According to Gallup in 2013 the median incomes in the US and UK were $15,500 and $12,400 adjusted. Considering that US citizens pay on average 10% of earnings on healthcare where the UK doesn't that makes it more akin to $14,000 vs $12,400.

Except here is something you didn't know - that British citizen isn't paying income tax at all. Their 0% bracket goes all the way to about $16,000 USD Today. That US citizen is paying about $1650 in income tax because there is no 0% bracket in the US. So in actual take home income they are almost exactly the same. The mess of tax code in both countries makes the calculations more complicated, plus other taxes, etc - but the point is that no, U.K. citizens are not being paid "so much lower" than the US on average, but they do get the benefit of never dying of preventable illness because they can't afford to see a doctor while having all that extra aforementioned paid time off and holiday benefits that US workers don't have.

Additionally, the US isn't even at the top of median individual income. Fennoscandia collectively has the US beat, by on average about 20%. Which is going to be offset by their average ~25%ish income tax, but still its comparable returns.

It turns out that if your economy is abusing you to get more productivity out of you that you don't get a better living out of it.

US doesn't have a 0% tax rate, but there is the standard deduction and other tax credits that mean a large chunk of money gets exempted from income tax, often much more than just $16,000 USD.

Posting this a day later, so probably won't get seen much, but I just looked at my 2017 tax return.

I made ~$80k USD and because of various tax incentives (3 children mainly), I paid almost exactly the $1650 ($1683) figure you mentioned for federal income tax.

So my intuition is that the tax burden for most poor families is almost nothing.

From http://news.gallup.com/poll/166211/worldwide-median-househol... ?

I would expect self reported income like that to be based on take home pay (so after taxes). And for many in the US, they will have health benefits that they don't include in the self reported figure (they may not even realize the amount their employer pays). That's hard to account for compared to the "everybody can use the NHS" included in the UK figure.

From your link: 'Gallup asked respondents in most countries the following question: "What is your total monthly household income in [local currency], before taxes? Please include income from wages and salaries, remittances from family members living elsewhere, farming, and all other sources. Again, please provide your total monthly household income."'

I don't have any argument to make about relative quality of life between the US and other countries, because that's largely subjective. That being said, Fennoscandia is an aberration. They are monocultures with virtually no 3rd world immigration. By comparison the US actively seeks immigration from third world countries. There's a lot of political turmoil right there over this issue, immigration policy changes due to being in the EU, bringing in lots of refugees, etc. has brought in a lot of workers who are only really prepared for low skill/wage work, but these countries simply don't have those kinds of jobs available. They're having a hard time figuring out what to do with them.

> That being said, Fennoscandia is an aberration. They are monocultures with virtually no 3rd world immigration.

Untrue for Sweden[1] and Norway[2], which have respectively 14.3% and 16.8% of their populations foreign-born. Not all of those foreign-born are from developing nations but developing nations figure heavily in the top-30 list for Sweden.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Sweden#Demograp...

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Norway

Sweden is such a monoculture that when you look at Swedish demographics all Swedes are considered the same and you only count the immigrants as different. The second largest group of immigrants after Syrians is Finns, so a very similar culture. In the US if you look up demographics you barely see the 13% of the population which is foreign born as an *. Instead you get 17% hispanic, 13% black, ~62% white, 5% other. There's no accounting for the difference between a Mexican and a Cuban or a German and an Italian American. If you looked at Swedish demographics the same way it would be more like 95% white, 5% other. The largest single Church in the US is Baptist which accounts for barely 10% of the population. Meanwhile the Swedish National Church accounts for over 60% of the population, the second largest group is "unaffiliated" at 30%.

Norway is not significantly different when looked at in a similar light.