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You are 100% correct, thanks! Here's a more appropriate link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_net_take-home_pay https://en.wikipedia.org/wi

by badsock 11y ago

You are 100% correct, thanks! Here's a more appropriate link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_net_take-home_pay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_net_take-... The US is 7th, behind a very similar group of steep-progressive-tax countries. I would say an even better metric is median quality of life indicators (which tell a similar story of the US trailing left-wing countries) but that's an understandably more controversial index.

lotharbot 11y ago
A further nitpick: pretty much any index of this sort (particularly QoL) also has to be corrected for demographic trends -- the US absorbs around 20% of the world's total immigrant population [0], and the majority come from much poorer countries (#33 Mexico, not-even-ranked China, India, Philippines, Vietnam, El Salvador, etc. [1]) Those are countries with much worse economies, health care outcomes, education systems, etc. -- all of which have significant effects on both "median" and "average" numbers for measures of the US as a whole. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_immigrant_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_immigrant... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_States#Demographics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_Stat...
- badsock 11y ago
  13% of the population of the US is immigrants; for Sweden it's 14%, and Norway it's 13% (source: Wikipedia).
  - lotharbot 11y ago
    Sweden gets around 10% of its immigrants [0] from Finland, which is nearly tied with it in the net take-home pay list above. Sweden gets an additional >10% of its immigrants from countries above it in the net take-home pay list, or more than 20% total from top-20 countries. The US, on the other hand, gets the vast majority of its immigrants from much poorer countries [1]. The US gets around 7% of its immigrants from top-20 countries. Particularly when it comes to median statistics, adding people at the bottom of the scale is going to skew the stats. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Sweden#Country_of_origin_for_persons_born_abroad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Sweden#Country_... [1] http://cis.org/2012-profile-of-americas-foreign-born-population#birth http://cis.org/2012-profile-of-americas-foreign-born-populat...
    - badsock 11y ago
      Thanks for the data! From the same site as your second link: http://cis.org/node/3877 http://cis.org/node/3877 If you look at table 29, immigrants make 93% as much income as natives nation-wide. Given that they account for only 13% of the population, that means that they represent less than a percent of income reduction nation-wide. Admittedly I'm talking mean not median here, but I'm not buying the argument that a regular person in the most powerful economy on the planet is having a harder time than the ones in the tiny countries of Australia, Belgium, and Germany because of a 1% drag on national income. Americans have forgone universal health care, a strong social safety net, free or cheap higher education, all in the pursuit of a better economy and higher personal incomes. Lots of leftist countries haven't had to make that sacrifice, and yet even if you added 1% to the per capita income of Americans, they'd still be at least in the same ballpark, if not still ahead. From where I stand, that was not a good trade.
      - lotharbot 11y ago
        > "I'm not buying the argument that a regular person in the most powerful economy on the planet is having a harder time than the ones in the tiny countries ... because of a 1% drag" ... that's OK, since I never made that argument. What I'm arguing is simply that statistics that don't correct for population/immigration trends aren't going to give you a complete picture. You're not comparing directly comparable situations. > "Americans have forgone universal health care, a strong social safety net, free or cheap higher education, all in the pursuit of a better economy and higher personal incomes." Americans have foregone those things, opting for crappier, more expensive, and less universal variants of those things, mostly in the name of refusing to compromise while actually compromising in entirely moronic ways. There is no sense in which the government has done a good job of crafting programs to be efficient and therefore to improve the economy or personal incomes. (Personally, I'm a fan of the "basic income" as the foundation for a strong safety net, as well as more efficient systems of education overall. It's in one sense more extreme and in another sense less extreme than what's common in Europe. But we'll never get it because everyone would rather play political football and end up with compromise solutions that are the worst of both worlds.) [EDIT: going out of town for a week. You may have the last word if you so desire.]

by badsock 11y ago

lotharbot 11y ago

A further nitpick: pretty much any index of this sort (particularly QoL) also has to be corrected for demographic trends -- the US absorbs around 20% of the world's total immigrant population [0], and the majority come from much poorer countries (#33 Mexico, not-even-ranked China, India, Philippines, Vietnam, El Salvador, etc. [1]) Those are countries with much worse economies, health care outcomes, education systems, etc. -- all of which have significant effects on both "median" and "average" numbers for measures of the US as a whole. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_immigrant_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_immigrant... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_States#Demographics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_Stat...

badsock 11y ago
13% of the population of the US is immigrants; for Sweden it's 14%, and Norway it's 13% (source: Wikipedia).
- lotharbot 11y ago
  Sweden gets around 10% of its immigrants [0] from Finland, which is nearly tied with it in the net take-home pay list above. Sweden gets an additional >10% of its immigrants from countries above it in the net take-home pay list, or more than 20% total from top-20 countries. The US, on the other hand, gets the vast majority of its immigrants from much poorer countries [1]. The US gets around 7% of its immigrants from top-20 countries. Particularly when it comes to median statistics, adding people at the bottom of the scale is going to skew the stats. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Sweden#Country_of_origin_for_persons_born_abroad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Sweden#Country_... [1] http://cis.org/2012-profile-of-americas-foreign-born-population#birth http://cis.org/2012-profile-of-americas-foreign-born-populat...
  - badsock 11y ago
    Thanks for the data! From the same site as your second link: http://cis.org/node/3877 http://cis.org/node/3877 If you look at table 29, immigrants make 93% as much income as natives nation-wide. Given that they account for only 13% of the population, that means that they represent less than a percent of income reduction nation-wide. Admittedly I'm talking mean not median here, but I'm not buying the argument that a regular person in the most powerful economy on the planet is having a harder time than the ones in the tiny countries of Australia, Belgium, and Germany because of a 1% drag on national income. Americans have forgone universal health care, a strong social safety net, free or cheap higher education, all in the pursuit of a better economy and higher personal incomes. Lots of leftist countries haven't had to make that sacrifice, and yet even if you added 1% to the per capita income of Americans, they'd still be at least in the same ballpark, if not still ahead. From where I stand, that was not a good trade.
    - lotharbot 11y ago
      > "I'm not buying the argument that a regular person in the most powerful economy on the planet is having a harder time than the ones in the tiny countries ... because of a 1% drag" ... that's OK, since I never made that argument. What I'm arguing is simply that statistics that don't correct for population/immigration trends aren't going to give you a complete picture. You're not comparing directly comparable situations. > "Americans have forgone universal health care, a strong social safety net, free or cheap higher education, all in the pursuit of a better economy and higher personal incomes." Americans have foregone those things, opting for crappier, more expensive, and less universal variants of those things, mostly in the name of refusing to compromise while actually compromising in entirely moronic ways. There is no sense in which the government has done a good job of crafting programs to be efficient and therefore to improve the economy or personal incomes. (Personally, I'm a fan of the "basic income" as the foundation for a strong safety net, as well as more efficient systems of education overall. It's in one sense more extreme and in another sense less extreme than what's common in Europe. But we'll never get it because everyone would rather play political football and end up with compromise solutions that are the worst of both worlds.) [EDIT: going out of town for a week. You may have the last word if you so desire.]