>One million cancel broadband
because they use their mobile devices for absolutely everything
are landlines next!?
One million cancel broadband as living costs rise
371–380 of 528 posts
Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise
#372Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the US, someone earning $155,000 USD (Equivalent to 125k GBP) will also be paying 6.2% in social security taxes, 1.45% in medicare taxes, and then another 6.2% in social security taxes (employer's portion)[1], and 1.45% in medicare taxes (employer's portion). Added to the rest of their marginal tax rate, they'd be seeing a rate of 22 + 15.3 = 37.3%. Of course, they won't actually get health insurance for it, which…
> In the US, someone earning $155,000 USD (Equivalent to 125 GBP) will also be paying 6.2% in social security taxes, 1.45% in medicare taxes, and then another 6.2% in social security taxes (employer’s portion), and 1.45% in medicare taxes (employer’s portion). In the UK, there is also National Insurance tax on top of income tax, which works similarly (but is a bit more complicated.) The employer share is 13.8%, which…
> > ‘Americans pay less taxes’ is largely a meme with no basis in reality.
> No, the UK has a much higher tax burden; the US is significantly below OECD average, the UK a bit above.
> [0] https://www.oecd.org/tax/tax-policy/revenue-statistics-highl...
Rather than contradict the OP's statement, the above document reinforces it. The document only covers taxes identifies as "taxes", which makes the comparison with US apples to organges.
The two huge elephants in the room in the US are health care and higher education both of which are very high cost in the US and both of which have to be paid separately in the US. Whereas in most other countries these are either fully or partially funded by taxes.
For an apples-apples comparison of out of required pocket expenses in the US vs. other countries you need to include health care and education costs.
Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise
#373Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can we have your childcare, your healthcare and your housing market please in exchange? Childcare alone in Zone 4 London is £2000 per month.
Yup, it's mad! I pay £2,500 a month for nursery for my son in zone 2. So... to send your kid to nursery you need £40k of spare gross income before paying the mortgage, and everything else. I'm fed up and moving up north!
That’s crap. Means a parent can’t work really.
Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise
#374Exactly the opposite of what should be happening. Homes should be connected with permanent, reliable, high capacity fiber optic networks. Mobile connectivity plays an important role but it should be complementary, an add-on to the backbone not a substitute. Given how the costs of digital technology are generally on a collapsing trend this suggests significant dysfunction. Reducing the computing experience of the enti…
> Homes should be connected with permanent, reliable, high capacity fiber optic networks. UK solved that problem by allowing DSL to be sold as "fiber".
UK is not alone in this. Germany is doing the same.
Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise
#375Earlier quoted context omitted.
And I've updated my post to point out the mountain of US post-tax healthcare spending, that in the UK, largely comes out of pre-tax pounds. At the end of the day, Americans still pay, and pay more . 26% in taxes, and then another ~11% in non-government-covered (non-Medicare/Medicaid) healthcare spending.
> At the end of the day, Americans still pay, and pay more They pay less in taxes, by a wide margin. They also get less for them, by a wide margin, particularly (but not exclusively) in healthcare.
Really? I have top of the line healthcare through my employer in the US, which also covers my wife and teenage daughters, which costs me essentially nothing. NHS in the UK is collapsing, but even if it didn't, qualitatively it's orders of magnitude worse than what one would receive in the US through one's employer:
Months to years for an appointment, incompetent doctors and a bureaucracy that puts Kafka to shame.
https://www.economist.com/britain/2022/04/30/the-nhs-is-in-s...
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/01/02/collapse-nhs-tra...
Yes US healthcare has issues but it's nowhere near as bad as UK.
Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise
#376Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t think it matters really whether it’s 500k or 1m, if you have a massive housing shortage and a failing health service. That’s still almost 1% addition to the population every year. Even if that means 100k families, you still need an extra 100k houses or flats ideally per year. That is impossible, even with super efficient planning laws.
The UK completed 177810 houses last year, and 174940 the year before that. Table 244: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tab...
Do you not see the problem with this?
Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise
#377Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure where you're getting the $20,000/year healthcare spending number, but that looks like it is too high by an order of magnitude. See e.g. https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2... , which puts median annual household spending on healthcare between $1,500 and $5,540 in 2019. If you're talking about total annual healthcare spending, that is largely paid by employers so should be account…
This article is specifically limited to people with employer-sponsored healthcare plans. $20k is a reasonable estimate for a family trying to get decent health insurance independently.
> $20k is a reasonable estimate for a family trying to get decent health insurance independently.
That's on the low side. I'm currently taking a break between jobs and thus paying for health insurance out of pocket. For a family of 3 in California, I'm paying $42,000 annually.
Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise
#378Visiting family in the UK for the first time in about five years. Costs here are _way_ higher than I remember. I bought three hamburgers, three drinks, and two large pops at a burger shop here, the total was 48 GBP (about $60 USD). This was at Five Guys. I couldn't believe it. I visited my co-worker in the UK, and over some beers, he mentioned he's getting taxed at 48-50% on top of this. Also 20% VAT on regular shopp…
Visiting the UK from the US in January and I was impressed by how far the dollars went. There was a burger and beer special at Wetherspoon for something like 6-7 pounds and a beer was under around 1-2 pounds. So my experience was different than the parent. Those prices are reasonable in the US under the old exchange rates but cheap now.
That being said, everyone was complaining about the costs so I agree that for people living there, the costs have gone up. My auntie kept her house very cold and taxi drivers complained a lot too about prices and the insurance system.
Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise
#379Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the US, someone earning $155,000 USD (Equivalent to 125k GBP) will also be paying 6.2% in social security taxes, 1.45% in medicare taxes, and then another 6.2% in social security taxes (employer's portion)[1], and 1.45% in medicare taxes (employer's portion). Added to the rest of their marginal tax rate, they'd be seeing a rate of 22 + 15.3 = 37.3%. Of course, they won't actually get health insurance for it, which…
A person living in NYC making $155k pays 34% effective tax rate. (Or in Seattle: 25%, Chicago: 30%.) This calculator is pretty good: https://smartasset.com/taxes/income-taxes#4RIGzkc2ey I don’t understand your point about the employer portion — it doesn’t come out of your paycheck, so if you wanted to include it in this calculation, you’d have to say your gross salary was higher.
If I went one state over in any direction from Washington, could I pay an even lower effective tax rate?
Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise
#380Visiting family in the UK for the first time in about five years. Costs here are _way_ higher than I remember. I bought three hamburgers, three drinks, and two large pops at a burger shop here, the total was 48 GBP (about $60 USD). This was at Five Guys. I couldn't believe it. I visited my co-worker in the UK, and over some beers, he mentioned he's getting taxed at 48-50% on top of this. Also 20% VAT on regular shopp…
I went to a local chain in my area and wanted to purchase a single cheeseburger, similar to the McDonald’s McDouble. McDonald’s dollar menu items are now up to 3 dollars, and this local chain’s cheapest option was 5.50. I just left the drive through without buying anything.
Even the cheapest fast food isn’t cheaper than cooking at home anymore, which is very new.