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One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

bbc.com

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Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#271

Post by xzel »

CydeWeys wrote: post #234
EddieEngineers wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two years ago I was making $160k in Oxford with 7 years work experience and no degree - contracting in London for > $500 per day or working remotely for startups in the Bay Area are both easily accessible if you have a couple years under your belt. I'm moving back to Europe this summer and talking to companies at 550+ a day.

This sounds like an outlier though, no? The overall averages there are much lower. Also everyone I know in tech over here is making much more than that still.

That thats the case for the US as well. The average salary for US software dev, according to glassdoor, is 88,395/year, which iirc is about the same I've seen form other sources. Everyone working in FAAG is an outlier compared to the rest of the US. These conversations are usually pretty poor because context is very important and job + location + circumstance is seemingly pretty much impossible to compare to each other.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#272

Post by dukeyukey »

nazgulnarsil wrote: post #259
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…

The UK seems to be at the fore front of deindustrializaton

I don't know why you'd think that, UK manufacturing is about the same as France, and quite a bit more than say Norway or Australia. Definitely not an outlier in any case.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#273

Post by ianlevesque »

omginternets wrote: post #149
syntaxing wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP, but I used tmobile ISP for over two years during the whole Covid era. Worked pretty good for what it is, managed to get about 200 Mbps down and 20 up. I hit 500 Mbps but moved away from that area at one point. I only just switched to fiber recently because a 1G fiber line was installed and only cost $60 a month.

>Worked pretty good for what it is, Sure. The "for what it is" is doing a lot of heavy lifting, though. See also: it's rather expensive for what it is.

What? I feel like people coast on experiences from 5-10 years ago. This isn't a 3G hotspot. Ping time right now is 53ms and I'm getting 200/20 for $50, all included, no additional fees. This is outside their actual ideal service area too.

I'd love symmetric fiber for $50, but 'for what it is' isn't doing much lifting at all.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#274

Post by vkou »

pb7 wrote: post #269
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…

Extremely disingenuous to include employer taxes in personal income taxes to make whatever point you're making. Might as well toss in the costs of accounting in there while you're at it. Edit: I'm being throttled from posting but response below: There are a lot of factors that go into deciding the gross pay that an employee receives. What you are doing is muddying the waters to make a point but it just makes it trick…

It's disingenuous to not include it. It still comes out of your paycheck, just because it happens above the fold doesn't mean it's not a real tax burden, equivalent to the one that is listed below the fold.

Splitting it into an 'employer and employee' portion was just an accounting trick to get political buy-in for it. At the end of the day, it's still a regressive 15.3% tax rate that gets slapped onto your wages.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#275

Post by ilikerashers »

Shaanie wrote: post #222
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.

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

Can we have your childcare, your healthcare and your housing market please in exchange?

Childcare alone in Zone 4 London is £2000 per month.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#276

Post by 11101010001100 »

bilekas wrote: post #228
skippyboxedhero wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it wouldn't because when you pay tax your money isn't being flushed down the toilet. You don't understand at a fundamental level how the govt works in the UK.

This has nothing to do with the government policies.. it's simple math.

Let's just mint that 1T coin and solve the simple math.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#277

Post by pb7 »

EddieEngineers wrote: post #190
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…

Five Guys has always been that price, but I agree with your point. As a Brit, the US is pretty crazy too though. I just saw a single broccoli for $7 at a grocery store in Palo Alto. On my $172k salary I pay $59k in taxes which is roughly $1k more than I'd pay in the UK but in the UK that includes national insurance while in the US I pay health insurance on top. So while taxes sound crazy in the UK it's not actually d…

>VAT is only 7.25% in California but then you have to add 15-20% in tips when you're out.

I don't know about the rest of the UK because I haven't been but most non-casual places in London charge an automatic 12.5% service charge. It's the same thing.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#278

Post by dukeyukey »

0xDEF wrote: post #19
gumballindie wrote: post #14

I dont think people comprehend how deep the economic issues of britain are.

The uncompetitiveness of Britain has been obvious for decades. For a highly developed English-speaking country it is very underrepresented in software tech. Britain should unironically learn to code.

Uh, I don't think that's true. The UK is 3rd in tech investment, only behind the US and China. The other non-US English-speaking countries are _way_ behind the UK here.

London alone gets more tech investment than Canada, Australia, and New Zealand combined.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#279

Post by adventured »

vkou wrote: post #225
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.

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…

> All-in-all, Americans pay ~26% of their GDP in taxes.

It's more like 35%-36%.

The far more accurate picture is that the local + state + federal spending is going to be around $9.5 trillion in 2023. The IMF has the US at an estimated $26.8 trillion GDP for 2023. Beyond the federal government, the US has two other massive layers of government that spend well over $4 trillion each year.

I fully understand the difference between taxes and spending, and that spending comes out of your pocket either directly via taxes or via inevitable currency debasement (look at the enormous value loss in the dollar since the rampaging deficits & later debt monetization began after 9/11). The bill comes due, period.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#280

Post by waswaswas »

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…

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.
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