3 ms·

Minimal wage in Australia is way higher tha in US. A regular Joe lives a better life in AU than in US.

• skissane 6y ago
  At the lower end of income, pay is definitely better in AU than US. (At higher ends of income, it tends to be the other way around.) Housing affordability is on the whole a lot worse. The majority of the US population lives in areas with relatively affordable housing. In Australia, the majority of the population lives in areas with low housing affordability. There are a number of contributing factors – US had a big real estate crash in 2008, Australian property prices only experienced modest falls. I think one of the factors behind the more modest crash is that in US most residential mortgages are no-recourse, in Australia full-recourse is the norm, so it is much easier for US homeowners to walk away if their asset is underwater. US foreclosure laws tend to be much more borrower-friendly than Australian laws as well. Differences in population distribution (Australia's population is much more centralised than the US's) is another factor. Yet another factor is that Australia has mortgage interest tax deductions for property investors but not for owner-occupiers (unlike the US where owner-occupiers get mortgage interest deductions) – which I think changes the occupier-vs-investor balance in property ownership in a way which disadvantages the asset-poor majority of the population (while benefiting the asset-rich minority) – and also contributes to the heated Australian property market.