America pays workers just 27% of what its wealth allows – the worst in the OECD • Hacker News Board

Re: America pays workers just 27% of what its wealth allows – the worst in the OECD

#21

Post by PaulKeeble » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 10:08 AM UTC

pydry wrote: post #6

sokoloff wrote: post #3

> We measure resources by using per capita gross domestic product – the amount of money in a country evenly divided among its entire population. GDP is not "the amount of money in a country". GDP is the monetary value of goods and services produced within a country during a given period (a flow, measured in dollars-per-year). The amount of money in a country is a measure at a point in a time (a stock, measured in dol…

it's not that either. it's the total value of all transactions. if you paint a masterpiece worth millions and keep it in your closet it has negligible impact on GDP. only once it is sold does it have an effect.

And if its sold 5 times in the year its 5x the GDP. Of course the value of the painting hasn't changed and their remains only 1.

Re: America pays workers just 27% of what its wealth allows – the worst in the OECD

#22

Post by thatwasunusual » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 10:09 AM UTC

charcircuit wrote: post #10

>If the U.S. changed some policies – such as increasing the federal minimum wage – 46 million people could earn enough to rise above that fair pay line. You can't just raise minimum wage and expect people to make more money since businesses need to fire everyone who aren't worth the new minimum wage and then those newly unemployed people will depress wages for other jobs since there is more labor on the supply side.

> You can't just raise minimum wage and expect people to make more money since businesses need to fire everyone who aren't worth the new minimum wage [...]

This way of thinking is what's wrong with USA (among many other things).

You don't (or at least shouldn't) hire lots of people because it's cheap.

Re: America pays workers just 27% of what its wealth allows – the worst in the OECD

#23

Post by gadders » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 10:09 AM UTC

petcat wrote: post #16

DarkNova6 wrote: post #2

As somebody living outside the US, I would find moving to the states highly undesirable even if it wasn't for the hostility towards non-US citizens. To me, it would mean a significant reduction in quality of live and I am low-key scared of all the ingredients and additives in food that are pretty much banned everywhere else. Not to mention all risks regarding healthcare.

It very much depends on life situation. For instance, if you are less than 50 and on private health care through your employer than you're very likely going to have better healthcare access than anywhere in Europe and Canada. I am able to see my PCP and dentist within a week if I want. I read a statistic that in Europe and Canada you have to make those kinds of routine appointments months in advance. Also, my father-…

A lot of people in the UK (with professional jobs) top up their state health provision with private medical insurance provided by their employer. This isn't a bad mix.

Re: America pays workers just 27% of what its wealth allows – the worst in the OECD

#24

Post by gadders » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 10:10 AM UTC

charcircuit wrote: post #10

>If the U.S. changed some policies – such as increasing the federal minimum wage – 46 million people could earn enough to rise above that fair pay line. You can't just raise minimum wage and expect people to make more money since businesses need to fire everyone who aren't worth the new minimum wage and then those newly unemployed people will depress wages for other jobs since there is more labor on the supply side.

But if they made the minimum wage $1m/year then we would all be rich! /s

Re: America pays workers just 27% of what its wealth allows – the worst in the OECD

#25

Post by Arnt » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 10:11 AM UTC

petcat wrote: post #16

DarkNova6 wrote: post #2

As somebody living outside the US, I would find moving to the states highly undesirable even if it wasn't for the hostility towards non-US citizens. To me, it would mean a significant reduction in quality of live and I am low-key scared of all the ingredients and additives in food that are pretty much banned everywhere else. Not to mention all risks regarding healthcare.

It very much depends on life situation. For instance, if you are less than 50 and on private health care through your employer than you're very likely going to have better healthcare access than anywhere in Europe and Canada. I am able to see my PCP and dentist within a week if I want. I read a statistic that in Europe and Canada you have to make those kinds of routine appointments months in advance. Also, my father-…

You read that? I can get either in a day or two if I need it, they want much longer-term planning though.

For a vaccination I'll call several weeks in advance. If I want an appointment before/after work I'll call well in advance, if I want something tomorrow they may say "11:30, take it out leave it", which isn't great for my work.

Don't trust whoever wrote what you read there. FUD scaremongers.

Re: America pays workers just 27% of what its wealth allows – the worst in the OECD

#26

Post by basilikum » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 10:12 AM UTC

petcat wrote: post #16

DarkNova6 wrote: post #2

As somebody living outside the US, I would find moving to the states highly undesirable even if it wasn't for the hostility towards non-US citizens. To me, it would mean a significant reduction in quality of live and I am low-key scared of all the ingredients and additives in food that are pretty much banned everywhere else. Not to mention all risks regarding healthcare.

It very much depends on life situation. For instance, if you are less than 50 and on private health care through your employer than you're very likely going to have better healthcare access than anywhere in Europe and Canada. I am able to see my PCP and dentist within a week if I want. I read a statistic that in Europe and Canada you have to make those kinds of routine appointments months in advance. Also, my father-…

Healthcare varies widely in Europe. It's not one country. But the "on private health care" part is they key. It's really not that different in lots of parts of Europe with the difference that people who do not have that still have access to the healthcare system without going bankrupt, albeit slower.

Re: America pays workers just 27% of what its wealth allows – the worst in the OECD

#27

Post by potatototoo99 » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 10:13 AM UTC

petcat wrote: post #16

DarkNova6 wrote: post #2

As somebody living outside the US, I would find moving to the states highly undesirable even if it wasn't for the hostility towards non-US citizens. To me, it would mean a significant reduction in quality of live and I am low-key scared of all the ingredients and additives in food that are pretty much banned everywhere else. Not to mention all risks regarding healthcare.

It very much depends on life situation. For instance, if you are less than 50 and on private health care through your employer than you're very likely going to have better healthcare access than anywhere in Europe and Canada. I am able to see my PCP and dentist within a week if I want. I read a statistic that in Europe and Canada you have to make those kinds of routine appointments months in advance. Also, my father-…

You are misinformed. A lot of people in Europe and Canada also have private insurance, sometimes paid by the employer as well, and with that the wait times are usually very short. Going through the public healthcare system you may indeed wait months for non urgent matters.

Re: America pays workers just 27% of what its wealth allows – the worst in the OECD

#28

Post by himata4113 » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 10:14 AM UTC

petcat wrote: post #16

DarkNova6 wrote: post #2

As somebody living outside the US, I would find moving to the states highly undesirable even if it wasn't for the hostility towards non-US citizens. To me, it would mean a significant reduction in quality of live and I am low-key scared of all the ingredients and additives in food that are pretty much banned everywhere else. Not to mention all risks regarding healthcare.

It very much depends on life situation. For instance, if you are less than 50 and on private health care through your employer than you're very likely going to have better healthcare access than anywhere in Europe and Canada. I am able to see my PCP and dentist within a week if I want. I read a statistic that in Europe and Canada you have to make those kinds of routine appointments months in advance. Also, my father-…

This is wrong, you can get same-day appointments for anything time-critical including dental. What takes a long time to schedule is mostly free preventitive care.

There is also the same private healthcare that americans enjoy. You have the option of spending $50 to $100 to go to a private clinic and get same-day admission. In the US services like that cost nearly 10 times the price due to the whole insurance bullshit.

I got free same-day heart check-up and $80 paid same-week heart monitoring check-up.

There are horror stories and footage of the UK NHS, but that's mostly just london and in reality pretty much every city that large suffers from that.

Re: America pays workers just 27% of what its wealth allows – the worst in the OECD

#29

Post by dauertewigkeit » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 10:16 AM UTC

I know what they want to say, but I think their argument is quite weak, because essentially you have US industries that aren't tech. American workers still get higher salaries than elsewhere in the OECD and growth in such industries isn't out competing those same industries in other OECD countries. In fact many industries are lagging behind. So actually US workers are being paid more not less than elsewhere.

Then you have tech. In tech, US workers are again paid more than in other OECD countries. But growth in tech is just insane and it makes a huge percentage of the GDP growth. And there aren't a whole lot of tech workers as a percentage of the total workforce. So although tech workers are paid a whole lot more than in other OECD countries, they aren't capturing as much of the growth of the tech industry.

So really this is an argument that tech workers in the US should be paid even more, and I don't think that sells so well as the populist argument that the authors intended to make.

And to me saying, that an autoworker that works for Ford, is not capturing the GDP growth that is generated by Google, is nonsensical.

Re: America pays workers just 27% of what its wealth allows – the worst in the OECD

#30

Post by microtonal » Wed, Jul 15, 2026, 10:17 AM UTC

petcat wrote: post #16

DarkNova6 wrote: post #2

As somebody living outside the US, I would find moving to the states highly undesirable even if it wasn't for the hostility towards non-US citizens. To me, it would mean a significant reduction in quality of live and I am low-key scared of all the ingredients and additives in food that are pretty much banned everywhere else. Not to mention all risks regarding healthcare.

It very much depends on life situation. For instance, if you are less than 50 and on private health care through your employer than you're very likely going to have better healthcare access than anywhere in Europe and Canada. I am able to see my PCP and dentist within a week if I want. I read a statistic that in Europe and Canada you have to make those kinds of routine appointments months in advance. Also, my father-…

For instance, if you are less than 50 and on private health care through your employer than you're very likely going to have better healthcare access than anywhere in Europe and Canada.

Your healthcare insurance being dependent on your employer seems like hell though. They will always have enormous bargaining power over you and I think it also leads to chilling effect, when your health is literally dependent on your job, you will think twice to go on strike, unionize, or freely express your thought, especially when combined with at-will employment.

Secondly, I would also debate the better health care. I recently had two health scares in my direct family (one time cancer, one time another tumor) and in both cases care was quick and excellent. Of course, there is quite a lot of variance between countries. We lived in Germany for a while and I was less impressed by health care there (though it's probably still much better and definitely cheaper than the average health care in the US).

Again, that kind of thing takes 8 months or a year minimum anywhere in Europe or Canada.

Sorry, this is totally false. I checked the local established norm (49 days) and stats (generally between 30 and 150 days, depending on the hospital, which you can choose). And this doesn't depend on private insurance, because it does not exist in the county I live.

I am able to see my PCP and dentist within a week if I want. I read a statistic that in Europe and Canada you have to make those kinds of routine appointments months in advance.

I am able to see my general practitioner generally the same or next day and waiting time at the GP is typically less than 10 minutes. I can also visit my dentist the same day in the case of an emergency.

It's the same in many other European countries. I got kidney stones when we were on vacation in Denmark (I don't recommend). I visited a doctor twice, both times I called and I could immediately come to their practice and they ran tests, etc. I don't think we even got a bill for either visits. I only paid something like 10 euros at the pharmacist for a good stock of painkillers.