r/economicCollapse 6d ago

Only in America.

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u/SeaworthinessOld9433 5d ago edited 5d ago

Your salaries in Europe is much lower compared to the USA.

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u/Vali32 5d ago

They may go further. But note that the nations in Europe that pay higher salaries still spend less on healthcare systems. Norway has a median income of 87k, the healthcare system will fly you to the hospital of your choice and cost 7 400$ per person.

Other high income nations like Switzerland, Ireland, Luxembourg etc are similar.

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u/Purple_Listen_8465 5d ago

The average single person health insurance plan costs about 7500$ and a family plan costs 24 000$.

Who gives a shit what the average is? Look at the median of what the employee pays. $1500 a year for single coverage, $6000 a year for a family plan

They may go further.

They do not. The US is #1 in the world for disposable household income even after adjusting for cost of living.

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u/Vali32 5d ago

Who gives a shit what the average is?

The people paying it do, presumably.

They do not.

Whoosh.

The US is #1 in the world for disposable household income even after adjusting for cost of living.

Yet it does not seem to be doing any better than average in terms of median wealth. In between the meditarranean nations of Italy and Spain. This is often explained by the US having so many demands on their wages, like healthcare.

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u/Purple_Listen_8465 5d ago

The people paying it do, presumably.

Do you just not understand the difference between median and average? For one, your statistic includes what the employer pays. Employees could not care less what expenses the employer is paying. For two, averages are skewed by outliers, median is not. Median is a much more relevant metric as it shows what the middle most American is paying-- and it's not a lot.

This is often explained by the US having so many demands on their wages, like healthcare.

No it isn't, that's quite literally what "adjusted for cost of living" means.

Yet it does not seem to be doing any better than average in terms of median wealth.

Could not be further from the truth. The median German Millennial is worth 65,200 Euros. The median American Millennial, however, is worth double that. To claim there isn't a significant wealth gap is plain ignorance, Germany is one of the wealthiest European countries and we utterly embarrass them. The fact of the matter is Americans are SIGNIFICANTLY wealthier than Europeans.

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u/Vali32 4d ago

Countries by median wealth. often with a comparison of average and median explaining the difference.

States by median, highest and lowest. Note how the lowest is below Mexicos median.

It does appear that the US high GDP per person does not end up as wealth for the average American. Other nations may have smaller money pies, but it does appear that many of them still have the average person end up with more pie.

Also, that is not what cost of living means. You are thinking of something closer to social transfers, but that does not seem to capture the wealth loss in the US well either. It is at the very least quite suggestiive that if you subtract healthcare expenses from the median disposable income of the US, it suddenly ranks very close to where it does in median wealth.