Consider that out of your wages in the US (in general) you need to pay your own medical insurance and any other benefits like disability or long-term care, fund your own retirement, your kids’ future college education, car payment, car costs, house payment/renr, and then there’s taxes on top of all that.
And businesses charge you like you have none of those concerns, they’re designed to extract every possible penny while offering just enough service to keep you from being angry enough to leave to the competitor - if there is one.
Having travelled quite a bit in Europe it’s just different. Despite the economic upheaval since covid, I find prices more reasonable (not cars or fuel, sorry Americans. Car costs are nuts.), travel is easy, rents aren’t as crazy, and of course the State does take more tax but Europeans get so much more back that Americans have to pay for out of pocket. No idea what other fees are like for necessary things like cellular or home data connections. We also don’t tax our businesses for squat, relatively.
That’s why American wages are nuts. We have to pay out of pocket for things that the EU gets out of taxes, plus different lifestyles.
Not really a comprehensive list, but just the gist of what American wages are expected to cover. And a lot of American wages are absolute crap, we just don’t get to see that in this example.
Consider that out of your wages in the US (in general) you need to pay your own medical insurance and any other benefits like disability or long-term care, fund your own retirement, your kids’ future college education, car payment, car costs, house payment/renr, and then there’s taxes on top of all that.
And businesses charge you like you have none of those concerns, they’re designed to extract every possible penny while offering just enough service to keep you from being angry enough to leave to the competitor - if there is one.
Having travelled quite a bit in Europe it’s just different. Despite the economic upheaval since covid, I find prices more reasonable (not cars or fuel, sorry Americans. Car costs are nuts.), travel is easy, rents aren’t as crazy, and of course the State does take more tax but Europeans get so much more back that Americans have to pay for out of pocket. No idea what other fees are like for necessary things like cellular or home data connections. We also don’t tax our businesses for squat, relatively.
That’s why American wages are nuts. We have to pay out of pocket for things that the EU gets out of taxes, plus different lifestyles.
Not really a comprehensive list, but just the gist of what American wages are expected to cover. And a lot of American wages are absolute crap, we just don’t get to see that in this example.