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What standard of living would you be proud of? The US has the world's highest median (middle income) household disposable (after taxes and services paid for) i

What standard of living would you be proud of? The US has the world's highest median (middle income) household disposable (after taxes and services paid for) income in the world. [1] This correlates pretty highly with standard of living measurements, which is much more vague. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_capita_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c...

pimmen 8y ago
Yes, but the reason the rest of us in the other parts of the developed world has lower salaries is because we use our taxes to buy lots of stuff we will need later on for situations you can't really plan for. When an American household gets two kids, one of whom develops a disease and the other one needs to go to day care because both parents have to work, it's not exactly cheap but in Sweden ending up in a situation like that wouldn't make nearly as much of a difference to what's left after taxes and bills. Same thing if the other provider in the household gets sick, even if that disease is rare and expensive to manage.
- ChrisLomont 8y ago
  > we use our taxes to ... sick ... disease The US pays as much in tax for nationally provided healthcare as % of GDP as does most of the OECD. The difference is healthcare costs twice as much here, so the govt ends up paying about half the cost through taxes. For example, Sweden pays ~$5500 (PPP) per capita. US spends ~$10,209. US Medicare and Medicaid paid out about $1.3T, private healthcare paid about $1.2T. So we're paying the same tax towards healthcare as most of the OECD. The healthcare angle is not the difference in taxation between the countries. The underlying costs are the difference, represented at every level here, from nurse and doctor salaries to drug costs to administrative costs to legislative costs.
  - pimmen 8y ago
    I also mentioned day care, I could go on beyond medical expenses if you'd like? Elderly care, fully funded schools (students get meals, books, you name it), paid parental leave, safety net if you get laid off... lots of stuff.

pimmen 8y ago

Yes, but the reason the rest of us in the other parts of the developed world has lower salaries is because we use our taxes to buy lots of stuff we will need later on for situations you can't really plan for. When an American household gets two kids, one of whom develops a disease and the other one needs to go to day care because both parents have to work, it's not exactly cheap but in Sweden ending up in a situation like that wouldn't make nearly as much of a difference to what's left after taxes and bills. Same thing if the other provider in the household gets sick, even if that disease is rare and expensive to manage.

ChrisLomont 8y ago
> we use our taxes to ... sick ... disease The US pays as much in tax for nationally provided healthcare as % of GDP as does most of the OECD. The difference is healthcare costs twice as much here, so the govt ends up paying about half the cost through taxes. For example, Sweden pays ~$5500 (PPP) per capita. US spends ~$10,209. US Medicare and Medicaid paid out about $1.3T, private healthcare paid about $1.2T. So we're paying the same tax towards healthcare as most of the OECD. The healthcare angle is not the difference in taxation between the countries. The underlying costs are the difference, represented at every level here, from nurse and doctor salaries to drug costs to administrative costs to legislative costs.
- pimmen 8y ago
  I also mentioned day care, I could go on beyond medical expenses if you'd like? Elderly care, fully funded schools (students get meals, books, you name it), paid parental leave, safety net if you get laid off... lots of stuff.