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Fundamental flaws in US health care and worker protection exposed. That's what this is. Compare to the system in my native Belgium: - a month of 100% paid sic

Fundamental flaws in US health care and worker protection exposed. That's what this is. Compare to the system in my native Belgium: - a month of 100% paid sick leave, paid by the employer - followed by five months 60% of wage in sick leave, paid by social security - protected from redundancy within this 6 month period - if made redundant afterwards while still ill after 6 months, obligation for the employer to pay (significant) damages - 60% of last wage sick pay afterwards, capped to a generous maximum, unlimited in time as long as the illness lasts, paid by social security - high quality healthcare regardless of employment status - jobless benefits when healthy without a job, unlimited in time, recently made somewhat degressive This makes for less of a power imbalance between employers and employees. Huge short and medium term social stabiliser. Certainly not without its flaws, but great to have in place during these times of severe economic crisis.

vekker 6y ago
I'm happy to live in a country with such a strong social safety net as well, compared to the US (even though I don't profit from it at all being young, self-employed and unmarried...), but on the other hand I'm really concerned about our future. Someone has to pay for this and it's not like the government is encouraging people to roll up their sleeves and to learn some personal responsibility, with all the benefits they're giving for not working.
- tsimionescu 6y ago
  The thing is, people everywhere want to work, with extraordinarily few exceptions. A government doesn't really need to incentivize work in general, only some specific kinds of work which are underperformed.
  - BobbyJo 6y ago
    Citation? I find it funny that no matter how many times history, and even contemporary events, have taught us otherwise, people still believe "People don't need strong incentives to work!"
    - csomar 6y ago
      I think he meant people without income.
    - tsimionescu 6y ago
      You can look at employment rates in countries with generous social welfare and unemployment benefits, and notice that the percentage of the population sitting idle who are not sick is minuscule, and not significantly different format the idle population in countries with weak unemployment benefits. It is true that there are systematic exceptions - especially people born rich.
      - BobbyJo 6y ago
        Productivity in the US is considerably higher than most, if not all of those countries, when you account for productivity per hour and hours worked: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/v/s/www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2019/02/05/where-labor-productivity-is-highest-infographic/amp/%3famp_js_v=0.1&usqp=mq331AQFKAGwASA%253D#ampf= https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/v/s/www.forbes.c... Unemployment just tells you people have a job, and nothing about how much that job is contributing to the collective resources.
        markvdb 6y ago
        According to the OECD, productivity per hour worked [0] in Scandinavia, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxemburg, France, Germany, Austria and Switzerland is comparable to the US, and in some cases significantly higher. All of these countries have much more generous social safety nets. P.S. The link you gave 404's here. [0] https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=PDB_LV https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=PDB_LV
        BobbyJo 6y ago
        The average hours worked are significantly less for those small upticks in PPH. If you factor in hours worked, the US comes out far ahead of most if not all.
- samsonradu 6y ago
  This is spot on. For all the praise of Belgian welfare I believe there is a 'dark' side to it. It is not doing well in motivating people to perform and there is a lot of systemic slack and abuse, like people claiming they're sick for a ridiculous amount of time every year. *Note that firing an employee for not performing is quite difficult and the tax bracket at the top is outrageously high.
linkmotif 6y ago
https://twitter.com/worldonalert/status/1258084801636184065 https://twitter.com/worldonalert/status/1258084801636184065

vekker 6y ago

I'm happy to live in a country with such a strong social safety net as well, compared to the US (even though I don't profit from it at all being young, self-employed and unmarried...), but on the other hand I'm really concerned about our future. Someone has to pay for this and it's not like the government is encouraging people to roll up their sleeves and to learn some personal responsibility, with all the benefits they're giving for not working.

tsimionescu 6y ago
The thing is, people everywhere want to work, with extraordinarily few exceptions. A government doesn't really need to incentivize work in general, only some specific kinds of work which are underperformed.
- BobbyJo 6y ago
  Citation? I find it funny that no matter how many times history, and even contemporary events, have taught us otherwise, people still believe "People don't need strong incentives to work!"
  - csomar 6y ago
    I think he meant people without income.
  - tsimionescu 6y ago
    You can look at employment rates in countries with generous social welfare and unemployment benefits, and notice that the percentage of the population sitting idle who are not sick is minuscule, and not significantly different format the idle population in countries with weak unemployment benefits. It is true that there are systematic exceptions - especially people born rich.
    - BobbyJo 6y ago
      Productivity in the US is considerably higher than most, if not all of those countries, when you account for productivity per hour and hours worked: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/v/s/www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2019/02/05/where-labor-productivity-is-highest-infographic/amp/%3famp_js_v=0.1&usqp=mq331AQFKAGwASA%253D#ampf= https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/v/s/www.forbes.c... Unemployment just tells you people have a job, and nothing about how much that job is contributing to the collective resources.
      - markvdb 6y ago
        According to the OECD, productivity per hour worked [0] in Scandinavia, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxemburg, France, Germany, Austria and Switzerland is comparable to the US, and in some cases significantly higher. All of these countries have much more generous social safety nets. P.S. The link you gave 404's here. [0] https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=PDB_LV https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=PDB_LV
        BobbyJo 6y ago
        The average hours worked are significantly less for those small upticks in PPH. If you factor in hours worked, the US comes out far ahead of most if not all.
samsonradu 6y ago
This is spot on. For all the praise of Belgian welfare I believe there is a 'dark' side to it. It is not doing well in motivating people to perform and there is a lot of systemic slack and abuse, like people claiming they're sick for a ridiculous amount of time every year. *Note that firing an employee for not performing is quite difficult and the tax bracket at the top is outrageously high.

linkmotif 6y ago

https://twitter.com/worldonalert/status/1258084801636184065 https://twitter.com/worldonalert/status/1258084801636184065