Re:Does Employment Slow Cognitive Decline? Evidence from Lab...
by 0xDEAFBEAD on Wednesday May 06, 2026 @09:57PM
(#48044500)
"In particular, it doesn't account for transfers, either direct (social welfare payments) or indirect (subsidised healthcare, housing, childcare etc etc)."
I believe your claim may be incorrect:
"Depending on the country and year, the data refers either to income (after taxes and benefits) or to consumption, per capita."
I think they are trying to place a dollar value on healthcare and childcare provided by the state and incorporate it as "income". I might be misunderstanding. It seems like a very imperfect science, but about as good of an effort as anyone has made.
Not to say it's a useless figure, but it can mislead (especially for lower income people, where healthcare costs and childcare costs, say, might be literally 0 in some countries, and a huge part of their income in others).
And obviously for people trying to do the FIRE thing in particular, healthcare costs are likely to be a very big deal; for those in countries like the US where most people get healthcare through their job, that's an additional consideration that people in countries where it's done by income-based subsidised insurance, or free-at-point-of-use systems, don't have.