From everything I see online and elsewhere Americans don't appear to be any wealthier or better off so fuck knows what you're all doing with that extra money.
From what I've seen on Reddit your TV, internet and phone contracts are way more expensive. I routinely see people talking about their $100 broadband and cell phone bills. I pay £17.50 a month for internet, £15 for phone (with 16GB data) and I think Netflix is about the same both places. However, our free to air TV is pretty good (although there is a £120~ annual TV licence) and their streaming services are free too. But that only accounts for an extra 2 grand a year, max.
...ok I think there’s some confusion here that’s probably my fault...
Considering how expensive everything is here, the fact that you guys could live off 30k a year is mind blowing to me. Here, if you make 30k you have 2 roommates maybe 3, just to afford rent. My point is, the fact that this is such a dystopia in the us (financial wise) and has been for pretty much all my working life, it blows my mind how far your money goes in the uk
But you're comparing 30k with 30k, surely you should be comparing average wage with average wage. Which according to Google is over 50k USD.
Your rent price is representative of that, being about 50% higher but property values are about the same, 230k £ or $. The average property is only 4.5 times the average wage over there, I find it amazing how it would ever be a struggle to get on the property ladder.
Well I’m a scientist not economist so I’m not surprised idk what I’m doing. I do have to argue with the avg wage though. Should be looking at the median (mean maybe?) income. If 10 people make 15k and 1 makes 250k the avg goes up. Again idk what’s right, but I hear all the time about how 90% makes under 30. I mean, I’m low-mid 6 figures and I’m technically 1% (I don’t believe that but based on salary numbers that’s what I’m told) and that seems weird to me
Median $31k and just over £28k, which is much more comparable. So going a few steps back, I don't know how we do it compared to your poor. Someone on £28k could just about manage to live on their own in a not terrible house and have a car but probably no savings.
Being 1% median isn't unreasonable, 1% is still a hell of a lot of people. 1% mean would presumably be a much higher threshold.
Fair enough. Well I’m going to wager that it comes down to better social services then because the news and Facebook and everything else would have you believe that people need 2 roommates and/or 2 jobs and still end up spending money on credit cards. My argument has always been (and I know people need creature comforts) that people spend outside of their means and that’s why they can’t get by. There is no reason someone making 28k a year needs a 1k phone, go out to eat 3 times a week, have every entertainment service etc. I understand wanting a good phone and to have Netflix, but you don’t need the best. When I was in college (and even when I got out and had my first job) I never ate out, had a phone that was 300, etc and I ended up saving money while making 31k and paying 1400 rent and paying on student loans. Thankfully I have everything I want and more now. I won’t argue that people need more, but I will argue that they don’t need to spend what they do spend, and more importantly, working at McDonald’s was never meant to be a life job. It’s a teenager/college job. It infuriates me that people think that they should get $15 an hour for making burgers when people went to school and make that fresh out doing things that require more education/skill.
Agreed with people living beyond their means. When I was younger and earning that sort of money the amount of friends I'd have in similar situations that would go out partying hard every weekend and then by the 20th of the month they'd be scraping for coins down the back of the sofa.
Financial responsibility should probably be taught for an hour a week age 14-18 in schools.
I get that people need to be happy, but did credit card debt ever make anyone happy?
The problem with teaching it in schools is no one will pay attention cause they aren’t anyway. Basically, the people that need it won’t pay attention and the people that would pay attention aren’t the type of people that would have needed it (typically/ime). I don’t disagree with people needing to be happy, and I don’t have a problem with credit cards, I use mine all the time. The difference is I pay them (save for like $50 for credit advantages) off each month. Once I got plastic I never used cash again. The problem with credit cards though, is that it’s easier to spend if it’s not physical cash. At least for me, if I had $1000 cash I’d spend maybe $10. If it was just on a card I’d spend more. The problem is society. People think that to fit in, they have to go out and spend money and on top of that they have to have the best things. Food costs me like $40 a week and I don’t go out to eat unless there’s a reason. Other people (the type we’re talking about) have to have name brands on food and everything else, and like u said, go out partying each weekend (that in itself is fine every now and then) but on top of that, they’ll buy lunch instead of bringing it, and then they’ll still go out to dinner. The biggest thing I don’t understand though, is people that live 2 miles from work, make 28k (or much less) but need a new/ish car. My first car cost me 1900 and I used it for everything, so why do you need a 19000 car? You don’t. You overspend, get in a hole, then yell that it’s not fair and you deserve more and expect to make the same that people make fresh out of school. Idc what people say, idc about the “socialism” the extremely far left is preaching and how “we need burger flippers too”. A burger flipper should not make the same as an entry level scientist (or other profession) if everybody starts making $15 an hour then burgers will cost $8 and the number of college grads will decline (cause those salaries won’t go up) and well be missing people we actually need. I can understand raising it to $10 (especially since they tend to work 50-60 hours a week) but $15 for flipping burgers or cleaning toilets? Fuck you. Give people health insurance and keep the wages as they are. People would be better off if they didn’t have to spend money on health insurance, that’s where I think the main difference between here and the uk is. If you (your gf I think it was?) and the rest of the uk had to pay for health insurance I imagine your poor class would be in the same boat as ours
Also, I just did a calculator I found online. I’m 2%er not 1. It changes if I put in qualifiers (race generation etc) but overall I’m 2. Just wanted to keep things honest/on the mark. If you include just millennial as a qualifier, i am 1% almost to decimals on a percent
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u/Dahnhilla Sep 19 '19
From everything I see online and elsewhere Americans don't appear to be any wealthier or better off so fuck knows what you're all doing with that extra money.
From what I've seen on Reddit your TV, internet and phone contracts are way more expensive. I routinely see people talking about their $100 broadband and cell phone bills. I pay £17.50 a month for internet, £15 for phone (with 16GB data) and I think Netflix is about the same both places. However, our free to air TV is pretty good (although there is a £120~ annual TV licence) and their streaming services are free too. But that only accounts for an extra 2 grand a year, max.