One million cancel broadband as living costs rise • Hacker News Board

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#391

Post by jjav » Thu, May 18, 2023, 8:15 PM UTC

wskinner wrote: post #265

vkou wrote: post #225

Earlier 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…

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…

> 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.

Certainly not by an order of magnitude.

In the US if you are single and work for a well-funded company (e.g. FAANG types) they will probably cover 100% of the health care premiums monthly and your deductibles will be low, so a couple thousand out of pocket is realistic.

Any other scenario though, it's going to be much more. Very few companies cover all the health care costs for the family of the employee. I've paid anywhere between $1K/mo to $2K/mo for full-family coverage while employed, with the employer covering the rest (total cost is over 40K/yr).

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#392

Post by lesuorac » Thu, May 18, 2023, 8:19 PM UTC

fsckboy wrote: post #384

Shaanie wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Top marginal rate in Sweden, 50%~ starts at $59k and our VAT is 25%. So eh, UK doesn't seem so bad.

> our VAT is 25% VAT is the biggest scam, it's just an income tax under another name. What is a company's income? revenue - costs What is a company's value-add? revenue - costs massive eye-roll. I once asked a real (tm) economist what the difference was and he looked up and thought for a minute and said "payroll tax". Payroll tax is what the US calls social security tax (for retirement, unemployment and the like)

Isn't VAT the best way to ensure tax is collected?

Somebody can just not pay Sales tax and so the government doesn't collect it. But with VAT the seller is incentive to report so they can recover the VAT they paid.

i.e. McDonalds buys 10 burgers and pays 1$ in VAT to their supplier. then McDonalds sells those 10 (now cooked) burgers and can recover 1$ in VAT from the government while the consumers ultimately pay >1$ in VAT for the 10 burgers.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#393

Post by agumonkey » Thu, May 18, 2023, 8:20 PM UTC

jameshush wrote: post #153

Visiting 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…

Allow me to side step: in these high prices times, people should investigate one-meal-a-day or caloric restriction. Save money and restore your health at the same time. Spend the free time doing family hike, singing in a choir, playing chess or crafting.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#394

Post by imagainstit » Thu, May 18, 2023, 8:21 PM UTC

zamnos wrote: post #345

wskinner wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The top marginal rate of 45% in the UK starts at £125,140. Compare that to the US, where the top marginal rate of 37% starts at $578,125. - Edited to correct incorrect US top rate.

California's state income tax is 12.3% starting at $677,276, so the top rate is 49.3%, and actually surpasses 50% once other taxes are taken into account, and then you have to factor in healthcare costs on top of that. Which as you get older and later into your career (which is when you'd make that much money anyway) can't be ignored either.

But that's the top marginal rate filing single. A California tax payer earning $677,272 pays 49.3 percent on each additional dollar but 43.9% is the effective rate on whole income. This is a very high single earner income.

A married couple with this income pays only 37.5% and doesn't max out until going over 1,359 million, at which point they pay the 43,9 effective.

You have to be a truly massive earner to hit 50% effective in CA.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#395

Post by agumonkey » Thu, May 18, 2023, 8:21 PM UTC

jarym wrote: post #96

And 3 million depend on food banks. Things are getting tough for lots of people and that's with extremely high levels of employment. Not sure this will go well if there is a recession that causes the jobless rate to increase.

French news recently reported 26% of people skipping meals and not feeling fed.

Mind boggling system failure when you can have smartphones for 100bucks but not enough income to pay bills and food regularly.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#396

Post by lesuorac » Thu, May 18, 2023, 8:21 PM UTC

ilikerashers wrote: post #373

rojeee wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And thats why women generally make less. Losing 5-11 (or more) years of experience really puts you behind a man that didn't (stereotypes w/e) stop working to raise a kid(s) until they could go to school.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#397

Post by zten » Thu, May 18, 2023, 8:25 PM UTC

pitaj wrote: post #124

toomuchtodo wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

T-Mobile 5G Home Internet is $50/month. They’re using spare 5G capacity because they overbuilt their network. You’ll see congestion during peak usage times, but it’s fine otherwise.

How is the latency for these 5G home internet services?

I've got Verizon 5G for $25/month extra on top of my cell phone bill, and the tower is right across the street. It's pretty competitive with Xfinity's 1.2Gbps service since they didn't bother throttling it. I also get 350Mbps up. Seeing 15ms pings to servers in Sacramento from SF.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#398

Post by schwoll » Thu, May 18, 2023, 8:25 PM UTC

omginternets wrote: post #344

schwoll wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask them for a landline phone. They'll either have to run new copper or choose to install fiber. Once they run copper then get a DSL company to run through that. Generally they won't want to run copper and don't want competition so they'll go ahead and run fiber. In either case I believe the law they're constrained by is local ordinances giving them a region based monopoly for traditional landline access in exchange…

This sounds like great advice! I'll do this first thing tomorrow. Thank you!

No guarantees bc it entirely relies on your local ordinances, but it did work for me when the company was giving me the runaround about internet. I just asked for a landline phone and they had fiber installed within 2 weeks.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#399

Post by ac2u » Thu, May 18, 2023, 8:27 PM UTC

azornathogron wrote: post #349

wskinner wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The top marginal rate of 45% in the UK starts at £125,140. Compare that to the US, where the top marginal rate of 37% starts at $578,125. - Edited to correct incorrect US top rate.

Speaking as a pedant: The top marginal rate is actually 60% and happens when you cross the threshold where you're nominally in the 40% band but you're also losing your personal allowance. The effect is, for every £2 extra income you lose £1 personal allowance (exposing an extra £1 to taxation) and pay 40p tax on that. That's 20% in addition to the 40% you're paying anyway, hence 60% marginal rate. Once you hit the in…

yeah if you're on that rate and not dumping every penny you can into your pension allowance each year (and using up any unused allowance for previous three years), you're crazy.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#400

Post by schwoll » Thu, May 18, 2023, 8:28 PM UTC

MisterTea wrote: post #382

schwoll wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask them for a landline phone. They'll either have to run new copper or choose to install fiber. Once they run copper then get a DSL company to run through that. Generally they won't want to run copper and don't want competition so they'll go ahead and run fiber. In either case I believe the law they're constrained by is local ordinances giving them a region based monopoly for traditional landline access in exchange…

Will they still run copper? Out here on Long Island Verizon will not install new copper and existing cu lines are on 3rd party life support. Work had to replace a copper phone line for the fire alarm with an internet bridge and wireless backup after it went dead and the tech told us "We don't run new copper."

In a bunch of areas the companies rely on legal monopolies that were given to them by the local governments. The agreement was they get a monopoly if they agree to install phone lines for everyone who asks. If they don't run copper then the next thing they'll do is run whatever is their preferred equivalent. It's a quasi government+private monopoly agreement that benefits both and ensures residents get phone lines.