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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

#181

Post by yardie »

jimrhods23 wrote: post #134
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…

"In all my travels no one is more deluded about the middle class than in the US. Healthcare is cheaper in Europe" Cheaper != better. Especially when it comes to something as important as healthcare. It also depends on what you are prioritizing. Universal care is good for checkups and when you are young and healthy. But it falls apart when you need major surgery due to much longer wait times and decisions made by a co…

Not sure where you are getting that information from. This is not 2012 and all your talking points have been discredited during the ACA debates. There is no queue for major surgery there is a priority. The systems I’m familiar with are French, German, Japanese and UK. Guess what, most of the providers are private. Your doctors, pharmacies, clinics and surgeons all have a private practice. You pay the government and the government pays them. When our son was sick the doctor would drive over to check on him. She also proposed some elective procedures that we could have the state pay for or elect to pay ourselves to get it done immediately.

My DMV is called FLHSMV but everyone calls it the DMV. Because that’s what they are known as nationally. They have moved some services online (renewal, address change) but most services still require an office visit, like voter registration.

Income distribution in Western Europe is quite healthy. A lot less so on the eastern and southern sectors. The US middle class is definitely shrinking even with tax cuts. So, I hypothesize taxes have nothing or little to do with it.

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

#182

Post by matwood »

yardie wrote: post #179
matwood wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a per pupil basis, the US is near the top in spending. The problem is that money does not make it into teacher salaries or even into the classrooms. Like many other parts of the US government, the money gets wasted away in administration. This also is not a new thing. When I was in high school years ago, quite a few school buildings in the county were literally falling down trailers. With that going on, the school…

I see it as the schools in rich neighborhoods get more attention. If HVAC broke down the school district would hear it. Because the parents are more attentive and reactive. If the same thing happened to a school in a poorer neighborhood the parents wouldn’t react. Would t take time from work to attend those district meetings and the politicians will allocate the monies for their biggest complainers. Rinse and repeat…

I wasn't clear in my original comment. The building built downtown was not a school, but a building for district administrators.

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

#183

Post by dogma1138 »

majewsky wrote: post #178
dogma1138 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$800 is less than the 15-25% health tax you’ll pay in Europe.

You forgot to factor in that he's also paying indirectly for employer-provided health insurance. How much is that in comparison?

Same goes for Europe, my national insurance contribution(which doesn't even technically cover healthcare) is £6,664 a year, my employer pays an additional £17,281.19 in NICS a year.

Do you think that you and your employer pay more than $30K a year for healthcare?

Don't get me wrong there are a lot of things wrong with US healthcare including the costs for uninsured but Europeans pay through the nose direct and indirectly for their health insurance as well.

With marginal tax of nearly of over 50% of your income when you include NI/Health Tax contributions, 20-25% VAT and much higher indirect taxes on everything from fuel to sugar you end up paying for it one way or another.

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

#184

Post by Dirlewanger »

rayiner wrote: post #86

It's worth reading the underlying OECD report: https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/social-issues-migration-healt... Two points based on the charts on page 44, 46. 1) Looking at just "middle income" people exaggerates the situation in the U.S. because part of the reason the U.S. has a smaller middle class is because it has a bigger upper class. About 15% of the U.S. is "upper income" versus 5% in countries like Denmark, No…

>Many of the people in the U.S. classified as "low income" in the U.S. would still qualify as "middle income" in Germany.

Why would this matter when the PPP is different for each country?

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

#185

Post by akhilcacharya »

RobAtticus wrote: post #37
mfoy_ wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly does a 22-year-old have a $3k+ rent?

There are plenty of 1-bedrooms in high-cost of living areas like NYC, so one way is for the 22-year-old to rent one of them? Now it may not be financially advisable, but if he's making 120k that would be both "a lot less" than 200k and possible to rent a 3k apt, since landlords usually want 40x rent as income.

Studio :/

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

#186

Post by naravara »

malvosenior wrote: post #145
naravara wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's not a myth, it's how I and other people I know actually feel. Your feelings didn't just bubble up out of nowhere. They were incepted in you by the culture and values you absorbed growing up. When you're conditioned from the cradle to view social services as "hand-outs" being given to "underserving" populations who don't look like you, you're being influenced by a racially coded language and a racist cultural na…

How do you know that it wasn't you that was brainwashed by media to believe that your opposition are racists even when they tell you explicitly that their opinions have nothing to do with race?

Because I actually spent time consciously deprogramming myself as I become aware of the perniciously racist elements of our culture natch.

And it’s not complete. We all harbor some of the racist conditioning, I’m just willing to be cognizant of it because I think perpetuating racist things is worse than being called out on it.

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

#187

Post by tomhoward »

naravara wrote: post #186
malvosenior wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know that it wasn't you that was brainwashed by media to believe that your opposition are racists even when they tell you explicitly that their opinions have nothing to do with race?

Because I actually spent time consciously deprogramming myself as I become aware of the perniciously racist elements of our culture natch. And it’s not complete. We all harbor some of the racist conditioning, I’m just willing to be cognizant of it because I think perpetuating racist things is worse than being called out on it.

It's good that you are making the effort to "deprogram"yourself.

I also put a lot of work into identifying and correcting unhealthy subconscious "programming". I've been doing it for 7 years, and continue to work at it daily. And yes, some of that programming has included judgements of others based on identity group, class, etc.

But it's included a lot of things too, including the propensity to judge other people negatively for not having undertaken the kind of work I've done, or assuming that the same subconscious attitudes that existed in me, equally exist in others.

It's not a productive or kind way to interact with people.

The most important realisation we need to make when we start understanding our inner selves is that there's so much more that we don't understand, even within ourselves, let alone others.

Given this, it's not for us to make assumptions about what exists inside others or pronouncements about what others should think or do.

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

#188

Post by thatfrenchguy »

rayiner wrote: post #158
thatfrenchguy wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I make a good six figures. I have a $20 copay. The copay in France is usually €1. I have delayed going to the doctor in the US because "do I really want to spend 20 bucks on this ?" and ended up going a week after while in a worse state. Most people I know here are like this. Also, 12.4% of all Americans are uninsured and 28% are underinsured: http://fortune.com/2019/02/07/americans-health-care-underins... . Don't pr…

The whole point of copays is to dissuade you from using services unnecessarily, which is why many countries, even ones with socialized medicine, have copays or similar out-of-pocket charges (Sweden, Norway, Netherlands, Finland, etc.). In the typical case where you're not sick, it works out. As to your point about the uninsured--I'm not debating the merits of various healthcare systems, I'm trying to contextualize th…

Copays are pretty universally known to lead towards worse care, while making access inequality worse. (There is also no copay to go to the GP in the Netherlands)

40% of those Americans are not your “typical” American. Americans also on average take 10 days of vacation, while 24% of private industry workers don’t have any day of vacation, and have no job security because they can be fired at any time. They also have to pay for their kid’s college education or have them take r

The median wealth of the US is also 97k$, compared to 113k€ in France. That’s not counting the fact that all retirement in France is publicly managed, meaning it doesn’t count into your wealth when it does in the US (except for social security)

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

#189

Post by ranie93 »

WalterBright wrote: post #164
ranie93 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me the definition is fair, they define it as 75% to 200% of the median income in the respective country. I don't think this comparison (to ones own countries' median income, PPP-adjusted) can be escaped since "middle-class" is being interpreted as intra-country. This is what I would expect since when I think myself if I qualify as middle-class, I don't compare myself to the Yemenis, I compare myself to ot…

It's adjusted per PPI, which makes the income consistent across countries. PPI adjusted income is essentially a measure of standard of living. So the graph uses different definitions of middle class standard of living and conflates the results. Bluntly, it's lying with statistics.

Thanks for your reply I am also looking to understand this report further

I think I see what you're saying: The prices are already PPP (did you mean that instead of PPI?), thus the _additional_ adjustment of middle class as varying country per country (on a USD value basis) is then misleading/lying. E.g. Someone below the threshold of middle class in the USA may still be considered middle class in Germany.

The issue I see specifically is here:

>So the graph uses different definitions of middle class standard of living and conflates the results.

They use a _consistent_ definition of 75% to 200% (a percent basis) of the median income in each country.

What you interpret as different definitions stems from the fact that these countries have different median incomes.

And that's the whole point of the category of "middle-class" isn't it? Consider the edge case of some fictional country where their currency is gold bars and diamonds. "In America you'd be rich!" you may tell a middle class member of that country. "That's great, but I'm middle of the road around here actually" Is what they would respond. The fact that a homeless person in the US, with their scant possesions, would maybe be wealthy in Yemen (ignoring the myriad other issues) has no bearing on their current condition in the US.

If we compare these countries on a worldwide median household-income basis ($9,733 [1]), almost everyone in the developed world would be "middle-class" or higher. Would that mean there are no issues there? [2]

[1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/166211/worldwide-median-househo...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness#Statistics_for_de...

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

#190

Post by scarmig »

wildmusings wrote: post #171
scarmig wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe not the retirement so much, but a medical issue can easily lead to bankruptcy, even when you have seven figures in assets.

If you have insurance—which someone with “seven figures in assets” should—then that is not a risk. Of course, insurance will only pay for so much. At some point of diminishing returns, they will cut you off. Just like any healthcare system in the world will. You can always spend more money for a tiny chance of living longer.

You have way too optimistic a point of view on insurance. Yes, you can even be bankrupted while being insured and a paper millionaire.
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