Pretty nominal for Europe to be honest. Most Americans don't realize a) how much money they make and b) how little taxes they pay. Apples and oranges with all the social safety nets and such of course, but still most (healthy) Americans get much more money in their bank accounts after all is said and done than they would in Europe.

What happens to the unhealthy Americans? What happens to the Americans who are too poor they cannot pay health insurance and the cost of medicine/surgery. I think only the wealthiest Americans have much more money in their bank accounts than they would in Europe.

The God clearly doesn’t like them so it’s not worth making policy choices that take their problems into account

> cannot pay health insurance and the cost of medicine/surgery

https://www.medicaid.gov/

https://www.healthcare.gov/health-coverage-exemptions/forms-...

> I think only the wealthiest Americans have much more money in their bank accounts than they would in Europe

Well, you thunk wrong.

Median household income in the US is $80,000 [0] and taxes like VAT are nonexistent.

Throw on top of that access to subsidized plans like Medicaid or ACA plans for households that earn below the median, and most Americans come out ahead.

The big issue with the US is the de facto inability to commit mental health patients to involuntary mental health holds unlike much of Europe due to the current interpretation of the 14th amendment, which has caused the mental health crisis to become a homelessness and drug crisis.

That said, as a whole, most Americans live fairly comparable lives to most Western countries, as HDI shows. In fact, much of Europe has a much lower HDI than the US once you exclude Scandinavia, Germany, the British Isles, and Switzerland.

When you look at a subnational level, it is the Deep South (Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas) and Appalachia (West Virginia, Kentucky) that continues to lag, but they represent less than 5% of the entire population of the US.

[0] - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N

> The big issue with the US is the de facto inability to commit mental health patients to involuntary mental health holds unlike much of Europe due to the current interpretation of the 14th amendment

… Eh? Large-scale involuntary committal largely ended in Western Europe decades ago. What figures are you basing this on?

This is a misconception. Even in the poorest state here in the US, the median income is far more than most countries in Europe, pre tax[1,2]. And unlike what the internet says, we do have government programs that provide healthcare for those that cannot afford it or are out of work.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/205960/median-household-... [2] https://www.euronews.com/business/2024/07/08/european-averag...

Agreed. There are many reasons to prefer living in Europe to the US, but "more money in their bank accounts" of non-wealthy people is certainly not one of them even though the American must sometimes use the bank account to pay for things that are provided by the government in Europe.

Unless we talk about Switzerland. But that's like 2% of the continent so what you say is valid.

And given too left-leaning and fanatical green-deal-at-all-costs push from Brussels economical situation won't get better, in contrary. They could be pouring money into defense, its not like in 20 years russia will stop wanting to subjugate/murder us all. Or they could try not killing their own automobile industry so quickly. Or...

EU started a slow but steady decline given changes in global economies, it will take probably a long time due to various factors but trend is clear.

And Switzerland is most like the US out of European countries, albeit an idealized version of the US.

It has private healthcare mandated by the government, and an economy favorable to capital. It has a federal system where most of the power and spending resides with the cantons(states), and much closer to the voters.

The Swiss constitution was actually modeled after that of the US.

> Swiss constitution was actually modeled after that of the US

“The Amercian national constitution, the Articles of Confederation, was constructed on the Swiss model of a confederacy of some over sovereign states. Then, Americans repudiated confederal government in 1787 as impotent and unworkable and adapted a new federal constitution. The opponents of the new charter, the Anti Federalists argued that a Swiss style government was still a viable model which offered the best hope for the preservation of American liberty. The Swiss themselves repudiated confederate government in 1848 using many of the same arguments Americans had marshalled against it in 1787 and adapted a Federal constitution modelled after the American constitution of 1787. After the Civil War many American state and local governments adapted constitutional reforms borrowed from the Swiss. The initiative and referendum – which continues to this hour to give the politics of California and other influential states their distinctive tone.”

https://www.legalanthology.ch/hutson_swiss-and-american-stat...

I think that supports what I said, but I love the added detail. There was more back and forth exchange than I remembered.

Another fun fact about the Swiss government that I think is superior to the US is that the effectively have seven presidents which form an executive council. The executive council debates behind closed doors and presents a unified public front. Internal debates of the executive counsel are sealed for 20 years before release to the public.

That said, my favorite thing about Switzerland is still that the vast majority of tax collection and public spending occurs at the local level. Federal spending revenue is approximately 30% with the rest being the local cantons. Swiss Cantons are smaller by population then a typical California county.

I think this emphasis on local government results in Civic engagement, oversight, and empowerment while reducing political strife.

> seven presidents which former executive council. The executive council debates behind closed doors and presents a unified public front

This resembles the Athenian executive. It works in peacetime but less so in war. It’s also bad if you polarise because it blamelessly deadlocks.

You said "A was modeled on B", the answer said "B was modeled on A".

No, the Swiss federal constitution is based on America’s federal constitution. The American Article of Confederation, our previous Constitution, was based on our Helvetic Confederation constitution. Strictly speaking our constitution is based on the American Constitution.

> And given too left-leaning and fanatical green-deal-at-all-costs push

Investing heavily in renewable technology and R&D doesn't mean spending less on military or industrial capacity - in fact it's fairly dual use.

Furthermore, US, China, SK, JP, and others manage to balance both.

The issue is most EU members stopped funding their militaries following the fall of the Berlin Wall and redeployed that capital elsewhere - especially during the European Recession+Currency Crisis (1990-95), GFC (2008-11), and Eurozone Crisis (2008-2014).

Death and disease are not real, my mind zones them out. I never remember when i was the last time at the dentist, so why include that part in my lifes plan? That is just a blindspot of everyones mental model. They parked a whole scaming theme park in that in the us.

Unhealthy people get left behind in Europe all the time. I hope as a European you’ll never have to go through the hell of trying to deal with any kind of complex chronic illness. The doctors have no clue how to treat these kinds of problems, and any specialists are very few and far between. Go spend some time on forums for people dealing with chronic health problems and you’ll find many Europeans who’ve had to empty out their savings in order to get treatment.

Honestly health care in Europe isn't great either. My Dutch GP seems to think acetaminophen is the cure for everything. They're decades behind on things like discussing menopause, TRT, etc.

Medicaid expansion has fixed this for the poorest Americans unless you live in a few red states, and ACA subsidies cap private plans at 8.5% of your income (+ cost sharing on top of that obviously, but there is a maximum per year) for the rest.

Portugal is in a weird situation where it has high taxes and at the same time the median salary is too close to the minimum wage. This is difficult to overcome, and thus salaries are stagnated.

The government has no reason, in the medium to long term, to have such high taxes. Since, by keeping high taxation the state retrieves less money in absolute terms than they would if they let wages increase and steer away from the minimum wage.

I don't think you could say that about most EU countries. Portugal really is in a bad place.

(Edit: just clarifying that the situation is different, yes taxation is high as most others but in the case of Portugal its much worse)

> The government has no reason, in the medium to long term, to have such high taxes

It does - Debt.

Portugal's debt as percent of GDP skyrocketed during the GFC and Eurozone crisis from 75.8% in 2008 to 129% by 2012.

Unlike economies with a similar debt-to-GDP ratio like Italy, Portugal's economy is a relative minnow, and doesn't have a significant domestic capital market which can at least help stem some of the issues, nor can Portugal attract FDI at the same level as much more business friendly Spain, which made income taxes their only lever.

That said, the Portuguese debt-to-GDP ratio has gotten much better (99.10% in 2023), but that was because of how much of the Portuguese budget was spent on servicing debt.

It’s presumably very _cheap_ debt, though? Ireland’s in a somewhat similar situation (don’t be fooled by the headline debt to GDP figure; Ireland’s GDP is distorted to the point that the government has had to make up its own adjusted metrics), though it’s currently running big budget surpluses, and from time to time someone will ask “why, instead of lowering taxes and investing in infrastructure, are we not using this surplus to pay down debt?” And the answer is that the average cost of the debt is 1.5% (the expensive stuff from the financial crisis has largely refinanced). It makes little sense to aggressively pay down debt at those sorts of rates.

A quick google search indicated debt interest is about 5% of the national budget.

This does seem low in comparison to the US, where ~17% of the national budget is spent servicing debt interest. For context, this is approximate 1.5X what we spend on national defense. [1]

https://www.investopedia.com/why-interest-payments-are-blowi...

Huh. Ireland’s is about 2.5% (3.1bn on 119bn budget next year). Slightly puzzled at what’s going on with the US debt; that does seem very expensive. Though it’s not _entirely_ comparing like for like, in that states have their own separate budgets in the US (local authorities in Ireland do too, but their own revenue raising capabilities are very limited and most of the money comes from central government).

Looks like the US’s cost of servicing works out to about 3.4%, which definitely seems rather high (though, probably still not high enough that you’d necessarily want to aggressively pay it down; 3.4% isn’t a _great_ return). Actually, I’d wonder how much of this is related to the debt ceiling stuff; I would assume that makes refinancing when debt is cheap more difficult.

for Ireland, are you talking about % GDP or %governmental budget.

I don't know how or if the debt ceiling has any impact on refinancing.

% budget. Debt servicing is about 0.5% GDP, but Ireland’s GDP is so massively distorted that it’s not really worth paying attention to.

OK, I think we were using different units when comparing.

My concern is that the US GDP is also fluffed up, and the situation is more dire.

I'm aware, but we have been in that situation for almost a decade now. I'm portuguese.

I just think we would've gotten through this sooner by making use of the invisible hand and lead businesses to be able to prosper more and as a result, higher wages. This would lead to more modest taxes having a higher wield to the state.

As it stands, they are taxing people for a very low absolute amount in the end. Not to mention that taxes go way lower the closer you are to minimum wage (a good thing, but it also shows how little they gain from this strategy). In the meantime they strangle any small to medium sized company, which are the ones driving the wages for most.

It's not that weird, France is in the same situation.

It's similar, in relative terms. In France the minimum wage is currently at 75.5% of the median, in Portugal it is 73.1%.

However, the issue lies in the absolute amounts. In France, the median (monthy) is 2340€, but in Portugal it is 1039€.

When you are taxed in relative terms this amounts to quite a big difference when comparing what both government get from their citizens.

I concur that France's cost of living is higher and that I'm wayyyy oversimplifying it.

Just looking at salaries and taxes makes for a very distorted view of wealth and affordable lifestyle in the US vs elsewhere. Even if you take into account ALL the major variables such as college costs/loans, housing prices, real estate taxes, cost of healthcare, retirement, etc, it is very difficult to compare.

You can better see the reality by looking at actual examples of families with massively different incomes living in the US vs elsewhere. It takes WAY higher salary (5x?) in the US to enjoy the same lifestyle as someone in the UK, for example.

..... really? I'd take $200k in the US over 40k GBP any day of the week. And in the US I'd have bug screens in my windows. And air conditioning. And food I can taste.

Depends where in the US of course. $200K isn't going to go very far if you have to pay $1M for a house, 20K for r/e taxes, etc... One or two kids in college and you are f'd.

I don't know exact salary figure, but my sisters family in UK have medium income (1.5 jobs) new BMW, two kids in college, foreign vacations every year, kids got latest Apple phones/watch/laptop growing up ... A bit like 1950's America living the dream on a single income with foreign holidays and iPhones added.

When did they buy their house (or flat)?

House bought a while back before prices shot up, so maybe mortgage paid off ... I don't know. OTOH college costs alone make the US ruinously expensive.. $200K/kid perhaps... That's the point really - you need to look at full financial picture in the US - especially costs. Looking at income tells you nothing.

My alma mater is coming in around $16,000 a year or so for tuition, books, and fees - https://www.calpoly.edu/undergraduate-costs-attendance-2024-... . It's generally considered a not-terrible school. $200k is quite rare.

if you live in a major city in Europe you are going to also be paying $1M for a decent family sized house.

I'd also take $200k in the US over £40k in the UK, but let's not overdo things: Here in London I have bug screens, air con, and basically any food you could think of (and quite a lot I've never heard of).

It's seriously not difficult.

> And food I can taste.

Where do you live?

That extra money comes in handy when you're paying $15K/year for health insurance because if you don't a few hours in the hospital would cost you triple that.

I should look more into cost of living in Portugal, maybe, but one of the other commenters mentioned housing prices being… high. In US, making ~$20,000 you’d be considered poor (maybe not “officially”) and probably pay zero federal tax and receive quite a bit of assistance.

$20k is technically above the US federal poverty line for a single person. I live in a state where anyone under $30k is considered low-income and qualifies for full benefits.

Well, houses where I live, not Porto or Lisbon, are at 400k now. It is not cheap, getting worst every year

This is correct.

Here's a handy table: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_rates_in_Europe

Top rates are kind of useless; some countries have many more brackets than others. The US used to have a 90% tax bracket, but that didn’t make it a particularly high-tax country; effectively no-one paid it. Comparisons, are in practice, inherently difficult, because the curves caused by the tax brackets and credits can be very different. It really depends an awful lot on income.

Can you explain your use of "nominal" in "Pretty nominal for Europe" ? What does it mean ?

I guess it's a typo for "normal".

When counting your tax in the US add in your health insurance cost to compare to most of Europe.

Or if it's parts of Europe like Portugal where there is health insurance check the cost - looks like 14 euros to 90 euros a month:

https://www.beportugal.com/health-insurance-in-portugal/

It is realistically much more than 14 euros. In Eastern Europe I pay almost 700 Euro per month in mandatory state health tax (it is not an insurance, it is a tax because it is a percentage of income, not related to what you are covered for).

Yes, there is a public health system, but people tend to avoid it when they can. Most opt to go private for their dental, for example. And if they have any kind of systematic (sibo, ibs, autoimmune, etc) problem the public system is useless and they will have to travel to find a private specialist. On the other hand, the private system is really good here, and also pretty cheap.

Dental is also typically not covered by medical insurance in the US (dental insurance is separate and works differently).

If you're counting that you should add the +30% for social security in Portugal as well.

Straight up if you actually do the math and count every tax paid directly a d indirectly someone making minimum wage has a effective tax rate above 60%

That's only true if you take into account VAT as well though.

But you're right, the big taxation items in Europe are not the income tax, but the "social tax" and VAT. The first is added as a payroll tax (>30% in some places) and the second is basically a sales tax on every purchase (>20%). These two tax items alone add up to a crazy percentage of your income.

Employers pay 80%+ of healthcare costs for most Americans so you’d need to add that $20-30k to their wages to get a comparable measure of income.

(Which is why wages haven’t grown that much while total compensation has grown much more)

Pretty similar to anywhere else in Western Europe. Includes health care and a state pension and things like that.

In America the tax rate is higher? People are reacting like this is a lot haven’t seen a paycheck in the US in there lifetime. US is maybe 5% lower under some circumstances. I thought fake outrage was banned here?

Not even close, the marginal federal tax rate is 12% for income between $11k and $44k [0]. This doesn't take into account state/property taxes, but it's nowhere near

[0]https://www.irs.gov/filing/federal-income-tax-rates-and-brac...

Both calculations should include VAT btw

you have to adjust for median income and PPP. also, state taxes are often substantial.

At the levels OP described I’d be at 17% federal and state taxes rate. I’m at about 42% with state and federal but you need to add and zero and double the amounts to get close to our household income.

Not sure if Portugal uses marginal tax rates or not.

Plus mandatory insurance (minimally: health, arguably: car due to extremely poor public transit)

They actually get healthcare and other services with that. It's not like it's just taken away in some black hole. They get value from the taxes they pay.

laughs in swedish.

32.75% taxes. That is so low.

Portugal taxes are probably higher than Sweden.

Many people ignore portugal mandatory social contribution, it is mandatory even if you earn minimum wage, and the tax there is about 34% (forgot exact number, the way they charge make it clunky to calculate). Most portuguese people think this tax is "only" 11% because the rest of the tax is "paid" by the employer. Average people don't understand that if your salary was supposed to be 1000 and you get only 650 after tax you paid 350 in taxes even if your paycheck says your pretax salary is 800.

Note: the income tax is paid on top of the social contribution, so is easy to end paying 50%+ taxes if you are in tech. Then Portugal gets mad with all recent grads moving to Germany. (By the way, I still live in Portugal but all companies I worked for since moving here were German, Portuguese companies can't compete in wages)

It can go up to 48%. But as in most countries, it's progressive: you pay X% over the first A€, then Y% over the next B€, etc.

Then you have Social Security (mandatory): 11% on the employee and 23,75% on the employer, or 21,4% for independent workers.

Cries in throat sounds and having tax discount expiring at the end of this month

I'm paying about 50% tax rate here in NL (we have a very high income), I just wish that those who have 10x and more than our income also had to pay a 50% tax rate. Only our tax rules have been written so that those who are very rich don't pay their fair share.

> I just wish that those who have 10x and more than our income also had to pay a 50% tax rate

I'd imagine that those who earn 10x what you earn hit the €75518 faster than you so they pay their fair share faster. No? Define "fair".

Once again even professional people that write about money do not understand how marginal tax rates work, or more likely, are ideologically driven to lie.

No, if you earn 20k€ you don't pay 26% of taxes, that's the start of the bracket.