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We don't have adequate public transportation (so car + car insurance + car maintenance). And our cities were never really designed to be walk-able or bike-able.
by SolarNet 9y ago
We don't have adequate public transportation (so car + car insurance + car maintenance). And our cities were never really designed to be walk-able or bike-able.
While we have compulsory health insurance not dissimilar to the German system, most areas only have one or two providers (vs. 130 of Germany) whose prices have been going up like 30% every year. We still pay out of pocket for most medicine, dentistry, emergency (like ambulances), and psychological services.
Some utilities are ridiculously expensive. Like internet can be 80$ a month for basic 2 mbps.
A large number of people are employed as contractors these days (the gig economy), which adds a 15% tax (that the employer would pay for employees) for a social security service we will likely never see, so I'm not sure the tax burden is higher. Contractors also have to pay for all their own health insurance (and our cutoff for public assistance for health insurance is like 12k, not the 50k Euro like in Germany)
Which brings me to: we have to pay for our own retirement, even if not contractors most companies don't assist with that anymore, especially for entry level jobs.
- trebor 9y agoYou forgot the housing/rental situation too. In my area, renting is 33% - 50% of _take home pay_ (after withholding taxes), without utilities or property tax.
- T2_t2 9y agoThat is the same everywhere - worse in places like London.
- gnicholas 9y agoI agree with much of this, but where is 2 mbps internet $80?
- mod 9y agoI pay $75/month for 10mbps upstream, 1mbps downstream DSL. That's the advertised speeds, I get lower speeds in practice. I'm not complaining. I'm happy to have those speeds as I live in a very rural area (South/Midwest). I can stream netflix or youtube without hitches, almost all the time.
- sokoloff 9y agoYour plan is the first I've seen with a higher upstream than downstream rate.
- mod 9y agoI mixed the numbers up. 10down/1up.
- gnicholas 9y agoAre we talking megabits or megabytes here? I'm guessing bits, but I would be a little surprised that this can stream at 1 megabit per second. And I second @sokoloff—I've never heard of a plan that had an order of magnitude greater for upstream!
- mod 9y agoI mixed the numbers up. 10down/1up.
- lazerpants 9y agoAll good points, but student loans are important too. Many people who went to college are paying between $200-$500/month for the foreseeable future, which is a large additional cost that seems less common for Europeans.