• Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    I don’t understand US wages. I don’t make anywhere near that much as a plumber. 26 bucks an hour is insanely good salary. That’s more than what 95% of people in Finland earn.

    • iopq@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      $26 an hour would have negative effects on minorities and young people. Right now people with little work experience and education can easily still have a job. That would not be the case if the minimum wage was increased, since fewer companies would be able to afford to pay you $26 an hour to be trained

    • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      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.

      • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        I am honestly stunned by the number of people I encounter on the daily who do not understand that different places have different circumstances.

    • Wiz@midwest.social
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      8 months ago

      Yeah but how much does your health care cost in Finland?

      In the USA, take out a few hundred Dollars a month, just for the privilege of seeing a doctor. Then it pays nothing for you until you go over some threshold (“deductible”) of something like $2000 to $10000. Also, all drugs cost 10x more than outside of the US.

      But, yay America. (Sad kazoo sound.)

    • Evotech@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      The average salary in Finland is 25 euro per hour ish

      But California is like twice as expensive as Finland

      • Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        Median wage is about 20€/hr but it’s not in any way uncommon to earn way less than that. My SO makes about 12€/h assembling electrical switchboards and she used to make even less when working in daycare. 20€/h is considered a great wage. I dont think any of my friends earns that.

        • Asafum@feddit.nl
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          8 months ago

          But is that accounting for the difference in monetary value?

          1€ doesn’t = $1

          Well I’ll be a monkeys uncle… 1€ pretty much is = to $1. I must have been thinking about another currency