New
#21
How much does it cost to live where you live?
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New #22
THAT is actually where it will make a difference between the US and Europe, thanks for bringing it up, Marvin. And I know that can easily go as high as $25k ~ $30k / year if you have to buy yourself and do not have a volume discount that an employer sometimes has.
Kari, can you give us some numbers for health insurance in Germany? I have no clue.
Input from the UK fellows will also be interesting
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New #25
I'm with that! I would rather pay higher taxes if I knew my healthcare was $0. Doesn't seem that would ever take root here, though.
Money and life are at odds with each other.
You can't say that an institution that is responsible for helping me to stay healthy is a business. A business is in the business to make money and living life costs money, which takes away from the profit margin. So in the end, who loses?
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New #26
I hear that the average yearly wage in the UK is about £24,000.
I have a quite low paid job at the moment as I sort of downsized in general but I earn about £20,000. That's with over 25 years experience in different forms of community/youth/psychiatric work.
Apart from the few professional people I know, doctors, architects, managers etc I don't know anyone who earns the £24,000 average wage.
It depends on where you live.
People doing my job in London get more than me because it costs more to live there. That seems fair enough. My rent on a reasonably sized I bed flat is £200 a month but gas and electric are going up and I haven't included them.
I don't drink or smoke these days but I think most other stuff is slightly cheaper in my area.
A Big Mac is the same wherever you are both in price and taste....it's like a recurring bad dream.
Interesting thread Kari:)
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New #27
Your NI contributions for health are about 11% of your pay (if working) so it's nothing like free, in fact it's a total rip off for the shoddy service we get.
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New #29
Yeah. I've always taken free health care for granted and never understood why some Americans are so vehemently against it. It just seems a win win situation, everybody pays for it and everybody gets it so the young pay for the old. But they get old too.:)
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New #30
Since I live 6 months per year in Germany and the other 6 months in Florida, I am always pretty up-to-date on the prices in those countries.
In Germany the prices for food are the cheapest because there is the most competition. Even Walmart was unable to compete and had to fold tent in Germany after 7 years and a loss of 700 million Euros. Rental is also relatively cheap in Germany.
Electronics, cars, gas, clothes and houses are cheap in Florida. In contrast, rental is relatively expensive. But that is not the whole story. On the cheap houses you have permanent maintenance costs because of the way they are being built. You also have to pay a substantial amount of yearly housing taxes ($2000 to $20.000 depending on value and county). In addition an American family is faced with enormous cost for the education of their children. A year in college can easily cost $40.000 or more - and that is only for the tuition fees. In most European countries education is free.
Bottom line - a comparison of individual product prices is not very telling. One has to factor in all the other expenses, taxes, income, etc.
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