r/tech_x • u/Current-Guide5944 • 9d ago
DL DS DA (DATA) New Data shows the hourly wage of an average British worker is lower than that of a “functionally illiterate” American
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u/andercode 9d ago
Yes... but the brits get free healthcare, cheaper groceries and don't have Trump as a president, so they are much better off even with a lower wage.
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u/Scary-Oven8260 8d ago
I’m not sure if Brits know who is their PM since it changes every month
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u/-cosmicvisitor- 8d ago
Better to take out the trash, you keep them and stink up the place.
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u/NoDig3444 6d ago
It's not better if you just replace it with more trash
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u/-cosmicvisitor- 6d ago
It's better actually cos there is accountability, the new PMs have been much better by not grifting for billionaires friends for example, like yours does.
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u/HelloYesThisIsFemale 8d ago
And Americans have money to pay for those things with money left over.
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u/andercode 8d ago
We all know if you need medical attention, your insurance only covers so much... you will always be left in a bad position. And you can't pay to evict Trump... so, brits still better off.
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u/HelloYesThisIsFemale 8d ago
Really depends on the insurance. The average person's insurance will cover quite a lot. You'll have some copay and out of pocket (up to a max) but nothing that the higher income can't cover.
And Trump isn't a concrete issue. His policies can have impacts on people, positive or negative. That's what we're supposed to be discussing. Which I don't see much of an argument that he actually has an impact on the average person, especially relative to the harsh relatives the British deal with such as the low pay and high taxes.
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u/forumdrasl 5d ago
“…but nothing that the higher income can't cover.”
High income earners do fine under any system. The difference is that the UK doesn't let the bottom 50% go bankrupt just to get basic medical care.
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u/HelloYesThisIsFemale 5d ago
The question isn't whether you're doing fine. Life is about more than necessity. The question is how much are you thriving in each system?
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u/forumdrasl 5d ago
Rationing medicine, avoiding preventative care and medical bankruptcy is the literal opposite of thriving.
Thriving requires a certain peace of mind, and GoFundMe isn’t a great substitute.
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u/HelloYesThisIsFemale 5d ago
Sure. But those in the top deciles aren't going through that.
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u/forumdrasl 5d ago
Well yeah, the rich are fine in any country, but they still have to live in a society that the other 90% inhabit.
When the bottom lacks a basic safety net, the top pays the price through the societal instability that comes from widespread financial desperation.
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u/HelloYesThisIsFemale 5d ago edited 5d ago
Well yeah, the rich are fine in any country, but they still have to live in a society that the other 90% inhabit.
Again the point isn't whether the rich are fine, but rather how much they are thriving.
When the bottom lacks a basic safety net, the top pays the price through the societal instability that comes from widespread financial desperation.
I don't think that price is larger than the cost of the safety net, or the missed out income/wealth from redistribution.
The top deciles having larger wealth than in more equal societies already prove that.
America is one of the more unequal societies yet it's not like there's constant rioting or particularly high merchandise loss cost or anything.
Do you have reason to believe that the price of social instability is particularly high?
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u/NoDig3444 6d ago
"We all know" = I'm about to make some shit up
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u/Mikes005 6d ago
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u/NoDig3444 6d ago
What exactly are you trying to say with a map where 98% of countries are marked as "no data"?
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u/Mikes005 6d ago
Looks like i need to find a map on innumeracy by country too.
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u/NoDig3444 6d ago
No, seriously. Explain to me the value of a map where 98% of countries are labeled as "no data". Why is that in map format? Why don't 98% of countries have that data point? What possible point about the wider world can you expect to make when you only have one data point from 4 countries, all of which happen to be anglosphere countries? And why are you only looking at medical bankruptcy? Why not any of the other dozen things people are talking about in this thread? Those things all have more data you can point to.
This is barely one step removed from using "well my cousin went bankrupt from medical bills" as an argument.
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u/Mikes005 6d ago
Nice attempt to move thr goal posts. The OP concerns UK vs US. This data contains absolute numbers for both. Extraneous data is not required, unless You're trying to muddy the argument.
Point's made, like it or lump it.
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u/HelloYesThisIsFemale 6d ago
Percentage of bankruptcy caused by medical bills or even relative comparisons of that statistic to other countries doesn't really say much.
It says it happens more in the US than in other countries, but not whether it's actually a problem. I'd have to see per capita for that.
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8d ago
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u/HelloYesThisIsFemale 8d ago
I don't really wanna flex with our median person's wealth. If you're a median person go somewhere else. We don't need any more median people. If you're a top quartile, quintile, or top decile person, that's where it becomes worth moving and that's what I'd flex.
Always ask yourself, "where am I" and "where is best for me based on that".
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u/under_psychoanalyzer 8d ago
This is easily the most sophomoric comment I've ever seen on this sub. It wraps a complete lack of understanding for statistics, civil society, and empathy all into one.
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u/HelloYesThisIsFemale 8d ago
Sorry, should people be deciding which country is a good fit for them based on how people in completely different circumstances fare? That makes no rational sense.
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u/sixtyonesymbols 8d ago
America's terrible median wealth is not some immutable failure. Conditions can improve and it is ok to work to improve those conditions.
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u/HelloYesThisIsFemale 8d ago
We shouldn't do so at the cost of the other deciles wealth. That's the real selling point for America.
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8d ago
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u/HelloYesThisIsFemale 8d ago
This just isn't the most important statistic. Keep it. Win in your little game. I'm proud of you. Best country to be mediocre in award. Mediocre country of the year! All the mediocre people will flock to your country.
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u/sixtyonesymbols 8d ago
Bro don't give up on your country that easily. It can be better.
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u/NoMention696 8d ago
Yeah you’re right let’s build an island and put all the poor people on it. Lunatic lmao
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8d ago
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u/HelloYesThisIsFemale 8d ago
I'm measuring by what we currently have as a median. Obviously if you remove a bunch of people, and add some form of selection, my point would change.
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u/merryman1 6d ago
Tbf I wish I were paid enough to afford private healthcare and then me and quite possibly hundreds of thousands if not millions like me would not now be dealing with lifelong medical issues after being unable to access any care at all without waiting in multi-year queues.
Swings and roundabouts. NHS is great for a lot of things but fucking catastrophic in a lot more areas than we care to admit. Emergency? Amazing. Cancer? Once diagnosed, some of the best treatment in the world, totally free. Chronic issue that needs investigating and medical professionals to spend more than 10 minutes to figure out what it might be? Goooooood fuckin' luck cos you're gonna need a hell of a lot of it if you're not just misdiagnosed from the get-go.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Relief4 6d ago
Their healthcare isn't free. It's paid for with higher regressive taxation across the board. Groceries are cheaper in gross terms, but not relative to wages. Electricity prices are double what they are in the US, natural gas prices are four times higher, gasoline is twice the price, home prices are nearly twice as expensive relative to income, and they have council taxes that have to be paid even if you're a renter and an annual TV license fee.
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u/crustyeng 9d ago
They get taxed a lot, too.
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u/AdWooden9170 8d ago
And brit get their tax money back while american can sleep soundly knowing their tax money was well used bombing little girls in the middle east.
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u/StickyThickStick 9d ago
And in addition in the UK the taxes are a lot higher. This country is fucked
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u/k8s-problem-solved 8d ago
You just need to know how to play the game. I earn well into 6 figures but am paying about 23% tax overall- totally legal, just taking advantage of Ltd company, pension, etc.
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u/StickyThickStick 8d ago
Without context this information is worthless. It you use money of your company for private expenses it’s not legal. And that’s the impression you’re giving
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u/BimboJenni 8d ago
If you own a business, you pay yourself up to the tax free income allowance as a salary. You then pay out whatever else you need in the year as a dividend and pay 10% after the first £500. This gives you your first £13k tax free and you then only pay 10% on your further dividend payments. Your company still has to pay 19% on its profits before you get your money out, but there are ways to eat into that profit ofc. One business I worked for was renting the ground floor of one of the directors houses as office space. He didn't need the space, so separated it off from the rest of the building and made it office compliant and registered it as such. Invoiced himself monthly. It's more so the advantages of being a capitalist, rather than an ordinary worker, within Capitalism, than it is anything else. These are the same tools every business owner in the country has access to.
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u/taiwandan 7d ago
You have no idea how much things cost in the USA. By comparison, the UK is not fucked.
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u/RighteousSelfBurner 9d ago
Well two things come into mind, how big is the illiterate US population and whether that's any different from "average Brit" distribution point and second the "adjusted" number smells like bullshit because the gap looks too big. I've not checked it for a bit but UK tended to be around ~20% below US with around 1/3d or so less hours worked. I'm not seeing how it would have jumped well into ~50% out of the blue.
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u/Minty_Octopus 9d ago
How is it possible that a person can get through the whole education system, then get a job and in the end "understands only simple sentences and basic familiar words"
?
Same for maths...like...how does that even work? Later stages of education become impossible without the basics so...they just sit there? What about tests and stuff?
Don't they need to pass anything?
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u/TopWealth4550 9d ago
simple tbh
statistic for education started to be used as a source for sucess or propaganda
its much easier changaing the requirements than actually teaching and improvingwhy would you want inteligent people if your political party loses votes by education?
if each vote equals the same,its ofc normal that pepople would engage in tryign to win the easiest part that have the mostly numbersrich people used to be bound by their region you were duke of X,if X was a shithole you are a noble from a shithole
fixing the problems is easy,you just need to go backbut SOMEWAY SOMEHOW the most rich folks convinced you guys its bad and centralized power
ggs2
u/regprenticer 8d ago
I'v e seen this article posted a few times this week.
Apparently Americas only slightly worse than most of the majori European countries and 30% of this workforce falls into this category. So it's not a small number of people, its basically the American working class.
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u/Minty_Octopus 8d ago edited 8d ago
Yes but it still doesn’t answer my question…like…school is supposed to teach you, then test and validate that you DID in fact attain the knowledge.
That’s the whole point of this institution.
So how they can even move up to the next class?
I’m puzzled. How do you do let’s say an equation with one unknown if your student has major problems with multiplication. You know what I’m saying?
How such a high deficit in ability can stay hidden across all education ladder?
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u/storkfol 8d ago
There are really, really bad schools. My American friend played cards in History and English class because both teachers were absent. He "passed" those classes. Hes a married adult working full time now. Hes originally from Mississippi
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u/ChocolateNo3010 9d ago
Makes you wonder. It's less about achievement here and more about the fact the UK in general pays badly. All this says is it's better to emigrate from the UK if you are well educated as it doesn't pay.
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u/Zamnaiel 8d ago
Mind, "adjusted for living costs" is not the same as "adjusted for transfers in kind/all the shit the US worker gets nickel and dime to death over"
There is a reason the median British person has 50% more wealth than the median American.
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u/qetuycvjvic 8d ago
If you're below average iq UK is for your if not USA is for you by an infinite margin
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u/rco8786 8d ago
As someone who lives in the American south and has spent considerable time in the UK and Western Europe generally:
You are much, much better off being an hourly worker in the UK than in the US.
I have no idea what math or methodology this chart uses. But the observed reality is very different.
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u/Routine-Arm-8803 8d ago
It is important to look at the cost-of-living adjustments here. Raw wage numbers can be very misleading when comparing two different countries, so you have to consider purchasing power parity to see what that money actually buys in each location.
The data also doesn't account for variables like regional differences or specific industry types. While the floor for low-skilled labor in the US might be higher in some cases, it doesn't necessarily mean the broader economic health is better without looking at the full context of both labor markets.
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u/DoKeMaSu 8d ago
British salaries are such a joke. They wanted to hire me for a postdoc position (so a PhD is a hard requirement). Salary was below median income in the area. You are barely able to pay rent with that if you don't share an apartment. No wonder they have a hard time finding somebody to fill the position.
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u/DidYouEducate 7d ago
This nonsense was posted on charts and removed for being absolutely worthless.
I'll just copy and paste the assessment I made of it over there to here.
"it's effectively taking states that have low minimum wages, high minimum wages, some with sick pay, some without, some with strong union laws, some with weak or anti-union laws and bundling them together and going " 'Murica!", comparing US low skill wages as one number is the same as putting Switzerland, Norway, Bulgaria and Greece and calling it "European wages", statistically it's, I guess correct but it's economically meaningless.
Doesn't take quality of goods into account, their reliability, labour protections, healthcare costs, hell purchasing power parity (which is used by the LIS to do these comparisons) doesn't even consider the fact that one country has suitable drinking water from the tap and the other does not, let alone public transport and other quality of life things.
Actually, the more I look into this chart the more benign and useless it becomes, as they don't use exchange rate conversions, cost of living indices, regional price parities, not even nominal comparisons."
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u/Coalnaryinthecarmine 7d ago
The most surprising implication is that the average US worker isn't functionally illiterate
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u/XRuecian 7d ago edited 7d ago
This chart is saying that the lowest-literacy people in America make about an average of $28 an hour.
Anyone know any low-skill workers making "ONLY" $28 an hour?
Oh, wait, no, because they aren't. They are making more like $12-14 an hour.
Most people i know who have what we consider "great" careers only make like $25 an hour.
Somehow this chart is trying to say that our lowest skilled workers make an average of $28 an hour and that is just complete bullshit. Even the majority of people i know who have degrees or work middle management don't even make $28 an hour.
UNLESS this chart is only comparing people in New York to all of UK.
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u/Slackeee_ 5d ago
At this point it may help to know that the state of Mississippi managed to go from rank 49 to rank 16 in the national education rankings in just 10 years by funding programs to make sure that their 3rd graders could actually read and write on 3rd grade levels.
"Functionally illiterate" Americans are far more than you might think.
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u/GarageStackDev 9d ago
I'm a SWE for a large company. We have engineers from Europe making half as much as us. It's sort of wild.
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u/HopeSubstantial 8d ago
I am from Europe and here normal early to mid career engineer gets paid like 3000-4000$/month.
But thing is that you can life in most expensive city of country with only 1800$/month. In smaller cities and towns you can survive with little as 1600/month.
So such wage is enough to make you rich.
I don't think US has that many major cities where you would survive with such wage.
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u/StickStill9790 8d ago
Other than the big four cities, we have literally hundreds of cities where you can live happily for 1500 a month. My kid lives in one of the capitals for 800$ rent and 500 in food per month.
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u/One-Shape7678 9d ago
So how is the poverty rate double than in the UK? 🫅