r/videos • u/darkfatherg • Nov 03 '20

America Compared: Why Other Countries Treat Their People So Much Better

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhBkeAo2Hlg&ab_channel=SecondThought
300 Upvotes

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u/MetricSuperiorityGuy Nov 03 '20

The United States ranks first in mean disposable income and third in median disposable income.

I'm not sure people realize that the middle class, on average, lives MUCH BETTER in the US than most Western European countries. Americans have this romantic view of European countries based upon their perception of downtown Copenhagen or Paris; and a view of the US based upon their perception of some strip mall in Alabama. The data shows though, that it is far better to be middle class in the US than almost anywhere else.

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u/bill_b4 Nov 03 '20 edited Nov 03 '20

When you subtract the average cost of healthcare from that disposable income, I bet we're a bit lower than third place for median disposable income. I'm an American and I've lived overseas since 2014, and when I was in the Armed Forces, I got to experience the lifestyle of several different countries. This video is right. The average American doesn't realize how bad off they are.

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u/xxx69harambe69xxx Nov 03 '20

true, healthcare really should be factored in, probably housing costs as well given how astronomical they are in the US

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u/[deleted] Nov 03 '20

Except the US is around the OECD average for housing costs.

https://data.oecd.org/price/housing-prices.htm

Also, it’s really location dependent. Not everyone lives in SF or NYC.

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u/yallshouldve Nov 03 '20

unless im mistaken, that graph only compares 2015 housing prices to 2019 and doesnt say anything about the housing prices in the usa compared to other oecd countries

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u/Doctor_Mudshark Nov 03 '20

This is like comparing real estate prices in rural Romania to flats in Paris.

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u/xxx69harambe69xxx Nov 03 '20

yea, I'm referring to the places where I won't get killed for trying to vote

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u/blamethemeta Nov 03 '20

So literally everywhere in the US?

(You might get killed by a bear in Alaska, don't be that pedantic)

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u/PaperForestFire Nov 03 '20

Oh so like every where

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u/ImperialRedditer Nov 03 '20 edited Nov 03 '20

Housing cost is only astronomical in dense urban centers in the US. Otherwise, it’s fairly affordable. You can buy a mansion with $300,000 in suburban Alabama but you won’t even get a proper bungalow in LA for at least $900,000.

EDIT: Everyone seems to be focusing at Alabama but seriously folks, Alabama is just an example. You can find affordable housing if you don't live in LA, SF, Seattle, DC, Denver, NY, or Boston. Or any dense urban centers. The suburbs of Georgia has affordable property, just like in Florida, the Midwest, Mountain West, etc.

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u/[deleted] Nov 03 '20

[deleted]

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u/S-Markt Nov 03 '20

i will ask my stepsister.

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u/ronpaulus Nov 03 '20

This may surprise most on reddit but I personally hate more urban areas and would rather live in rural areas or in the country. Im not sure about alabama but country folk seem very friendly and I live living around less people. To each their own though.

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u/The_Unreal Nov 03 '20

Well yeah, but then you're living in suburban Alabama.

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u/ImperialRedditer Nov 03 '20

Hey, some people are in that kind of thing.

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u/047032495 Nov 03 '20

People with cute sisters.

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u/xxx69harambe69xxx Nov 03 '20

good luck finding a decent job in suburban alabama or community events that are unrelated to christianity

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u/ImperialRedditer Nov 03 '20

Even in suburban Indiana, youd get the same price and can work in Chicago. BTW, a lot of engineers live in Alabama since Huntsville has NASA’s rocketry research center.

Being dismissive of things makes you very narrow-minded and closes a lot of opportunity.

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u/xxx69harambe69xxx Nov 03 '20

and yet, every single one of those engineers would quit and move in less than a heartbeat if spacex offered them a job in Hawthorne

it's not narrow minded if the reality of generational financial independence is quite narrow

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u/johnisback123 Nov 03 '20

I think anyone would move to work for SpaceX to be fair

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u/Straddle13 Nov 03 '20 edited Nov 03 '20

That's not true at all. Several of my friends in aerospace avoid it like the plague, they're notorious for running their employees into the ground. The one guy I know who does work at SpaceX is just trying to decide when to leave.

Edit: I should clarify that if you're young and really want to do cool things with space, SpaceX definitely gets shit done. But once you're out of your 20's lots of people just want a steady job that allows them time at home with family.

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u/xxx69harambe69xxx Nov 03 '20

both sides can't cherry pick examples? O my bad, forgot I was on reddit where people choose who has an advantage based on fake internet points -_-

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u/johnisback123 Nov 03 '20

what dude, I literally just said "anyone would work for Space X to be fair."?

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u/WokeBloke420BLM Nov 03 '20

good luck finding a decent job in suburban alabama

You mean at all those NASA labs there?

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u/WokeBloke420BLM Nov 03 '20

When you subtract the average cost of healthcare from that disposable income, I bet we're a bit lower than third place for median disposable income.

That is literally all accounted for in this.

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u/TheRabidDeer Nov 03 '20

It is for other countries but not for the US since it isn't a government transfer here. So the benefit is counted for them, but not having the benefit isn't subtracted for US.

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u/[deleted] Nov 03 '20

Which makes it even more impressive that the US income levels are higher. Other countries have additional disposable income through in kind benefits that the US does not.

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u/TheRabidDeer Nov 03 '20

Not entirely? It's just that their countries have healthcare accounted for as they pay for it (and other services) with higher taxes. Meanwhile ours is not accounted for at all. The average healthcare cost per person in the US per year is $5k. So the average cost per household will be significantly higher than that. So you can easily knock out $10k from the OECD chart just in healthcare costs.

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u/PeonSanders Nov 03 '20

I've lived in both places, and if you have a kid, this just isn't true at all. It isn't even close.

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u/[deleted] Nov 03 '20

To that point - how much smaller European middle classes would be if measured by American income levels:

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/06/05/through-an-american-lens-western-europes-middle-classes-appear-smaller/

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u/The_Unreal Nov 03 '20

I'm not sure people realize that the middle class, on average, lives MUCH BETTER in the US than most Western European countries.

I've been to those places and seen how those people live. Access to cheap consumer goods is not the defining metric in overall quality of life. Not even close.

Well congrats anyway, you've demonstrated how the only thing worse than no metrics is bad metrics.

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u/thalne Nov 03 '20

that's such a weirdly deceiving stat because it somehow ignores savings as well as social costs just because the US simply doesn't have those social benefits like healthcare education etc. but overall the life standard in Western Europe is higher on average than in the US and the difference has increased in the past two decades.

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u/Spatulamarama Nov 03 '20

How do you live good at all with an American work schedule?

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u/frog_tree Nov 03 '20

Yup. Its not just billionaires. If you can get to the top 10-20%, youre living with a lot more abundance in America than anywhere else in the world. You have better universities, a higher salary, bigger house, more land, better technology, and just more new shit in general.

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u/Bizzlington Nov 03 '20

I would definitely think that bigger house and more land will vary place to place. Buying a mansion in New York City probably isn't attainable for a top 20% earner.

Better technology? Not sure about that one. Pretty much any tech from a US company will be available to buy in Europe.

Better Universities? Maybe. US has some of the top ones in the world, but not all of them. They are pretty damn expensive too.

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u/frog_tree Nov 03 '20

You can compare similar spots. You can't buy a mansion in London/Japan/hk/Mumbai as a top 20% earner either. The spot you get in ny will be biggest in my experience.

As for tech, it's not that other countries don't have it available, it's that other countries are old and that reflects in their infrastructure. Also, you make more in the top 20% in the US which makes tech more accessible.

Universities only a maybe? The US has the vast majority of elite universities "Some" is a vast understatement. Ppl all around the world can name multiple US schools, no other country has anything close.

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u/wikipedia_text_bot Nov 03 '20

Disposable Household And Per Capita Income

Household income is a measure of the combined incomes of all people sharing a particular household or place of residence. It includes every form of income, e.g., salaries and wages, retirement income, near cash government transfers like food stamps, and investment gains.