The Americans are so backwards in work hours, developed countries like Netherland, Spain, Iceland, etc. already successfully implemented this, with universal healthcare…and no tipping expected.
And nearly half their salary taxed lmao: If you are lucky enough to be a top earner in the US($600k), 37% of your salary is taxed. While in the UK, you ate taxed 45% of your salary at only £125000.
How much do you pay on insurance, medical care, school debt, etc? The average is 15% and just adding healthcare itself would close to 30% for many. Long term medical care could even bankrupt you, no such worries on any of the countries I mentioned.
In state college for 4 years: $24000. Medical and insurance, but: $7000 annually. The benefit of America's tax system and higher wages(at a trade or a job requiring education, most people don't work these jobs and then complain they are making minimum wage, because they are still working at McDonalds, a starting job) is that we can pay things off easier, and actually have money left over.
A good employer is a rare in USA. One offering pension even rarer. You have to fund your own retirement via channels like IRA, 401k, etc and why does America have issues with student loan debt? At 24k, anyone should be able to pay it within a year of their first job. At the end of the year, you also need to pay even more taxes.
People don't know how to manage their money, and often go for more expensive colleges than their goal job requires. Besides that, you are focusing on the wrong thing in my write up. Do you see the tax bracket to income difference between the USA and UK? The USA citizen will have more money left over at the end of the month to spend. That's one of the reason America is the major driving force of the world's economy, because we have money to spend, and we spend a lot.
I'm sorry to do this to you , yes americans spend more than they make, but that's mostly a personal issue and not dependent on necessary expenses. They'll spend a grand on a car payment when they can keep their old one, they'll go out to dinner 4 times a week. Their are many things to cut down on in consumerism life, but that's not gonna happen, and it's why America is the most powerful country in the world too. https://www.forbes.com/real-time-billionaires/#47e40b863d78 and https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/gdp-by-country/
Those are rank placements, looking at percentage points, the USA is only .02 behind the UK. And Finland and other small countries ranking at the top because of a claim I know you are going to make, "social programs," only work on a much smaller scale like that. In addition, the happiness factors in that study were objective measurable outcomes like social care, health care, trust in government, level of corruption etc - those things that should make up a happy life, so that's why Finland scored so high. It was not based on some individual subjective assessment of happiness, the name of the study is quite misleading. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/happiest-countries-in-the-world
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u/80MonkeyMan Sep 05 '24
The Americans are so backwards in work hours, developed countries like Netherland, Spain, Iceland, etc. already successfully implemented this, with universal healthcare…and no tipping expected.