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Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except the USA

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Re: Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except the USA

#61

Post by lotsofpulp »

somethoughts wrote: post #39

Interestingly it seems from this articles figures that the actual disposable income of the middle class and lower class of the US is much higher than in Europe [1]. "The United States’ smaller middle income group still earns more than almost all its Western European counterparts. The average disposable income among middle income Americans in 2010 was $60,884, placing it comfortably ahead of Norway, which averaged $56…

Need to subtract the cash you need to set aside in case if medical emergencies and higher education.

Re: Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except the USA

#62

Post by gok »

The actual OECD report is a good read: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/689afed1-en/index.html?i...

The more complete quote is:

> There are two striking exceptions to the positive relationship between absolute median income and the size of the middle-income class:

> The United States. Although it boasts the fourth-largest median income, it has only the 31st-largest middle-income class of all OECD countries. Related statistics are that its population has the third-largest share of people in poverty and the fourth-largest in the upper-income class.

> The Central European countries of the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic, Hungary and, to a lesser extent, Poland and Slovenia. In these countries, the shares of the population in the middle-income class exceed what might be expected from their median income levels.

Re: Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except the USA

#63

Post by willyt »

wildmusings wrote: post #3

This is very deceptive. Under this methodology, people too poor to be called “middle class” in the US would be called middle class or higher in the other countries. Note how much higher the median income in the US is than in any other very large country (UK, Germany, France). There is no doubt the US is more unequal, but absolute wealth for the vast majority is higher.

It’s hard to make a comparison because it’s purchasing power that counts not dollar income. It’s much cheaper to eat better quality food from Waitrose in London than from Wholefoods in New York. I felt that food shopping in New York State in general was about 3 times more expensive than in the UK. But British people pay more per m² in rent because our houses are smaller than US and EU averages. In fact many new builds built in Britain would be illegal in a lot of EU countries because they are too small. So it’s more complicated than dollars.

Re: Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except the USA

#64

Post by sokoloff »

ixtli wrote: post #43
yardie wrote: post #32

In all my travels no one is more deluded about the middle class than in the US. Healthcare is cheaper in Europe therefore it must be worse, somehow. The government is completely dysfunctional and we are worse off for it. Rather than pay slightly more to fully fund a working city/state/federal government everyone would rather pay slightly less and have a government that can't work at all. Then, complain about the fact…

Don't even get me started. I did a year and a half of university in Tokyo and I used and paid for the health care system there a few times. Cavities filled for 20 dollars at high end central Tokyo offices. Skin doctors for zero dollars and prescribed creams for 800 yen. I knew a brain surgeon there who told me that the max price you could pay for his services was equivalent to 700 dollars. He didn't even bother going…

> He didn't even bother going to conferences in America

Might there be content in these professional conferences that would be relevant and beneficial for patient care? Is not going to professional development conferences a badge of honor or a mark of quality that I fail to grasp?

Re: Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except the USA

#65

Post by tristor »

scarmig wrote: post #29
wildmusings wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you rather be richer and have more buying power in absolute terms, or just make sure the fellow next door doesn’t have more than you? This graph is misleading. It talks about middle class as a percent of national median income, which means large numbers of people counted as lower-class in the US would be counted as middle-class if they lived in Europe and made the same income.

I'd most like to have an existence where I don't worry about being bankrupted by a medical emergency or surviving on cat food once I retire[0]. [0] The cheap cat food, I mean, not the $10/meal cat food that rich Americans buy their pets.

Presumably since you're posting on this site you have a marketable skillset in a high demand field, which means you can enjoy a lucrative career and through making good decisions have significant retirement savings so you can afford to eat normally.

Maybe you meant that you want that existence for others, in which case, you might have a point, but I think a lot of the people who have your worries in the tech industry only have them because they live in stupidly high cost-of-living areas like SV.

Re: Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except the USA

#66

Post by naravara »

mbesto wrote: post #38
ixtli wrote: post #4

My intuition about this as someone who grew up in America and has traveled internationally quite a bit is that nowhere else on earth are the middle classes so convinced that one day they will be "millionaires" than here. This causes them to act against their own best interests. (This was observed by Engels long ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_consciousness )

Conversely, it's also what has attracted so many immigrants to America and created so much historic social mobility[0]. Note - I believe this has largely been reversed (and thus stagnated) due to a generation of "I got mine" attitudes, aka the Baby Boomers. [0]Example - in the UK there is very much a "these are the cards I've been dealt" attitude towards social mobility.

>Conversely, it's also what has attracted so many immigrants to America and created so much historic social mobility[0]. Note - I believe this has largely been reversed (and thus stagnated) due to a generation of "I got mine" attitudes, aka the Baby Boomers.

It's not "I got mine" attitude nearly as much as it is plain racism. As a block, White Americans preferred to shred social services rather than extending the umbrella to cover minorities. Why else would "hardhats" have voted for Ronald Reagan over their own working class interests?

Re: Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except the USA

#67

Post by j2bax »

yardie wrote: post #32

In all my travels no one is more deluded about the middle class than in the US. Healthcare is cheaper in Europe therefore it must be worse, somehow. The government is completely dysfunctional and we are worse off for it. Rather than pay slightly more to fully fund a working city/state/federal government everyone would rather pay slightly less and have a government that can't work at all. Then, complain about the fact…

When I lived in NY I felt the same way about the DMV. Here in Canyon County Idaho there are a good 10-15 agents and I've never waited more than a few minutes. Guess we take all the savings from our poor education system and put them into the DMV!

Re: Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except the USA

#68

Post by return1 »

Isamu wrote: post #41

The middle income group in the US has shrunk to around 48% of population. The lower income group has grown a bit and this is the real problem. This group is defined as below 75% of median. The upper income group has also grown significantly. This is defined as above 200% of median. While we complain (rightly) about the share going to the upper few percent, the percentage of population that is upper income in the US m…

That is the case

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/06/the-america...

Re: Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except the USA

#69

Post by [deleted] »

the_economist wrote: post #46
ixtli wrote: post #4

My intuition about this as someone who grew up in America and has traveled internationally quite a bit is that nowhere else on earth are the middle classes so convinced that one day they will be "millionaires" than here. This causes them to act against their own best interests. (This was observed by Engels long ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_consciousness )

They aren't completely wrong. 76% of Americans spend a year of their life in the top 20%, 56% in the top 10%. https://www.aei.org/publication/evidence-shows-significant-i...

[deleted]

Re: Rich countries tend to have a bigger middle-class, except the USA

#70

Post by padobson »

ixtli wrote: post #4

My intuition about this as someone who grew up in America and has traveled internationally quite a bit is that nowhere else on earth are the middle classes so convinced that one day they will be "millionaires" than here. This causes them to act against their own best interests. (This was observed by Engels long ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_consciousness )

This causes them to act against their own best interests.

This is why enlightenment values have ultimately tilted toward capitalism. No collective can accurately define the best interests of every individual and design a policy to match. Better to let them sort it out themselves.

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