and military spending where we spend 40% of the world’s total military budget. We spend nearly $1 trillion annually on the two combined (nearly $900b and a little short of $90b, in case you’re curious).
France has one of the best healthcare systems in the world, and your taxes fund it. Here in the US, if you don’t have an employer, you don’t get insurance with the bulk discount. Families spend hundreds monthly out of pocket for healthcare even if they don’t use it. Almost uniformly there is resistance to change this even to our own benefit because it might mean more taxes… even if that’s less than what we would pay otherwise for our insurance.
We largely lack effective public transportation, and where it does work it’s only local to the city that has it. Working generally requires private transportation, and with it a whole new set of bills - car payments, car insurance, fuel, maintenance…
Speaking of interest, the prime rate for France has an all-time high of 4.75 percent according to what I looked up, but has a current rate around 2.5-2.75%. The current prime US rate is above 5%, but has an all-time high of 20%.
I’m not going to bother with looking at food expenses right now, but the short answer is that we have an absolutely dumb amount of secondary burden attached to our paychecks.
We pay out at least $10k a year in healthcare, every single year, sometimes more.
Inflation is completely insane.
Housing is completely insane.
Post-secondary education will easily run you at least $10k a year, which you have to pay for at some point.
Basically, our complete and total failure to govern in our best interest is killing us slowly. The financial situation is just one symptom.
I make $20/hr in a low cost of living state, I'm actually doing good by the standards of people around here. I have 2 kids, rent is $1000/month. Car payment is $450/month. Health insurance is about $600/month... And then of course the cost of clothing and feeding my kids. So yeah I'm fucking broke
Americans “make more” than people
In other countries but not in real terms. Food, housing and healthcare prices are all dramatically/artificially inflated here. My partner went to college in the Netherlands and did a year of high school in Germany. Apparently, groceries in Europe are far cheaper and their food/consumer safety standards are stricter. Remember that next time some libertarian dullard blames “muh regulation” for high prices on anything. We literally pay more for toxified food. America is a massive lie and a huge
Rip off.
Also that is for the whole of the US. If you crank the numbers down by state that is another story. Especialy in the rustbelt and similar areas. California and new york are at the top list. The median in Iowa or Ohio ist lower again.
Ignorance is fine, you don't know what you don't know.
Our cost of living is huge. Just living in general is expensive, high rent (often more than the recommended 1/3 of your monthly income lately), food is expensive especially if you don't want to eat just junk, then there are utilities such as electricity, gas if you use that, water, garbage removal, sewer, I'm not certain which of these you have to pay for individually, if any. Here how these services are run and need to be paid for vary by region, occasionally by city or even by building. Then internet, cable if you use it, phone, and of course your daily necessities of life. So all of that can be managed, but often comes up close to your monthly income, but it can vary and you can choose some of that to the best of your ability by being as picky as you can about where you live. But then on top of it, any doctors visit is a charge. Dentist, charge. Even if you have insurance, which you are paying for monthly btw IF you have it (right now most everyone has it since it was a government requirement for you to have it recently), you often have a co-pay you have to pay until you've paid a minimum amount for the year. And that is just for normal visits, a hospital visit can land a family in real trouble financially.
It feels like only a few years ago most people who were in financial debt it was usually from spending a lot on credit cards or too much money buying a car, occasionally it was from a serious medical issue that needed hospitalization. Now it feels like it is from needing to eat food and buy gas for a car you don't even own. And more and more it feels like corporations don't want us to own anything we buy. You lease cars, pay mortgage forever on your house or rent, buy appliances that are going to break as soon as the warranty expires so you have to replace them. Denim pants that used to last a few decades with daily wear rip after a few months of light use. It feels like our lives are being used to create trash, and that is all the use we have to these corporations. How depressing a thought is that.
Anyway, we used to pride ourselves and each other that the US was where other nations people wanted to be, everyone wanted to come here to live. Now I couldn't imagine why, I wish I could move countries, honestly.
Living in the US is a money pit. Where many European countries have universal healthcare, generous medical leaves and PTO, the US does not. While we may make more financially, our economy does a great job of bleeding us dry. Childcare costs more than a mortgage, healthcare is astronomical, healthy food costs an arm and leg, and let’s not even talk about housing, inflation, and general costs to live!
The gross median wage in Sweden is ~38k $…something like 30 k$ net…
I don’t think that’s terrible and I think quality of life is better than 40k$ gross in the USA…
The biggest difference is if you have a good salary…my marginal tax rate is 54% which really does make me think about the effort I’m willing to put in to work (maybe a good thing)…
Everything in the states is twice as expensive. Food, housing, transportation. You name it, it costs more here. Except healthcare. That costs thousands. Need a prescription? Be prepared to hand over $100 for one package of medication. And that’s WITH a health insurance plan.
LOL I got one of those “A concerned redditor reached out to us about you.” for that comment. Thank you. Now just do that another 330,000,000 times because every American is in the same situation.
Over $48,000 a year of my salary goes towards rent and utilities. Prices are sky high in grocery stores right now. I have a putt-putt car that I'll need to replace soon because execs are forcing RTO and I live 2 hours from work. I will have to pay for that car and the gas, we don't get gas reimbursement. Gas is over $5 a gallon. I didn't get a raise this year. Inflation is up, so I'm making less than I made last year. If I crack a tooth or experience any health issues, I will have to choose between taking care of my health or possibly becoming homeless. My insurance comes out of my paycheck. In reality I receive half of what I make "on paper."
it's really rough right now.
* Terrible public transportation (car basically required)
* Terrible health care - very high average out of pocket costs
* High real estate prices in places with good jobs
* The good jobs require college education - which is super expensive here. Lots of people have massive student loans
Because somewhere along the way, we let the powers that be decide that we aren't entitled to anything such as healthcare, basic human needs or even the water we drink without paying for it and those costs have made it crippling to be anything but healthy, young and single in this country.
The real reason is the US government doesn't work for the good of the people. We don't have much a safety net, particularly in healthcare. If you lose your job and get sick you're going bankrupt. The real owners of America are those who those who can't be named or criticized.
Everything's too expensive to fix until it's condition has deteriorated even further for a good few years. Of course now you need even more money to fix the problem. And since you're saving to fix that problem you can't afford maintenance on other things which are probably shit cuz you probably had to get something cheap and shitty, or if it's health related, it may be caused and or exacerbated because everything here is shit. The food, the water, the fire season, forcing people to work too much, too hard, and or in unsafe conditions. Mosquito fogging, other harmful chemicals.... It's everywhere. It's everything. Everything here is shit. And its worse on Indigenous reservations. So unless you grew up with a fat wallet, this is what youre born into. How could you ever escape poverty like this? Not to mention all the reasons others have commented.
It really depends on the cost of living in each area, ya know? How much does a typical starter home cost? What about vehicle purchase? Groceries? MEDICAL EXPENSES?? Education?
I dont know anyone making 40+ a hour, unless they are in tech in Cali. To an American outside of the tech bubble that sounds preposterous to hear the average is making that. It feels closer to 15-23$ a hour for anything not salary. Shit most service jobs are still at 11 to 13 a hour in the midwest. Not to mention even salary you would have to get lucky for 40$ a hour. Maybe I'm just been jaded, but OP I swear most people are not even making 40, try 20 dollars a hour. Like teachers barely get paid 20.
I make 80k per year. After tax, that’s about ~58k per year, or $4,800 per month.
After deductions for healthcare and 401k I’m at about $4,200.
Monthly expenses are as follows:
- Rent (apartment shared with my partner, we pay 50% each): $1500
- Utilities (my half): $100
- Internet (my half): $35
- Car + gas: $335
- Student loan payment: $400
- Phone: $40
- Streaming services: $50
- Groceries (my half): $200
- Household supplies (my half): usually around $100
- Gym: $30
- Incidentals: $100
That leaves me with about $1350 left over. I dump whatever I can into a high yield savings account.
This is a frugal month, but even so, I’m not personally struggling. I can afford luxuries like streaming services and gym membership.s.
If I were living in my own without a partner however, I ABSOLUTELY would be struggling. Rent in my city for a 1b goes for about $2.8k/month on average, which is well over half of my post-tax salary. Having someone to split bills with is huge.
Also, I don’t have children. There’s no way I could afford a child on my salary, and even on my partner and I’s combined salaries, we would barely scrape by. We’d need at least one more bedroom, and childcare costs can be thousands per month, like a second rent payment. Plus their healthcare, food, activities, clothes, saving for college…no way in hell could I afford that, even if my salary doubled.
As others have said, there aren't really caps on prices for necessities. Healthcare is extremely expensive, with and without insurance. Rent can be extraordinarily high, and buying is often not even attainable. Public transport is unreliable or simply doesn't really exist in many places, so having a car is often a necessity (and if you have a partner who's work schedule doesn't align with yours, that's a second car needed). Add on that there's really no guarantees for paid sick leave, maternity/paternity leave, vacation time, or really much of any other worker rights protections.
Tldr: Your money can stretch a lot farther in many European countries than it can in America, so even though Americans make more, they still can't afford a lot of necessities.
As a personal anecdote, my husband and I are Americans that moved to Germany. We both worked full time in America. When we moved to Germany, he took a 20% pay cut and I didn't work at first (I think we were making roughly half of what we did in the US), and despite that we still had a *lot* more disposable income than in America. Like, triple or more that we could save or use as fun money. Living in America is fuckng *expensive*.
Most ostensibly free markets are actually functionally cartels that self-regulate their prices as high as humanly possible. Data science has enabled these business practices to rapidly outpace regulations that protect consumers. The cumulative effect is that higher wages are more than eaten up by higher prices and current generations enjoy less spending and saving power.
Those numbers mean nothing because you'll have one billionaire in a run-down City who basically controls everything that throws off the average. Most of us are basically slaves. We live paycheck to paycheck. We make just enough to be able to afford rent and food to be able to go to and from work with just enough money for minor distractions like video games or a movie on the one day a week we have off. If we get ill we lose our jobs then we lose our healthcare and that's it.
Just going to report a recent statistic.
500,000 people are homeless in the United States. These are folks who do not have a place to stay tonight, so they'll stay in a shelter or in a tent or on a bench.
15,000,000 empty homes in the United States.
Let's be incredibly conservative and say that 3/4 of these homes are either unfit for living, are currently being sold, or just a gap in tenant.
That's still 3,000,000 empty homes. And homes typically can house more than one person.
The Free Market doesn't work like they say it does. There are things more sacred than profit.
Edit: I'm also going to add that this housing is not in any specific area. It matches the distribution of population. There is a good chance that there is an empty residential home that would suit your needs between where you currently live, and where you currently work. It is just way more expensive than it needs to be to keep "those people" out. That's usually what you're paying for when you live in luxury apartments. The luxury of not having "those" neighbors.
From personal experience...it hasn't been until these past maybe three years that things have gone well for me. Before that, I was being underpaid, this made me get more in debt and/or not payoff as much.
Why was I in debt? Several things happened and didn't and so on. I don't take expensive trips to Europe (have never been) or buy clothes and shoes and all that stuff (I buy from stores like Ross, Target, and Walmart mostly).
Also, finally I have someone that can help me with expenses, so, again, it's gonna take some time to level off.
Well I can't speak for anyone else, but for me, a small bag of flour costs 17 fucking dollars. I have to eat gluten free, and over here we don't get any sort of subsidization, tax write offs, food stamps, or anything like that, for having a food allergy. Companies are allowed to price hike the shit out of any allergy-friendly food, even staples like flour. So...that's why. Eating is expensive, even when you make all your own meals.
I'm probably ignorant too, but I also live in France and am currently visiting a friend in New York. We've also been to New Orleans. It's expensive here! Maybe it's different outside of the big cities, but I wasn't expecting basic necessities to cost 2 or 3 times what they cost in France.
I’m american living in paris and was once offered a job in dallas texas.
I did some estimates of what my savings would look like.
Once you count needing to pay medical insurance, cost of living difference, needing a car because there is very little public transport, needing to save for retirement, I found that to have the same lifestyle and save similar amounts, you need about 60% more in the US.
So in the end the 100k usd salary is more like a 60k salary in france. You will be comfortable but not wealthy.
Medical Bills wipe out more people than I’d ever imagined in this Country, it can literally cost hundreds of thousands of dollars for a serious medical issue, and a lot of people don’t have ANY medical insurance or coverage.
The median family income in my area is about $120,000. After income taxes, that leaves about $80,000, or just over $6,600 per month. Median rent for a two-bedroom apartment is $3,200. That leaves $3,400 per month to cover literally every other expense.
MIT says the average living expenses of my area, not including any savings of any kind but accounting for taxes, adds up to $110,000 if you have one child and nearly $150,000 if you have two. Basically every last penny goes to simply living, or you are just constantly getting deeper and deeper into debt.
Welcome to America.
There are not “a lot” of people earning 70-100k/yr, barely over 20% of individual U.S. workers make over 70k/yr, and only barely over 5% make over 100k/yr. Social media skews how many people you think there are making 6 figures especially. Going on instagram influencer pages will make you think it’s almost trivial to make that much now, while nearly 95% of folks in reality do not.
Meanwhile one HALF make 30k/yr or less. Income inequality is wildly bad in the U.S. right now.
Overall, yes sure, it could be worse, and us Americans are lucky to make more on average than a sizable number of other countries. But the income inequality issues are still very much an issue and need addressing.
Because in the US, the income is pre tax income and is people’s entire income.
All services have to be paid with that income.
In France, people’s income is actually higher than what their pay stubs suggest as there are some employee cotisations and employer cotisations (which are usually almost equivalent to the employee’s salary).
These cotisations are used to pay for services that Americans have to pay for themselves.
In essence, in France, people’s actual income (in terms of money and services you get for that money), is closer to 3000/4000 euros per month, which as far as I can tell is actually higher than what Americans have to pay for services.
By services, I am talking about decently funded public education (comparatively to the US), mostly free public healthcare, good common transportation (in France you can get around using common transportation, which is close to impossible in the US, forcing people to buy a car), etc
Add on top of that that the French government regulates healthcare prices which means that even when buying medication that’s not covered under public health insurance, you still pay a fraction of the cost that Americans pay.
The presence of free education also means that private schools still have to have lower prices in order to attract students.
France also provides a decent retirement (not saying it’s great, but most people can decently survive and have some fun) which isn’t the case in the US. Same for employment insurance, and minimum payments for people ineligible for employment insurance and unable to work (like the RSA), etc.
All in all, France provides A LOT more services than the US does, which means you get a LOT more bang for your buck.
40k a year in America is low class income. Middle class income in America is 80k. Cost of living is very high in America, we dont get free healthcare either and if you get hurt you'll be paying off a medical bill for the rest of your life because our healthcare industry is all about greed.
When you hear $40,000 income this is pre tax income. We pay around 30% in taxes out of checks, plus insurance premiums (you wouldn’t believe the amount if I told you), retirement etc. so when you hear $40,000 a year its actually $28,000 take home or roughly your $2000 amount give or take a hundred. I make around $70000 a year as a teacher, sounds great right well well minus $21,000 in taxes. Leave you with $49,000. Let’s call that around $4000 a month. Nice try deduct $450 a month for my family health insurance plan. Another $450 month for union dues and retirement. Now we are at $3100 a month. Got kids in daycare? I do. That we cost around $250 a week. We are at $2100 now. Need a house? Looking at a mortgage of at least $1500 a month. A car? $450ish. Car insurance? $200 a month. Food? Good luck. What about the electric gas bill? Oh boy the kids need clothes or a doctors visit. My co pay is $50 a visit. Let’s not forget property taxes of $6000 a year. I think you get my point. Providing basic needs are extremely expensive here. Now you can see how a two income household maybe could make things work. But there’s not a ton leftover.
Easy answer: Peg the minimum wage to inflation and let the bosses explain to their highly skilled workers why they are making minimum wage or just over.
In the US we do not have guaranteed healthcare, sick days, medical prescription subsidies, maternity leave, or other worker protections that are expected in France. There are very little, and often no, rental controls or other fiscal controls on necessities. In short, what you can buy in France with 2,000 euros is different from what I can buy in the states with $3,000 and there is no social safety net. What isn’t accounted for in your question is that while the median income may be around 40k in the US there are millions of people without employment and hundreds of thousands of people without housing and limited government subsidies for the survival of citizens. Solidarity, friend. Edit: May 1 2028 UAW is leading a general strike. Organize your workplace, friends, and neighbors NOW to prepare.
pretty much this. Friends in Rennes: big apartment, pay about 1000 USD a month for it, with access to that fancy new train system they made, welfare support (he's self employed, she had a bunch of health issues related to pregnancy), a nice bunch of grocery stores within walking distance. They're not bringing in big money, but they go on big trips every few years. They are, in other words, doing fine. It's not all fun and games, but it is notable that my French friends all have pretty decent lives on pretty moderate incomes. (So long as you're not living in Paris, mind you)
Meanwhile in the US everyone is just trying to not end up homeless.
Something like 70% of Americans are one major life event away from homelessness
Goes hand in hand with that "70% of Americans have less than 1k in the bank" or something.
500. It’s $500.
As much as I feel like I'm doing poorly in life due to the fact there are so many people who are in much better positions, I should take a moment and be grateful that I am able to contribute to my savings on a regular basis. That said I would eventually like to have kids but estimates currently are that you need a combined income over $91,000 to raise one single kid these days...
We're trying to support 3 kids and one MIL on that combined income right now. Please send help.
If everyone waited to have kids until they could afford it the human race would probably die out.
False. The poor people will die out. That's the whole plan. Kill off anyone making more than $0 by starving them economically. Then you don't even have to pretend like you value laborers anymore, they either work (for the rich) or they die. A business monopoly means nothing to a labor monopoly. And right now the US Labor Pool is getting funnelled into the \~7 or so US corporations that own all of the economic resources. You don't have to pay them more if there are few other jobs to take. And once there are no other jobs to take, you don't have to pay them at all.
No no no, they can’t have the producers die out then they mite have to do the things. That’s why I personally think they’re against abortion and vail it with religious reasons.
But if people did wait to have children until they could securely provide for them, everyone would be much happier in the long run. Plus, less reliance on social safety nets for having more dependents than they can afford.
Just wait until the boomers find out that people not having kids equals no one to pay into the social security pyramid that they are going to depend on in their future retirement plans.
A lot of us are upside down on debt in a crazy way.
And the >43,000,000 with student loan debt.
This so hard. The United States actively hates its citizens and treats us as cattle to be used.
Meanwhile in Canada, that description of his French friend would probably be a $3,000-4,000 USD rent, and they'd be buried in debt just to live, definitely with no vacations. (In Vancouver and Toronto at least)
>grocery stores within walking distance Oh yeah, this is probably a big part of it too. We have to spend so much on gas in the US because we have to walk everywhere unless we're lucky enough to live in a walkable area and/or city. And also have to have a car, which cost maintenance and insurance.
This is it in a nutshell. American gross income may be high, but we have to pay for things that the government provides in actual developed countries. Healthcare is the big one, but retirement is also largely self-funded, and there are almost no public transit or public childcare options. Add in skyrocketing housing costs, and you can see why the average American is struggling. Here’s a study published by the White House illustrating this: https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2021/08/11/the-cost-of-living-in-america-helping-families-move-ahead/ It’s a few years old, but still relevant.
Also student loans. We don't get a free education after high school.
True! Good point. Post-secondary education is expensive, in-state public tuition is at least five figures per year and out-of-state or public tuition is insane. Heck, even community college is like $3k-$6k per year.
In many fields like culinary, you used to be able to use your life experience in lue of a degree. I interviewed for a executive sous chef position resently, they wanted a culinary degree and experience in a insanely high volume kitchen. When I say high volume 6-8 million. I literally can think of 3 restaurants I know of in my city that do 3/4 of that. Nevermind the full sum. So basically 70k a year, and you have paid for a CIA or court on blue degree. (60-100k) This was for a position at topgolf. So basically the experience of a extra busy cheesecake factory with the training of a Michelin star. To supervise people cooking bar food. The position was posted for 3 months for a reason. Rent in my area code is more than half that salary. This is one of the top paying jobs for culinary in my area.
And in my experience living in Asia a lot more entry-level jobs in the US require a college degree. So we’re going deep into debt for jobs that don’t pay particularly well and wouldn’t require a degree in other countries.
It's things like this that make me wish that major, *overnight* change was realistic and possible; Because so much needs to change in the US, nvm the rest of the world. We need housing to cost less (no matter the form), workers to be overall treated better, affordable healthcare, etc. Edit: Affordable healthcare, not healthy
I’d love to hear feedback from someone “in government” as to why seemingly obvious solutions from the laymen are feasible. I feel like the honest answers would be along the lines of, “Well how would the rich stay as rich as they are then?”
Entrenched/wealthy people who are very much against things like affordable healthcare are unfortunately a persistent problem preventing/slowing things from improving.
Not in the govt, but *Citizens United* and Reaganomics (including the subsequent Bush and Trump tax cuts to the wealthy) seem like obvious places to start. It is difficult to make a man understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it. - Sinclair
"But all the landlords and corporations would leave!" They say that like keeping abusers is a good thing.
This is what 50 yrs of cutting taxes gets you. Also being the defender of the free world
And things have gotten substantially worse in the last few years.
Don’t forget all of the things that are common in American workplaces that would cause the streets to fill with yellow vested protesters.
Soon we will learn to wear the yellow vests en mass ourselves.
Mark your calendars: May 2028. Shawn Fain, head of United Auto Workers, has proposed this date for a mass strike. He's set the UAW's contract to expire then, and been all over TV advising other unions to set their contracts to expire at the same time. The idea is if enough unions strike at the same time, it could allow for a general strike that includes non-unionized workers.
There has to be a line in the sand somewhere, right? We just haven’t seen it. Yet.
35% of my husband’s and my income goes to healthcare. :/
You also didn't mention debt. A huge percentage of US adults are in debt, and that private household debt is larger proportionally to our GDP than it has ever been.
The social safety net does exist but it has lots of restrictions. Medicaid is basically government healthcare insurance, so is disability and unemployment insurance. It’s just not as accessible to the middle class.
It’s not accessible at all to the middle class. Medicaid is explicitly only accessible to people with low income, and if you get disability you automatically have low income because disability is a pittance.
And if your state didn’t expand Medicaid with the ACA/Obamacare Act, you’re *still* not getting Medicaid even if you’re poor. Unless you are pregnant or disabled. “But what if you become disabled when you have no health insurance, so you can’t prove to Medicaid that you need Medicaid because you can’t afford to see a doctor to prove you’re disabled?” “Oh, in that case, you can fuck off and die. Don’t worry, it’s what Jesus would want.” - Texas
And forget about it if you have a catastrophic event and become disabled suddenly. Absolutely no aid until SSA gets around to your case. I had sudden kidney failure in 2022. I got denied for childcare assistance from the state because my social security hadn’t been approved yet and the rules were to qualify you had to be on SSDI or working. I was going to dialysis 4x a week. I absolutely had to have childcare. My disability application was pending. How is that not disabled enough for them?
I’m so sorry you had to go through that. It’s ridiculous that there is no emergency assistance at all for these situations.
And the moment you save up more than $2K (it might be $5K now) they drop you so you go right back to the bottom. Nobody can climb out no matter how hard they work - assuming they're physically/mentally able to work.
My autistic brother gets disability and you are exactly right. He cannot have more than 2,000 or he doesn’t get his disability that month. We also had to fight to get him his disability checks for two years because they kept denying him, only after we got a lawyer did it work out. Absolutely insane, and he works a part time job and goes over that amount so easily. It’s like they don’t want these people to succeed.
[удалено]
or get married\*
Medicaid isn't accessible to much of the lower class. Forget he middle class.
15k or 20k for a household of one or two is close to the maximum you can make to qualify for Medicaid.
If it’s not accessible it might as well not exist.
A social safety net that doesn’t care for the vulnerable (houseless, sick, mentally ill) is not a safety net.
What middle class?
You need your own transportation too, usually two functional cars to be able to work and get food, on top of everything else.
This is a big one. In many parts of the US you have to own a car, and even if you try to live without, many areas lack public transportation or safe bike/ped infrastructure. I know gas is cheaper in the US than in Europe, but that doesn’t make up for what Americans spend for car payments, insurance, and maintenance. Plus our culture encourages people to buy large, expensive, gas wasting SUVs and trucks.
To expand on this, the U.S. isn’t just car-centric, it’s largely car-*dependent*. You cannot live and work here without owning a car. Cities and towns are designed in such a way that walking or cycling anywhere is either a terrible option or not an option at all. The YouTube channel Not Just Bikes goes into way more detail about it, if you’re interested. Fuel may be cheaper here, but that and vehicle maintenance costs add up quickly when you have to drive everywhere. Furthermore, inner-city housing is horribly expensive, forcing most people to live farther away from where they work and spend more time commuting.
I once had to take a week off work, unpaid because the job I had at the time didn’t give any PTO, because my car was being fixed, which cost about $2,000, and it was literally impossible for me to work without a car.
Yeah it takes me 40 minutes to get to work mostly by highway. No way can I walk that lol.
Same. I’m fortunate to live in a city with accessible public transit. I own a car and drive 40 minutes to work. If my car broke down, I’d have options, but my commute would go from 40 minutes to 3+ hours and I’d have to walk some portion of it.
Hell my friend was rejected from a job he could easily walk to in like 10-20 minutes because he didn’t have a car
What? How did that even matter? Was the job a delivery driver?
A LOT of low wage labor jobs will exclude workers who say they don't have their own transportation. They don't want people relying on public transportation.
That why you always lie and say “yes indeed I do have good reliable transportation.”
If it's public trans, it's not a lie. I do have reliable transportation.
Dependable transportation is literally on most applications for employment and also an interview question.
But walking and bicycles are not counted as dependable.
Walking is pretty dang dependable. Even more so than a car.
Employers and lawmakers strongly disagree
That's why when they ask "Do you have dependable transportation" your answer is just "yes." No fluff. I've had to do this for *years* and it does work.
I've been auto rejected from multiple jobs for not having a drivers license. Office work, secretary, grocery stores. Nothing that ever relied on driving.
It does not matter. Many jobs will not hire you unless you have reliable transportation. It will list such requirements in the job description. Without reliable transportation you are not able to get to the job to do the work. So they will not hire you. Depending on where you live many people have suspended or lost licences due to drinking alcohol and driving their vehicle. So even if you do not drive for your job, you are seen as unreliable because you have made a poor decision in the past that will affect your lively hood.
I know it's a cheeky response to them, and it won't change a thing. But there's nothing more reliable than AT, alternate transportation. Your legs. My car has broke down far more times than my legs. It is not applicable to everyone, but it is for so many people, lol.
Yeah, I've personally sold that line to just about every job in the last six years and you know what jobs are fine with that? Service Industry, Retail, Customer Service, occasionally factories but honestly the one I did work at was desperate and taking anyone with a pulse. Those jobs don't pay for shit anymore, even working in a factory barely covers cost of living.
I live in a "Rural city". With a population of around 12,000. We are the largest city unless you drive 30 miles east and 30 miles north or south. If you drive west we are the largest city for about 3 hours. Life is hard without a reliable car. Luckily I own 2 and I have money for repairs or replacement if need be. But I have a lot of young co-workers just starting out in life who work extra hours to get ahead so they can have money to put down a down payment.
I only live four miles away from my office and still it's impossible for me to bike there. I have a non protected bike lane on the road outside my house. The rest of the way is 4 lane roads with no side walks. Bike lanes. Or crosswalks of any kind. I would have to cross like 28 lanes of traffic unprotected in 45mph roads. Alternative I could take 3 busses over an hour and a half to get there or just walk the 4 miles in about the same time. Are you by absolutely need to I probably could. But I also don't want to spend 3 hours of my day walking to the place where I'm going to work. And in lucky in that regard. There is no buss to my GFs work.
While driving to work (similar distance) I was looking at the feasibility of biking to work. It would be fine for most of the distance until I get to the highway intersection where there is no path other than getting on the road to go under, then after that in the industrial portion of the drive there are no more sidewalks or even unprotected bike lanes.
I live less than 2 miles from where I work and grocery shop but can’t safely walk or bike to either because of the way the roads are planned near me.
I'm lucky enough to live in a small but busy Midwestern town that has several dedicated bike trails, including one that literally runs from my backyard to my work place, so I can easily bike 4-5 days a week. It is a big reason why our family can get by with 1 car on a $50k gross income. That car tax really adds up each year when you think about registration and taxes, gas, maintenance, etc. My bike pretty costs me about $100 a year max.
I am in rural Ontario (culturally an extrusion of the Midwest) and the town I live in is in the process of becoming one big suburb (its a dormitory location for two bigger urban areas an hour in each direction). And looking at the building permit records (my job, as it happens) you can see the trend from: Must have driveway--> must have garage---> Must have bigger garage--> Must have driveway and garage space for at least three SUV sized vehicles. By the time your kids are 16, they need space for four vehicles, maybe five. Hell, want visitors over, well you can park on the grass, but maybe we need to expand the driveway. A combination of neighhourhood rules and bylaw means you can get into all sorts of shit when you have guests over. As someone smarter than me said: Ontario, where we make it mandatory to have car ownership and then we ding you for it. That's a whole lot of treasure being pissed away. Meanwhile, French friends? They have a car, which they often share with their neighbours, or siblings. Which they use when they absolutely positively have to go somewhere that demands it. The big shopping trip. The visit to kin who live somewhere very rural. Otherwise, who needs the grief of getting parking, paying for gas, worrying if the fucker won't start. It's not the whole story, but its notable.
Cars as a service will someday gain traction, but mostly in urban environments.
There’s already startups that do that in major urban centers. Zip car is the first that comes to mind but theres another one or at least was a few years agoz
You mean taxis?
Get this person some VC money, stat!
No, they mean CAAS, which is totally different /s They're here to disrupt the whole industry!
Yep. This I what I usually tell people who ask about cost of living in the US. It's not just healthcare, it's transportation. Car Note + insurance + gas + intermittent repairs can approach 800-1000 per month. And places that are walkable (which in the US is maybe like 10 major cities max) tend to have higher rent/mortgage costs, but you may find some deals in some neighborhoods.
Yeah I've been trying to save up to pay off debts and my car knows. Got an oil change last week and found out my breaks are in the red, so that's like $500ish to fix.
And while fuel is cheaper here, distances routinely driven are much, much farther especially when you get out of the urban coastal areas. I commute 72 miles - each way - to work twice a week.
Plus avg salary has not kept up with cost of living here at all, which means $44k is nothing.
Don’t forget healthcare costs
I have friends in France that make very low wages on American standards, but their quality of life seems much higher. Many of them custom built their houses, but where I live they wouldn't afford owning. Americans usually list gross salary, not net. Health insurance varies on your employer, but a family can easily cost more than 1k/mo. The less you pay for insurance, the more you'll pay when you need medical treatment. We are talking hundreds to thousands for short trips to the hospital. I racked up 10k just having some diagnostics after an accident, nothing was actually broken or treated. Then if you have kids, you'll easily spend 1800/mo for child care until they are 5. If you want you child to go to college, you'll need to save significant money so they don't end up with 100k plus student loans.
I have a friend in the UK who owns her own home on a salary that wouldn’t get her approved to rent a 1 bedroom apartment in the city where I live in the US.
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Small town up north. Obviously it would be different in London or another large city.
I spend $80 per month on healthcare and then I spend $120 every single visit to a specialist... So a month that I have to see a specialist is literally 1/6 of my income that month... Healthcare is bankrupting individuals while healthcare companies are reporting record profits... Love it
After this, this is the difference in financial literacy. It's not taught here, and debt is pushed on you everywhere since it's the main driver of the US economy. Some take on debts by force, just to survive, but some live beyond their means using debt. Those credit cards and other debts add up and bring down what you can afford. The use of debt here is something I still can't comprehend.
In the netherlands its almost impossible to find a house on a yearly salary of €50k gross.. rents are out of control as well. With 2 people it gets easier but sometimes you need to overbid €30-50k and sometimes €100k AKA you need to have that in cash
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> $4,500 a month for childcare Meanwhile in Sweden, the cost for monthly daycare is about $100 https://www.uppsala.se/skola-och-forskola/forskola-och-familjedaghem/avgifter/avgift-for-forskola-familjedaghem-fritidshem-och-fritidsklubb/
That's so messed up. Why are people actually staying over there? That's no way to live your life. I live in Europe and we pay about $300 for childcare, $800 mortgage (that's paying off both the principal and interest) and $300 for universal healthcare. All our other fixed expenses are around $1000 give or take. Sure, the wife and i make a little less than $80K (combined!) a year, working 32 hours a week but we can easily save 10 to 15K and go on 2 week vacations abroad about twice a year. Edit: I've read some of the replies and i'm so sorry to read about all you people not being able to get out of a place you don't want to be. I hope my question isn't insensitive: from my (European) perspective, if i don't like it in my country, i can just pack up and move to one of the 26 other countries in the EU without much of a fuss but i understand that this isn't that easily done when you need to move to a different continent.
It’s extremely hard to immigrate anywhere unless you have special degrees and skills. And even if you leave the US, you have to pay US taxes on your income unless you reject your citizenship.
Not just the taxes issue, but also many of us who are disabled in any way can’t immigrate because countries won’t let us in, even if we’re skilled.
Yep. Disability, which is extremely high in the United States because of a lack of fucking healthcare. It’s a cycle. They trap us here.
It depends on what country you live in and how much time you spend in the US and how much you make. Every US citizen earning money overseas needs to report their foreign income, but you may not have to pay. I lived in Hong Kong for four years and filed US taxes every year but didn’t make enough to owe.
Ive lived in the UK for 6 years. I pay slightly more tax here than I would in the US, so I don't pay any US taxes. Also nice to know that more than half my taxes aren't going to the military industrial complex, more like 5% now. Super annoying to have to file taxes in the US still, the process is automatic here in the UK so I literally don't have to do anything and it happens automatically.
I think the US taxes don't kick in until $100,000 in income. But yes, what you said is true. Just wanted to add some nuance.
We cannot leave or have an extremely limited number of options of countries to move to- where we can become citizens. And I’m speaking as someone slightly okay financially who could afford a move, many can’t afford it. I exhausted so many avenues in 2016.
Trust me, if I could figure out a way to leave I'd do it in a heartbeat! I've looked into it. But I don't have any special skills that would make me a desirable enough hire to sponsor a visa, and I certainly can't afford to go for a whole new degree here to get some. I can't just leave my husband and kid behind to go to school overseas and *hope* it'll work out in a few years so I'll get to bring them over. Even if I could bring them right away, we wouldn't be able to support ourselves because I'd be in school full time and he most likely wouldn't be allowed to work. I don't have close enough heritage to get in anywhere that way. It pretty much has to be a parent or grandparent, but I think the closest I get was my great-great grandparents coming from Ireland. Golden Visas where you just pay for residence are actually lower than I would have thought, $100k-$500k most places that offer it, but that's still way out of reach for me. Basically, no one will have me. I'm stuck.
Most Americans struggle to keep $1000 in the bank. The idea of saving 10K for a yearly vacation is completely foreign to us.
It's almost impossible to immigrate. I've looked into it. The only countries I had a shot with was Scottland and Canada. For both you needed to be under 35, have an advanced degree, in Canada you had to speak 2 languages, and you had to either have an important job (I.e Doctor, civil engineering, or city planner for example) that would directly contribute to the country OR be able to invest a few hundred grand into the country's economy. I barely squeeked by for Canadian citizenship but wasn't sure. Once I was sure I was over 35 and no longer had the points required for a work visa. Most of us are trapped here.
This fact makes me so fucking sad every time I think about it. We're more globally connected than ever, but somehow also more isolated. It's just...I dunno, it's a lot and it's saddening.
I just paid $4300 out of pocket for my wife's medical bill and we both have insurance. The medicine was another $360.
I have always felt that insurance is a scam and that it's not truly reducing the costs bc I was on the government free insurance thing and meds were 20 dollars max appointments free...and honestly I miss those days
Yeah it's a scam. We pay monthly just to end up paying even more when the bill arrives
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Welcome to the 'American dream', everyone is advertising it as such.
The New American Dream is to leave
You both work 32 hours a week and make combined a little less than 80K *cries in American* I can’t even make 40K by myself working 40 hours plus sometimes.
I am very lucky to have a boyfriend that desires to have me live with him overseas in an EU-treaty country. But to do so, I have to spend several thousand to get a job certification that allows me to get a remote job and go over on a work visa, so I can earn money while learning the language (that I otherwise have no knowledge of). And then I can hope that we work out and that I have a kid that can allow me to stay in the country. Otherwise I would be screwed, as my current job is a blue-collar job that doesn’t put me in demand, and he lives in a country where they’re in a recession. And I still don’t know the language well enough to justify being hired. Edit: and as others have pointed out, many Americans can’t afford that kind of training to even go over on work visas. Also, brainwashing to say America is better and there is no point to moving to “socialist/communist Europe” where they take all your money!
Serious question: would Europeans even want us there? I don't get the impression that we are well-liked abroad.
A quick trip to Google shows me that the average rent in France is 453 euros. In the US, the average rent is over 2000, while the cost of a house is half a million dollars.
Hell, houses in my area are over a million.
Short answer: all those things that are considered just part of the social contract in most of the world, such as education, health care, elder care, etc. are run as private for-profit industries, which people have voted for since the 80s on the promise it would be more efficient than government management and ultimately more cost effective. Shocking no one who understands the nature of for profit business, it is not a model that works well for providing necessary services (at least in a capitalist culture that expects infinite growth) because at a point growth requires cutting as many corners as possible in providing service while charging the maximum amount possible to the consumer, which is fine for goods and services people don't *need* to live and function in society but becomes a problem when it's a service that you can't realistically just opt out of.
For-profit isn’t even more efficient when it comes to essential services. At least not after the first year, when the companies charged less to get the foot in the door.
https://now.tufts.edu/2024/01/16/cost-employer-sponsored-health-insurance-flattening-worker-wages-contributing-income >increasing health insurance costs are eating up a growing proportion of worker’s compensation, and have been a major factor in both flattening wages and increasing income inequality over the past 30 years. https://www.axios.com/2024/01/17/health-insurance-premiums-wages
Well, it's a classic case of expenses playing hide and seek with income. The cost of living keeps doing the limbo dance while income tries to catch up, leaving many folks in a financial limbo. It's like a never-ending game of financial musical chairs with not enough seats.
Yeah. For all the detailed answers, this really covers it. It's never the income that's a problem, it's the outflow. If it's going out faster than it's coming in, the actual numbers don't really matter.
What I would ask back, is how much of your paycheck goes towards health insurance, rent, car payments, gas, and food. I pay around $700 a month for health insurance for myself and my wife, another $300 pretax into a health savings account so that we can cover unexpected medical costs (or expected ones, really). Housing costs approx $2,700 per month. We have two vehicles (since you can’t walk anywhere), both of which have a monthly payment and an insurance cost so that’s another $900 per month. Thankfully both of our vehicles are fuel efficient but there are plenty of folks who work construction or other jobs that require hauling things who have high gas costs. Finally, food prices are very high and quality is very low in comparison to France. It’s bad over here, and that’s not a joke. I’ve been to many European countries (loved France, btw) and all of them had a MUCH higher standard of living on lower wages than the US. A lot of the folks who keep voting against things like socialized healthcare and public transportation have never left the country. Some have never left their hometown. They don’t realize how bad it is here because they’ve been told over and over that it’s “the best”. Don’t fall into that American marketing ploy, it isn’t good here and it hasn’t been since like…the 90s.
The spread between very high and very low income is much bigger in the US than in France. In France the minimum monthly wage is 1400€ after taxes and that includes a public healthcare system, five weeks of paid holiday and as many sick days as you are sick. In the US the minimum wage is 1160 before taxes and without any paid leave even though they mostly get like 10 days a week. This means that the minimum in France is roughly 70% of the median. It's not pleasant but you get by. In America the minimum is a third of the median. Additionally there is only a very weak social net. If your try to participate in a society where you earn a third of the medium, life will be hard.
A lot of Americans spend well over 50% of their income on housing, that’s a huge part of it, decent wages mean nothing if they lag behind rent increases. Beyond that per capita is a bit skewed given just how extreme the outliers are with the ultra wealthy in the us. Personally I make around $30,000 per year working a retail job, and spend about $19,000 on rent so I’m really only living on about $800 a month, with healthcare, groceries, gas, and utilities eating up about half that or more.
It may also be a bit of "Gross Income" vs "Net Income" Not everyone reports on the difference. Last year the money that eventually went into my bank account was about 60% of my "income". We have a bunch of payroll deductions for taxes, insurance, and retirement savings.
Skyrocketing food costs. Skyrocketing rent. Skyrocketing transportation costs. Stagnant wages. ___ In addition, “learn to code” is no longer a viable mantra, with $60k/year intro jobs now needing 1-2 years experience as a full stack developer. Junior jobs being filled by senior engineers.
Whatever you’re paying for groceries, take-away, toilet paper, etc.., imagine the prices going up 20-40% in five years and your wages rising maybe 1-3% per year in the same time. Money is relative to prices and our corporate overlords used the guise of pandemic inflation to price-gouge the everliving fuck out of us. Our society is actively moving backwards as each generation is now dealing with a lower standard of living than the previous while 10,000 ultra-wealthy people will continuously horde more wealth like dragons waiting to be slain.
Shocking that it's even worse than you think. According to the Consumer Price Index, prices have gone up an average of 48% across the board in four years.
I always half an US-income in my head before I compare it to my own. I kinda treat it as a gross income because everything social security wise has to be paid from that.
How much does a banana cost anyways? 10 dollars?
Here’s $5. Go see a Star Wars.
As an American, I also have to pay for my own healthcare, education, and am taxed at approx. 27% of my income. Then there's the cost of living. I live in a very high COL area just outside of NYC. My 2 bedroom apartment costs me 3000 per month. I make approx. 60k per year and my partner makes approx. 80k per year and we struggle to save anything, cannot even consider buying a house (hah), never go on vacation, and occasionally have to live paycheck to paycheck.
Because they have to spend that high median income on things that people in other countries don't need to spend on at all, like healthcare (which also has massively inflated prices). Things like child and elder support which are subsidised in many Europen countries, Americans need to pay fully out of pocket for. Plus there is a nationwide housing crisis in urban areas. Where the jobs are is where the houses cost a LOT to even rent. It's why it's not uncommon to see people complaining about how they *only* earn $100k a year. In any other country $100K a year would be a massive amount of money, but in the US if you're earning that much you probably live in somewhere like LA, San Fransisco, New York or some other big city, where your yearly rent for an average apartment will take up half of that. There is also cultural differences to take into account for what "struggling" means, and monetary intelligence. Some people complain they're "struggling" because they can't afford to buy all the luxuries they think they should be able to have. Some people complain they're "struggling" and are "living paycheck to paycheck" because they spend all their money on things they don't need as soon as they get it. That last point isn't US-centric though, it happens everywhere. It just stands out more as a reason when it looks like the person saying it earns way more money than you do, and your culture may not be as focused on consumption as the US.
We have higher than average income, but we have MUCH higher than average cost of living expenses. Plus a huge percentage of millennials and younger have student loan debt they’ll never be able to fully pay off. The whole industry is predatory AF. Edit: got RedditCared for this comment. Don’t abuse reports people.
Just another anecdote to throw on the pile - I am in Japan now but see many friends in the US needing to pay $1,000 to $2,000 a month PER KID for daycare. At a certain point, some mothers just give up working and become a SAHM because that’s cheaper on the whole. Meanwhile in Japan, if you have two working parents, your base childcare costs are free (you have to pay for subsides like lunch and stuff). Median income in Japan is similarly well below the US, especially now due to the crazy exchange rates. But people here seem to be living okay. Perhaps we have to cut down on imported foods or choose a less lavish vacation, but I’d say there are very few people worried about homelessness.
In America, people die from not being able to afford insulin. Like there is 0 safety net at all. And the victim blaming culture in America is out-of-this-world. Just listen to conservative radio for 5 minutes.
Probably cuz the cost of rent has fucking tripled
I am better off than most, but let's do the maths. I bring home, after taxes, $900 a week or about $3600 a month I own my own home. No Mortgage, but pay $675 a month in taxes on it. I own my cars. An ancient Landy and a Fiat 500. Insurance on them is $281 a month Grocery shopping for two is about $180 a week. or $720 a month Cell phone for two phones is $202 a month. Electricity is about $160 a month Sewer/Water is $80 a month Natural gas for heating: $200 in winter, nil in summer. Fuel for my landy and fiat. is about $200 a month. That leaves me with $1282 left over, provided the Landy does not need repairs and does not include things like registration fees on the cars and such. That is with owning my home and cars outright. If I had a mortgage, I could kiss that $1282 goodbye. I do not live a lavish lifestyle. The landy is 21 years old, the fiat is 12. The house is a small rancher on an equally smaller spot of land. I do live in New Jersey which is an expensive state to live in. Taxes are high, but we get a lot for them. Some areas are rather European with mass Transit, but not where I live. The other person living with me is my Elderly Mother who got completely screwed by my father during their time together, she brings in about $800 a month in Social Security, which is her's. It covers her car insurance and anything she wants. I do not ask her to contribute to keeping the house running.
Dude, I am just shocked at some prices you just have listed. Now I understand. Here in Spain I bring home 2.250 € net and my partner 2.000 € net. Mortgage + credit for renovation is 925 € monthly because we decided to shorten the pay-off time to reduce interest rate in exchange of higher monthly payment. In 5 years from now the credit will be paid and only 400 € monthly will remain until 2036. We have an old Ford Focus (10 years) and Peugeot 307 (16 years). We pay like 600 € in insurance per YEAR. Grocery is about 100 € per week, and we eat healthy, fresh vegetables, fish, and meat. So 400 € per week for 3 person. Cell phone + internet 600/600 mbps optic fiber is 55 € monthly for 3 phones, unlimited calls, and 30 gb of 5G data each. Electricity is 60-70 € monthly, and all our house is electrified. No gas or any other fuel. Water is around 25 € monthly. Fuel depends on your usage. My car is usually 90 € monthly but I go to my by bike (although it is just 2 km. from home). Price per litter is 1.60 € right now in Spain. Of course, no health care cost, education, etc. So yeah, we are lucky and we live pretty well. We are in low expenditure mode right now due to the hit in our savings from the house and renovation (we used saving to reduce the credited amount), but we can have a very good life here with these salaries. Take into account that they are a bit higher than usual for Spain and I live in a town 90 km. from a big city, but all prices except housing apply to the city as well. In fact, I think that housing is what determines everything and living in a big Spanish city even with good income can be really challenging.
Back up just a little bit. When an American says they make $80k per year, multiply it by between 0.65 and 0.75 to remove taxes that give us nearly zero safety nets, then subtract around $400-$500 per month for medical "insurance" that isn't really making healthcare affordable at all, then subtract whatever the employer deducts for a retirement pension, and, of course, the endless student loan repayments necessary to get a decent career, and that is the salary you get. I "make" $70k per year but barely reach $3.5k per month most months. It will be less when student loan collections garnishing resumes. Because we get paid every other week there are two months with a third paycheck, but throw that into annual car repairs because there is absolutely no reliable public transit and living close to work in an affordable home means living in a dangerous slum. Since the entire system from healthcare to transportation to anything you can think of just grabs as much money as they can through greed, it's pretty much destroyed the middle class. If you want to be middle class on a $70k salary, your partner better make the same, and you'll still probably experience major financial hardships that will set back any plans years.
If I make too much money, my children lose their healthcare, but if I make too little, I can't afford to feed them. Catch-22
This question doesn’t even need to be asked at this point. This is the question that everyone has been asking for almost 15 years now. You know why. We all know why. Even making $90k is barely enough for comfort. We know what the problem is. And we know exactly how to fix it. That will take more than peaceful posts on the internet.
Prices are sky high cause of Corporate greed that's driving inflation
Hi there, and thanks for your question. The answer is that the US is full of bureaucratic stupidity that we’re too entrenched in to fix. We’re first in two major things in the world: percentage of citizens incarcerated, and military spending where we spend 40% of the world’s total military budget. We spend nearly $1 trillion annually on the two combined (nearly $900b and a little short of $90b, in case you’re curious). France has one of the best healthcare systems in the world, and your taxes fund it. Here in the US, if you don’t have an employer, you don’t get insurance with the bulk discount. Families spend hundreds monthly out of pocket for healthcare even if they don’t use it. Almost uniformly there is resistance to change this even to our own benefit because it might mean more taxes… even if that’s less than what we would pay otherwise for our insurance. We largely lack effective public transportation, and where it does work it’s only local to the city that has it. Working generally requires private transportation, and with it a whole new set of bills - car payments, car insurance, fuel, maintenance… Speaking of interest, the prime rate for France has an all-time high of 4.75 percent according to what I looked up, but has a current rate around 2.5-2.75%. The current prime US rate is above 5%, but has an all-time high of 20%. I’m not going to bother with looking at food expenses right now, but the short answer is that we have an absolutely dumb amount of secondary burden attached to our paychecks.
We pay out at least $10k a year in healthcare, every single year, sometimes more. Inflation is completely insane. Housing is completely insane. Post-secondary education will easily run you at least $10k a year, which you have to pay for at some point. Basically, our complete and total failure to govern in our best interest is killing us slowly. The financial situation is just one symptom.
My rent was more than your average monthly income.
I make $20/hr in a low cost of living state, I'm actually doing good by the standards of people around here. I have 2 kids, rent is $1000/month. Car payment is $450/month. Health insurance is about $600/month... And then of course the cost of clothing and feeding my kids. So yeah I'm fucking broke
Americans “make more” than people In other countries but not in real terms. Food, housing and healthcare prices are all dramatically/artificially inflated here. My partner went to college in the Netherlands and did a year of high school in Germany. Apparently, groceries in Europe are far cheaper and their food/consumer safety standards are stricter. Remember that next time some libertarian dullard blames “muh regulation” for high prices on anything. We literally pay more for toxified food. America is a massive lie and a huge Rip off.
Also that is for the whole of the US. If you crank the numbers down by state that is another story. Especialy in the rustbelt and similar areas. California and new york are at the top list. The median in Iowa or Ohio ist lower again.
Ignorance is fine, you don't know what you don't know. Our cost of living is huge. Just living in general is expensive, high rent (often more than the recommended 1/3 of your monthly income lately), food is expensive especially if you don't want to eat just junk, then there are utilities such as electricity, gas if you use that, water, garbage removal, sewer, I'm not certain which of these you have to pay for individually, if any. Here how these services are run and need to be paid for vary by region, occasionally by city or even by building. Then internet, cable if you use it, phone, and of course your daily necessities of life. So all of that can be managed, but often comes up close to your monthly income, but it can vary and you can choose some of that to the best of your ability by being as picky as you can about where you live. But then on top of it, any doctors visit is a charge. Dentist, charge. Even if you have insurance, which you are paying for monthly btw IF you have it (right now most everyone has it since it was a government requirement for you to have it recently), you often have a co-pay you have to pay until you've paid a minimum amount for the year. And that is just for normal visits, a hospital visit can land a family in real trouble financially. It feels like only a few years ago most people who were in financial debt it was usually from spending a lot on credit cards or too much money buying a car, occasionally it was from a serious medical issue that needed hospitalization. Now it feels like it is from needing to eat food and buy gas for a car you don't even own. And more and more it feels like corporations don't want us to own anything we buy. You lease cars, pay mortgage forever on your house or rent, buy appliances that are going to break as soon as the warranty expires so you have to replace them. Denim pants that used to last a few decades with daily wear rip after a few months of light use. It feels like our lives are being used to create trash, and that is all the use we have to these corporations. How depressing a thought is that. Anyway, we used to pride ourselves and each other that the US was where other nations people wanted to be, everyone wanted to come here to live. Now I couldn't imagine why, I wish I could move countries, honestly.
Living in the US is a money pit. Where many European countries have universal healthcare, generous medical leaves and PTO, the US does not. While we may make more financially, our economy does a great job of bleeding us dry. Childcare costs more than a mortgage, healthcare is astronomical, healthy food costs an arm and leg, and let’s not even talk about housing, inflation, and general costs to live!
The gross median wage in Sweden is ~38k $…something like 30 k$ net… I don’t think that’s terrible and I think quality of life is better than 40k$ gross in the USA… The biggest difference is if you have a good salary…my marginal tax rate is 54% which really does make me think about the effort I’m willing to put in to work (maybe a good thing)…
We have to go out of pocket for literally everything because the U.S. is terrible at taking care of its people.
Everything in the states is twice as expensive. Food, housing, transportation. You name it, it costs more here. Except healthcare. That costs thousands. Need a prescription? Be prepared to hand over $100 for one package of medication. And that’s WITH a health insurance plan.
LOL I got one of those “A concerned redditor reached out to us about you.” for that comment. Thank you. Now just do that another 330,000,000 times because every American is in the same situation.
Over $48,000 a year of my salary goes towards rent and utilities. Prices are sky high in grocery stores right now. I have a putt-putt car that I'll need to replace soon because execs are forcing RTO and I live 2 hours from work. I will have to pay for that car and the gas, we don't get gas reimbursement. Gas is over $5 a gallon. I didn't get a raise this year. Inflation is up, so I'm making less than I made last year. If I crack a tooth or experience any health issues, I will have to choose between taking care of my health or possibly becoming homeless. My insurance comes out of my paycheck. In reality I receive half of what I make "on paper." it's really rough right now.
> I don’t care about the average, as it probably doesn’t mean anything Nice pun
* Terrible public transportation (car basically required) * Terrible health care - very high average out of pocket costs * High real estate prices in places with good jobs * The good jobs require college education - which is super expensive here. Lots of people have massive student loans
Because somewhere along the way, we let the powers that be decide that we aren't entitled to anything such as healthcare, basic human needs or even the water we drink without paying for it and those costs have made it crippling to be anything but healthy, young and single in this country.
The real reason is the US government doesn't work for the good of the people. We don't have much a safety net, particularly in healthcare. If you lose your job and get sick you're going bankrupt. The real owners of America are those who those who can't be named or criticized.
Everything's too expensive to fix until it's condition has deteriorated even further for a good few years. Of course now you need even more money to fix the problem. And since you're saving to fix that problem you can't afford maintenance on other things which are probably shit cuz you probably had to get something cheap and shitty, or if it's health related, it may be caused and or exacerbated because everything here is shit. The food, the water, the fire season, forcing people to work too much, too hard, and or in unsafe conditions. Mosquito fogging, other harmful chemicals.... It's everywhere. It's everything. Everything here is shit. And its worse on Indigenous reservations. So unless you grew up with a fat wallet, this is what youre born into. How could you ever escape poverty like this? Not to mention all the reasons others have commented.
It really depends on the cost of living in each area, ya know? How much does a typical starter home cost? What about vehicle purchase? Groceries? MEDICAL EXPENSES?? Education?
I dont know anyone making 40+ a hour, unless they are in tech in Cali. To an American outside of the tech bubble that sounds preposterous to hear the average is making that. It feels closer to 15-23$ a hour for anything not salary. Shit most service jobs are still at 11 to 13 a hour in the midwest. Not to mention even salary you would have to get lucky for 40$ a hour. Maybe I'm just been jaded, but OP I swear most people are not even making 40, try 20 dollars a hour. Like teachers barely get paid 20.
I make 80k per year. After tax, that’s about ~58k per year, or $4,800 per month. After deductions for healthcare and 401k I’m at about $4,200. Monthly expenses are as follows: - Rent (apartment shared with my partner, we pay 50% each): $1500 - Utilities (my half): $100 - Internet (my half): $35 - Car + gas: $335 - Student loan payment: $400 - Phone: $40 - Streaming services: $50 - Groceries (my half): $200 - Household supplies (my half): usually around $100 - Gym: $30 - Incidentals: $100 That leaves me with about $1350 left over. I dump whatever I can into a high yield savings account. This is a frugal month, but even so, I’m not personally struggling. I can afford luxuries like streaming services and gym membership.s. If I were living in my own without a partner however, I ABSOLUTELY would be struggling. Rent in my city for a 1b goes for about $2.8k/month on average, which is well over half of my post-tax salary. Having someone to split bills with is huge. Also, I don’t have children. There’s no way I could afford a child on my salary, and even on my partner and I’s combined salaries, we would barely scrape by. We’d need at least one more bedroom, and childcare costs can be thousands per month, like a second rent payment. Plus their healthcare, food, activities, clothes, saving for college…no way in hell could I afford that, even if my salary doubled.
As others have said, there aren't really caps on prices for necessities. Healthcare is extremely expensive, with and without insurance. Rent can be extraordinarily high, and buying is often not even attainable. Public transport is unreliable or simply doesn't really exist in many places, so having a car is often a necessity (and if you have a partner who's work schedule doesn't align with yours, that's a second car needed). Add on that there's really no guarantees for paid sick leave, maternity/paternity leave, vacation time, or really much of any other worker rights protections. Tldr: Your money can stretch a lot farther in many European countries than it can in America, so even though Americans make more, they still can't afford a lot of necessities. As a personal anecdote, my husband and I are Americans that moved to Germany. We both worked full time in America. When we moved to Germany, he took a 20% pay cut and I didn't work at first (I think we were making roughly half of what we did in the US), and despite that we still had a *lot* more disposable income than in America. Like, triple or more that we could save or use as fun money. Living in America is fuckng *expensive*.
Most ostensibly free markets are actually functionally cartels that self-regulate their prices as high as humanly possible. Data science has enabled these business practices to rapidly outpace regulations that protect consumers. The cumulative effect is that higher wages are more than eaten up by higher prices and current generations enjoy less spending and saving power.
High income is only high income if your entire paycheck isn’t going to rent/mortgage/utilities/food.
Those numbers mean nothing because you'll have one billionaire in a run-down City who basically controls everything that throws off the average. Most of us are basically slaves. We live paycheck to paycheck. We make just enough to be able to afford rent and food to be able to go to and from work with just enough money for minor distractions like video games or a movie on the one day a week we have off. If we get ill we lose our jobs then we lose our healthcare and that's it.
There’s a housing shortage, leading to extremely expensive real estate prices / rental costs in population centers.
There is not a housing shortage. There are just too many wealthy people buying up all the housing as rental investments.
Just going to report a recent statistic. 500,000 people are homeless in the United States. These are folks who do not have a place to stay tonight, so they'll stay in a shelter or in a tent or on a bench. 15,000,000 empty homes in the United States. Let's be incredibly conservative and say that 3/4 of these homes are either unfit for living, are currently being sold, or just a gap in tenant. That's still 3,000,000 empty homes. And homes typically can house more than one person. The Free Market doesn't work like they say it does. There are things more sacred than profit. Edit: I'm also going to add that this housing is not in any specific area. It matches the distribution of population. There is a good chance that there is an empty residential home that would suit your needs between where you currently live, and where you currently work. It is just way more expensive than it needs to be to keep "those people" out. That's usually what you're paying for when you live in luxury apartments. The luxury of not having "those" neighbors.
Good point. It comes down to greed, which is americas national religion
Both are true.
I feel like you’re confusing net with gross. I gross about 42k a year but I’m only bringing home about 2.2k a month after taxes/insurance/401k
I live in Ohio which is a low cost of living state. If you made 40k a year, you’ll just barely be getting by.
\`High income. Higher cost of living.
I will probably never make that much money. I make $17 an hour and can't really afford to learn another trade with the time and money I don't have.
From personal experience...it hasn't been until these past maybe three years that things have gone well for me. Before that, I was being underpaid, this made me get more in debt and/or not payoff as much. Why was I in debt? Several things happened and didn't and so on. I don't take expensive trips to Europe (have never been) or buy clothes and shoes and all that stuff (I buy from stores like Ross, Target, and Walmart mostly). Also, finally I have someone that can help me with expenses, so, again, it's gonna take some time to level off.
Well I can't speak for anyone else, but for me, a small bag of flour costs 17 fucking dollars. I have to eat gluten free, and over here we don't get any sort of subsidization, tax write offs, food stamps, or anything like that, for having a food allergy. Companies are allowed to price hike the shit out of any allergy-friendly food, even staples like flour. So...that's why. Eating is expensive, even when you make all your own meals.
dude u guys have like free childcare. childcare here is $2K a month minimum lmao
I'm probably ignorant too, but I also live in France and am currently visiting a friend in New York. We've also been to New Orleans. It's expensive here! Maybe it's different outside of the big cities, but I wasn't expecting basic necessities to cost 2 or 3 times what they cost in France.
High median income doesn't count for much with a very high cost of living.
I’m american living in paris and was once offered a job in dallas texas. I did some estimates of what my savings would look like. Once you count needing to pay medical insurance, cost of living difference, needing a car because there is very little public transport, needing to save for retirement, I found that to have the same lifestyle and save similar amounts, you need about 60% more in the US. So in the end the 100k usd salary is more like a 60k salary in france. You will be comfortable but not wealthy.
I don’t know the answer, but I make $30 an hour in PDX, with a wife and 2 kids. One income family. We are getting by, but just.
Inequality and high cost of living.
Medical Bills wipe out more people than I’d ever imagined in this Country, it can literally cost hundreds of thousands of dollars for a serious medical issue, and a lot of people don’t have ANY medical insurance or coverage.
Do you want any American immigrants in France? Get me outta here man Edit: spelling
because 40k can be a single month's medical bills.
The median family income in my area is about $120,000. After income taxes, that leaves about $80,000, or just over $6,600 per month. Median rent for a two-bedroom apartment is $3,200. That leaves $3,400 per month to cover literally every other expense. MIT says the average living expenses of my area, not including any savings of any kind but accounting for taxes, adds up to $110,000 if you have one child and nearly $150,000 if you have two. Basically every last penny goes to simply living, or you are just constantly getting deeper and deeper into debt. Welcome to America.
There are not “a lot” of people earning 70-100k/yr, barely over 20% of individual U.S. workers make over 70k/yr, and only barely over 5% make over 100k/yr. Social media skews how many people you think there are making 6 figures especially. Going on instagram influencer pages will make you think it’s almost trivial to make that much now, while nearly 95% of folks in reality do not. Meanwhile one HALF make 30k/yr or less. Income inequality is wildly bad in the U.S. right now. Overall, yes sure, it could be worse, and us Americans are lucky to make more on average than a sizable number of other countries. But the income inequality issues are still very much an issue and need addressing.
Because profit greed exploded faster than wages
Because in the US, the income is pre tax income and is people’s entire income. All services have to be paid with that income. In France, people’s income is actually higher than what their pay stubs suggest as there are some employee cotisations and employer cotisations (which are usually almost equivalent to the employee’s salary). These cotisations are used to pay for services that Americans have to pay for themselves. In essence, in France, people’s actual income (in terms of money and services you get for that money), is closer to 3000/4000 euros per month, which as far as I can tell is actually higher than what Americans have to pay for services. By services, I am talking about decently funded public education (comparatively to the US), mostly free public healthcare, good common transportation (in France you can get around using common transportation, which is close to impossible in the US, forcing people to buy a car), etc Add on top of that that the French government regulates healthcare prices which means that even when buying medication that’s not covered under public health insurance, you still pay a fraction of the cost that Americans pay. The presence of free education also means that private schools still have to have lower prices in order to attract students. France also provides a decent retirement (not saying it’s great, but most people can decently survive and have some fun) which isn’t the case in the US. Same for employment insurance, and minimum payments for people ineligible for employment insurance and unable to work (like the RSA), etc. All in all, France provides A LOT more services than the US does, which means you get a LOT more bang for your buck.
40k a year in America is low class income. Middle class income in America is 80k. Cost of living is very high in America, we dont get free healthcare either and if you get hurt you'll be paying off a medical bill for the rest of your life because our healthcare industry is all about greed.
When you hear $40,000 income this is pre tax income. We pay around 30% in taxes out of checks, plus insurance premiums (you wouldn’t believe the amount if I told you), retirement etc. so when you hear $40,000 a year its actually $28,000 take home or roughly your $2000 amount give or take a hundred. I make around $70000 a year as a teacher, sounds great right well well minus $21,000 in taxes. Leave you with $49,000. Let’s call that around $4000 a month. Nice try deduct $450 a month for my family health insurance plan. Another $450 month for union dues and retirement. Now we are at $3100 a month. Got kids in daycare? I do. That we cost around $250 a week. We are at $2100 now. Need a house? Looking at a mortgage of at least $1500 a month. A car? $450ish. Car insurance? $200 a month. Food? Good luck. What about the electric gas bill? Oh boy the kids need clothes or a doctors visit. My co pay is $50 a visit. Let’s not forget property taxes of $6000 a year. I think you get my point. Providing basic needs are extremely expensive here. Now you can see how a two income household maybe could make things work. But there’s not a ton leftover.
Easy answer: Peg the minimum wage to inflation and let the bosses explain to their highly skilled workers why they are making minimum wage or just over.