[HN Gopher] How the U.K. Became One of the Poorest Countries in ...
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How the U.K. Became One of the Poorest Countries in Western Europe
Author : curmudgeon22
Score : 83 points
Date : 2022-10-25 20:17 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theatlantic.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theatlantic.com)
| Tycho wrote:
| And yet every day thousands of people risk their lives to reach
| the UK (illegally). Doesn't happen in the other direction.
| Something doesn't add up.
| sealeck wrote:
| Because those people are not originally from _western_ Europe.
| weakfish wrote:
| > in Western Europe
|
| key part here
| Tycho wrote:
| They are travelling from Western Europe to the UK, yes.
| sealeck wrote:
| Sure, in the same way that if you take a flight from
| Australia to London which stops in Singapore and Frankfurt,
| then you are technically travelling from Germany to the UK.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| The point is that the migrants could stop in France or
| Germany rather than cross the channel, but do not choose
| to do so.
| azinman2 wrote:
| I cannot speak to where people go (lots of countries have
| lots of immigrants, including Italy, France, Germany,
| etc), but culturally the UK is more accepting of
| integrating immigrants than its neighbors. They also
| speak English, which will also be a driving force from
| certain countries.
| kergonath wrote:
| > culturally the UK is more accepting of integrating
| immigrants than its neighbors
|
| Considering the part of the populations that keeps voting
| for xenophobic Tories, that the whole country threw a
| hissy fit about immigration in 2016 and has been
| hardening its stance by the day since, and the pile of
| scandals _a la_ Windrush, the reality is somewhat more
| nuanced than that.
|
| > They also speak English, which will also be a driving
| force from certain countries.
|
| Yes, this is an important motivation. There is also the
| aura from nearby commonwealth countries. The UK used to
| be good at building soft power.
| kergonath wrote:
| The thing is, a lot of them do. Germany is outside most
| refugee routes (most of the people in Calais never went
| through Germany) but they get people from Eastern Europe
| fleeing westwards. But France has _way more_ refugees per
| capita than the UK, and way more in absolute numbers.
| Seriously, have a look here for example, it's ridiculous:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_refu
| gee... .
|
| Those who try to cross the Channel planned to come to the
| UK since the beginning of their journey, mostly for
| cultural reasons.
| jackjeff wrote:
| The vast majority do. Germany, Italy and France get a lot
| more refugees than the U.K.
|
| The few refugees that choose to cross the Channel do it
| because they have relatives or friends in the U.K. and
| take significant risks to cross the channel.
| atxbcp wrote:
| Except they do. A very few risk their lives to reach the
| UK (usually because they have family there), but millions
| choose to stay in Western Europe (e.g France, Germany).
| [deleted]
| jenscow wrote:
| Western Europe is their passage, not their origin.
| phatfish wrote:
| It's the relative higher standard of living compared to poorer
| countries, and language. If someone can migrate to a country
| where they can understand people and be understood it's at the
| top of the list.
|
| One reason it doesn't happen the other way round is language
| again. We have the burden of English being spoken as a second
| language in many other countries, so there is little incentive
| to really push language learning in school here. It's foolish,
| but there is a logic.
|
| As the UK becomes poorer compared to the rest of Europe there
| will be those that will wish they could speak a second
| language. Not that it will do much good, as post-Brexit unless
| you are rich or a high performer there is very little chance of
| landing a job. The British population happily voted away that
| right.
| philjohn wrote:
| Far more stay in Lebanon (e.g. from Syria) or other european
| countries than try to make it to the UK.
| holoduke wrote:
| Class difference is huge in the UK. There is a large ruling elite
| living miles from reality. A quick tour in cities like
| Manchester, Belfast etc show the enormous amount of worker class
| neighborhoods. And these worker class people are falling below
| middle class standards now. Good that there is still lots of work
| availability. But if a recession comes and unemployment becomes a
| thing then huge issues in the UK will appear.
| kazen44 wrote:
| very large class difference has always been a thing in the UK
| as far as i remember. And the only period i can think of when
| the economy improved drastically for the working class in
| britain was in the late 60 and the seventies.
| jimlongton wrote:
| This analysis [1] and the linked FT article is eye-opening for
| many people. I can't say I am surprised though. I've traveled
| across the UK and the level of poverty in some areas is really
| shocking.
|
| [1]
| https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1570832839318605824#...
| notright2 wrote:
| notright2 wrote:
| notright2 wrote:
| 10g1k wrote:
| The UK is multiple countries. Not really an impactful
| distinction, just saying.
| moosedev wrote:
| Although it's made of countries, it is also a country, so the
| headline isn't wrong to refer to it as "one" country, in case
| that's what you were implying.
|
| Source: am British
| sumosudo wrote:
| Ok, Ill just say it:
|
| Usury, Quantative Easing, Central Banks.
|
| How do we fix this?
|
| You better start running for the hills, bucko. The real Shit
| Storm 'What ryhmes with Rishi' is on its way.
| fazfq wrote:
| jackjeff wrote:
| I have to say foreign medias have no qualms mentioning Brexit as
| an aggravating factor. But local U.K. news would not even get
| near it, for fear of opening Pandora's box once more. Even
| opposition parties (Labour) look the other way.
| notright2 wrote:
| Moissanite wrote:
| Not a great article, but it touches lightly on a lot of the key
| points like our problem with an aging, NIMBY-ist voting bloc who
| decry things getting worse, but won't allow for any meaningful
| change.
|
| The missing puzzle piece for me when trying to better understand
| this topic is what "productivity" really means. I get the notion
| of "output per unit of work" - but there is never much attempt to
| peer deeper and understand _why_ productivity is lower here.
|
| Is there actual evidence of workers doing less on a given day?
| What does that even look like, for example in the retail sector
| where workers seem to have very little impact on the purchasing
| decisions of customers.
|
| If it isn't employees, where does the lower productivity come
| from - are we just outcompeted on cost because we still try to
| have too much of a low-skill economy which can't keep prices as
| low as the developing world? It would be good to compare
| productivity in the UK with countries in Scandinavia, i.e. those
| with a better social safety net and without the financial centre
| of gravity that is London. Where does their productivity come
| from?
|
| These are the kinds of topics I'd like both journalists and
| politicians to discuss more - but for as long as they have to
| cater to the lowest common attention span, I'm not getting my
| hopes up.
| yung_steezy wrote:
| A concrete example of poor productivity in the UK would be that
| the country imported PS10,000,000 worth of fax machines between
| 2012 and 2016. [1]
|
| Assuming these fax machines are being used instead of PCs then
| one could imagine a worker being less productive than they
| otherwise would be.
|
| [1] https://www.economist.com/britain/2017/11/09/what-fax-
| machin...
| Overtonwindow wrote:
| This is troublesome.. However, I can't help but blame the British
| system of government. There is no certainty, at any moment the
| government could collapse, and even when it's not, the PM must
| constantly watch their back so that his own cabinet does not stab
| them in the back.
|
| America, and similar Presidential systems, there are set lengths
| of time for someone to be in office. That builds certainty.
| America may be a lot of things, it may have many issues, but you
| know with reasonable certainty, that there will be an orderly
| transfer or adjusting of power.
|
| From Boris, to Truss, to Sunak in a matter of months. I'm an
| ocean away and I have little faith in the British government, I
| can't imagine what it's citizens must be going through.
| kazen44 wrote:
| i disagree with you on this.
|
| The problem with british parliamentarism compared to the system
| other constitutional monarchies and democracies in europe have,
| is the the cabinet does not automatically gets disbanded when
| the goverment looses trust in the Prime Minister. In most
| european parliamentary systems, a re-election would be called
| if this situation happens. This is not the case in the UK.
|
| Its utterly ludicrous the tories are still in the seat of power
| after having 5 PM's in 6 years.
| delecti wrote:
| Amusingly, I actually envy that aspect of the British system
| quite a bit. It feels like complete fantasy to imagine a
| president who has messed up and then resigns. The idea of a
| president's cabinet holding them accountable seems like fantasy
| as well. And it's only been a week since Truss announced her
| resignation but there's already a new PM. Boris' own party
| removed him from office, meanwhile only a handful of US
| congresspeople have ever voted to impeach/remove a president of
| their own party. Our last president tried to extort another
| country, and staged a nearly successful self-coup, and saw the
| end of his term.
| djcannabiz wrote:
| does anyone have a non paywalled link
| aljungberg wrote:
| Sure, the sixth largest economy in the world is "poor" because
| too much wealth is generated by financial services in the capital
| and not mom and pops in small towns or whatever. That's like
| saying California is poor because most of the wealth isn't
| generated by McDonalds employees. You picked some romantic ideal
| for how money "should" be made and voila now you can complain
| when it isn't so.
|
| The article actually wants to make a point about falling living
| standards, but the author couldn't resist a clickbait title so
| nonsensical it overshadows the rest. There's probably some
| interesting analysis that could be done about UK PPS, absolute,
| mean and median incomes, incomes vs average cost of living etc.
| This is not that article.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| It depends on what you think the _point of an economy_ (or a
| society) is.
|
| If the purpose is to create a competition and see who can
| accumulate the most resources and power, then the UK (and US)
| are doing quite well.
|
| If the purpose is to collectively grow our productivity so that
| all (for some definition of all) members of society have the
| opportunity to live better and richer lives, then the UK (and
| US) are doing rather badly.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| The article is trying to tie together a bunch of ideas but
| doesn't really do a good job of it frankly.
|
| However the underlying theme is definitely something that's
| worth digging deeper. An economy that is too reliant on only
| one sector to generate wealth cannot survive on the long run
| when all the sectors are being systematically torn down and
| pushed behind. And as the author correctly pointed out, the
| left wing idea of creating a world without climate change
| through de industrialization and the right wing idea of living
| in the past are both fantasies that do a lot of long term
| damage that may not be apparent immediately.
| yCombLinks wrote:
| Not sure if absolute economy size is really relevant. You could
| have 20 billion really poor people. You could have 19.9999
| really poor people and one really rich one. I would consider
| both of those poor.
| deergomoo wrote:
| I'll be the first to admit I know little about economics, but I
| despair at the state of things.
|
| It feels like half the electorate live in a fantasy land. Over
| two million people using food banks--many in work--and yet all
| the chap I see on my morning dog walk wants to talk about is "all
| the people on the dole who live in big houses and drive brand new
| cars" (Jobseekers Allowance is PS77/week, for reference).
|
| Meanwhile our household income is far above the national median,
| and we still need to scrimp and save far more than our parents
| and grandparents did to work towards a deposit on a house. I
| truly feel for the low wage earners in this country, even though
| a significant portion of them continue to vote for these
| monsters. We seem to be totally without compassion as a nation
| right now.
| rapind wrote:
| It may seem magical, but conservatives have worked really hard
| to convince peasants that tax breaks for the wealthy is in
| their best interest.
| bluehatbrit wrote:
| You've brilliantly expressed exactly how I feel as well. It's
| so depressing, everyone seems to have their heads burried in
| the sand or focusing on what other people seem to be getting.
| It's driving me insane.
| bergenty wrote:
| You're getting Americanized. Congratulations?
| Aloha wrote:
| I'm an American and I can talk about the same things, nearly
| word for word (Jobseekers allowance notwithstanding) and feel
| _exactly_ the same way.
|
| Something is wrong with the economy, not just in the UK, but in
| America and probably a bunch of other countries. Where is the
| prosperity, if its there, why is it not more widely shared? is
| it a single cause, or is the cause manifold?
|
| I have _some_ ideas as to the answers to these questions (and
| its not capitalism is bad), but I too am just an engineer, not
| an economist. The unrest that propels populism is real. It 's
| clear the status quo isnt working for the majority.
| w1nst0nsm1th wrote:
| Because we live again in a new Gilded Age, with its
| monopolies, robber barons, regulatory capture, and
| corruptions.
|
| If you want to understand these days, you have to understand
| the Gilded Age, the rise of Unions, the New Deal, the G.I
| bill, the rise of the middle classe post WW2 until the end of
| the 70s, when reagan started to reverse the course engaged by
| FDR in the 30s, gutted every regulation intended to protect
| workers, envirronement, gutted union coercitive power,
| deregulated financial system with its new credit offering
| allowing to compensate diminished real purchase power of
| middle class salaries, slashed taxes on highest tiers of
| population and corporation, slashed public service.
|
| The subprime crisis is a direct consequence of this...
|
| For a short introduction in the matter, I suggest you to
| watch the last episode of season 33 of The Simpsons.
| Aloha wrote:
| The decay started earlier than Reagan it's not just the
| vacuousness of supply-side economics, if you asked me to
| pick a date, it'd be 1971.
| notch656a wrote:
| Forced sharing of prosperity (in form of transfer payments /
| taxes) is at a much higher non-wartime rate (% gdp) vs say
| 100 years ago (in the US).
|
| If you want to use our parents (and before) proportion of
| transfer of prosperity, we should lower it significantly.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Yeah, things are about to get worse. The newer generation
| wants equality of outcome and wealth (aka communism).
| They're enamored by income equality and climate which is
| just a complete subjectivism take over. You can do no
| little and you can always do more. We're here to shame you.
|
| Asian countries have adopted what worked in the west:
| Capitalism and lifting people out of poverty at an
| unprecendented rate.
| arcticbull wrote:
| Forced sharing is a silly way of referring to taxes which
| are fees assessed for collective services. Nobody builds
| anything alone and is a benefactor of all sorts of common
| goods, services and infrastructure. To say otherwise is to
| prefer the bootstraps narrative to reality.
|
| Top marginal tax rate in the mid 1900s was 70-90% and the
| estate tax was actually assessed without exempting the
| first $14M or whatever it is.
|
| It's all a social construct and we collectively set the
| rules.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| The _effective_ tax rates when the marginal rates were
| 70-90% were not much different than they are now.
| Cherrypicking marginal tax rates while ignoring
| deductions against those rates is misleading and
| deceptive.
| notch656a wrote:
| Weird, I hadn't heard of taxes. Thanks for your
| explanation.
|
| >Top marginal tax rate in the mid 1900s was 70-90% and
| the estate tax was actually assessed.
|
| Federal transfer payments (in %gdp), AKA forced sharing
| rather than providing some kind of quid-pro-quo service
| (which you allude to above), are increasing almost
| monotonically. Significantly higher than the mid 1900s.
|
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=jU5N
| Aloha wrote:
| This only seems to account for direct social spending,
| not indirect - which much of the cold war was, that large
| peacetime military, its transfer payments from the
| government to rural america.
|
| Also, when I say shared prosperity, I dont mean transfer
| payments, nor do I mean forced sharing, I mean why are so
| few benefits of our greater productivity seen by the
| majority (bottom 2/3rds), why has the standard of living
| fallen in real terms for the bottom 50% of the country?
| why do we feel poorer?
| notch656a wrote:
| Median real personal income has risen significantly in
| the past 1-2 generations. It looks like the common man in
| the US is doing quite well compared to our ancestors.
|
| If we're looking at voluntary trade of wealth, rather
| than forced sharing, that seems to be doing quite well!
|
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N
|
| >why has the standard of living fallen in real terms for
| the bottom 50% of the country?
|
| >Right, but again, I'm not talking transfer payments, or
| forced sharing, if I'd meant to speak to transfer
| payments, I would have said transfer payments, not
| 'shared prosperity'.
|
| Do you think those at the bottom are getting most of
| their income from transfer payments or are they getting
| it from voluntary trade and charity? The people at the
| bottom are living off of transfer payments (forced
| sharing).
| Aloha wrote:
| There is effectively no cash welfare in the United
| States. Those who are getting cash income at the bottom
| of the scale are getting it because of disability or age.
|
| Because there is no cash welfare, people are indeed
| earning their money mostly by performing work.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| > Median real personal income has risen significantly in
| the past 1-2 generations.
|
| That's already a warped measure. Given that we've seen
| GDP (and some other measures of overall economic
| productivity) rise during that time, the least you'd
| expect is that "median real personal income would rise".
|
| But the more relevant question is: how has median real
| personal income risen compared to the overall increase in
| productivity? That is, we're doing/making more (and also
| buying/selling more), but who are the beneficiaries of
| this growth? If it isn't basically everyone, why not and
| should it be?
|
| And here's the SLF graph for _that_ :
|
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=Vgqj
|
| which makes the actual situation _very_ clear: real
| median personal income has lagged substantially behind
| real GDP per capita ever since 1975 or so.
| arcticbull wrote:
| Forced sharing isn't an accepted term or even one that is
| worth using in discourse. Transfer payments benefit
| society which in turn benefits the best off too. They
| benefit from them.
| Aloha wrote:
| Why are you comparing to 100 years ago - thats a non-
| sensical one, even my great-grandparents were minors 100
| years ago.
| notch656a wrote:
| Fine, go back 20, 30, 60 years. Practically take your
| pick. If you look at say federal transfer payments as
| percent GDP they were way lower.
|
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=jU5N
|
| And we all know anyone talking about the standard of the
| bottom is looking _exactly_ at transfer payments. That 's
| how those at the bottom survive. We shouldn't try to
| trick the reader by saying "I'm not talking transfer
| payments."
| Aloha wrote:
| Right, but again, I'm not talking transfer payments, or
| forced sharing, if I'd meant to speak to transfer
| payments, I would have said transfer payments, not
| 'shared prosperity'.
| xvedejas wrote:
| I have suspected for a while that the single biggest cause is
| our lack of a national Land Value Tax (LVT). After all, Henry
| George predicted a century ago that continued technological
| progress and wealth creation would also lead to poverty
| unless there is a sufficient LVT. Until then, whether you or
| your family holds land is going to be a primary factor in
| whether you benefit from our societal progress.
| preommr wrote:
| Feels like there's a very obvious answer that covers the
| majority of the answer and everything else is quibbling over
| the small remaining sliver.
|
| The UK and other western countries were a global power
| because colonialism. Then WW2 happened and the US was mostly
| unscathed while also prioritizing long term growth through a
| stable democracy which led to high quality of life until the
| rest of the world caught up.
|
| We can talk about immigration, austerity, trade policy, etc.
| But these will only move the needle slightly. The
| overwhelming advantages that these countries experienced
| won't happen again until there's another major disruption.
| lhnz wrote:
| A central issue is that we have an ageing population and
| slowing growth. Old people have a tight grip on who runs the
| country, and tend to get what they want (e.g. high house
| prices, triple pension lock, fewer immigrants, etc).
|
| Unless we can attract highly-skilled workers by offering higher
| salaries than other countries we're doomed to be servicing
| pensioners with fewer and fewer workers. And this will happen
| while our taxes are slowly increased to deal with their health
| needs while other public services are slowly reduced.
|
| Any government that is in power should be working out how to
| build a political coalition that doesn't involve letting the
| old eat the young. Young people shouldn't be spending all of
| their money on rent and need to be able to build wealth and
| support families.
| shouldtack wrote:
| [deleted]
| reqres wrote:
| If the UK was a US state, it wouldn't quite be the poorest per
| capita. It would be USD400 per person better off than
| Mississippi. Everywhere else - from Arkansas to Washington -
| would earn anywhere between several thousand to several tens of
| thousands more.
| orwin wrote:
| In my opinion, what's really important is how bad live the
| bottom 20% of the population. Education rate, life expectancy,
| suffering, suicide rate.
|
| Other indicators are less usefull to see if a country is nice
| to live in.
| deanCommie wrote:
| GDP per capita is a terrible way to compare the actual lived
| experience of the citizens. It's regularly used to make
| Americans feel better about their lot, given that even the
| poorest US states tend to have higher GDP per capita than the
| Canadian provinces and some EU countries that are thrown in
| America's faces as doing better.
|
| But massive corporations and billionaires don't improve the
| day-to-day life of citizens. Americans are wealthy on paper but
| are one health crisis away from destitution.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| Include the cost of an individual's health insurance (and many
| other public services that Americans are charged for despite
| their similar tax load) and I think the cards wouldn't be quite
| so stacked in favour of the USA.
|
| A direct comparison like this can't be made. I'm not even sure
| where your comparison comes from, the median American income
| seems to be about $5k lower than the median UK income.
| cm2187 wrote:
| Given how volatile fx has been, you would get completely
| different results another month.
| addedlovely wrote:
| Seems more interesting that automation via robotics is initially
| driven by car manufacturing [0], of which Germany and France
| produce substantially more units [1]
|
| That said the UK government should really get a grip and have a
| coherent long term strategy instead of fire fighting the next
| media storm from week to week. Automation will need to increase
| given an ageing population, people exiting the workforce (
| willingly or through care or health reasons ) and closing the
| door to immigration via Brexit.
|
| [0] https://ifr.org/ifr-press-releases/news/wr-report-all-
| time-h... [1] https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/car-
| production?con...
| jimlongton wrote:
| Brexit has been absolute poison for the automotive industry in
| the UK, as expected. I would not expect much innovation or
| investment when there is so much uncertainty on trade and
| regulations. Politically it seems there is no appetite to face
| that reality though.
| [deleted]
| subsubzero wrote:
| So when Liz Truss announced tax cuts and there was fire and fury
| after the news and the pound plummeted I started looking into
| what these tax cuts entailed. They were mentioned as giving the
| "rich" huge tax cuts so I imagined that they would see a tax rate
| of 50%(on someone making a million or more a year) going to 25%
| or something irresponsible like that.
|
| After finding the actual figures, for some reason these were very
| hard to find in various news reports, it was a slight drop of 5%
| (from 45% to 40%) and the "rich" were classified as those making
| above 150k. In my mind that salary does not make anyone rich, I
| mean that's a low to mid level engineering salary in the US.
| Basically almost any US professional (lawyer, doctor, engineer
| etc) is going to make that or much more. Then I started looking
| into what does the average British citizen make and found it was
| incredibly low at 38K.
|
| So basically it dawned on me that the UK is a country that pays
| very low wages which to me is very surprising as houses(flats) in
| London are extremely expensive. I would love for a UK citizen to
| chime in, but for me it was a strange realization as I always
| assumed that people in the UK made more than in the US.
| tptacek wrote:
| Based on the number you're citing for the average British
| salary, you're citing pounds, not dollars. That engineering
| salary you're citing is, in an ordinary UK economy, more like
| $225k than $150k (UK comp is also lower than US comp even
| accounting for currency). $225k is not an ordinary US household
| income.
| orf wrote:
| The median US salary is also 31k dollars, compared to 36k
| dollars in the UK
| subsubzero wrote:
| median US salary is $54K, given the pound to dollar
| exchange that would mean a UK workers average salary should
| be 47K(pounds) to equal a US workers average, its not even
| close.
|
| https://www.thebalancemoney.com/average-salary-
| information-f...
| tptacek wrote:
| You're talking about the _current_ , anomalously, news-
| breakingly low pound/dollar rate, right?
| subsubzero wrote:
| yeah I am, typically its $1.50-$1.25 to a pound.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| But a typical US worker has to pay significant amount of
| health insurance premiums and has a significant $3k to
| $10k deductible and up to $17k out of pocket maximum.
|
| Assuming the common 70%/30% premium cost sharing for a
| silver health insurance plan, an American has to pay
| somewhere around ~$200 per person at the minimum. That is
| $2,500+ per year for a healthy young adult, and goes up
| from there, especially for those with dependents who may
| not even be subsidized by the employer.
|
| Although, the quality and quantity of healthcare actually
| delivered and received in both countries is heavily in
| flux, making comparisons even including insurance costs
| quite difficult.
| dxbydt wrote:
| > UK is a country that pays very low wages
|
| Am told "Talent on tap, not on top" is a British expression,
| not American.
| Moissanite wrote:
| I also wonder if we are too caught between US and European
| attitudes to career progression.
|
| I perceive people in the US doing better by being talented,
| but mostly by being able to sell themselves; the more
| shameless the better. Meanwhile in Europe the perception
| seems to be "age before beauty", i.e. you get promoted mostly
| through long tenure, the old fashioned way.
|
| In the UK, these two factors come together to create a
| downward, spiteful pressure on anyone getting too big for
| their boots - unless they bluster straight past it via
| nepotism or good old fashioned public school overconfidence.
| elcritch wrote:
| > In the UK, these two factors come together
|
| And here I thought America had the lead on combining the
| worst parts of different systems! As in Wall Street loves
| privatizing profits while socializing risk like happened
| with the sub-prime fiasco.
|
| But the Brit's applying the strategy to the social strata
| is next level. Seems us and the Brit's really do share a
| common cultural heritage. Well we still got bigger hats. ;)
| birdstheword5 wrote:
| I work in the UK (not in London) for an American company, they
| absolutely love us because they get the same work for about a
| third of the price.
| [deleted]
| philip1209 wrote:
| Some things to keep in mind (as I understand them):
|
| - No additional costs for healthcare or health insurance
|
| - Some state pension reduces the need to save for retirement
|
| - (About) free university reduces the need to save for
| education (or, to have education debt)
|
| - ~39 weeks paid parental leave
|
| - 6 weeks of holiday per year is normal
|
| - Other social benefits, such as childcare
|
| I interpret this as meaning that people don't need to save as
| much money.
| dchesterton wrote:
| That's not accurate on quite a few counts.
|
| - University is definitely not free, at least in England.
| Fees are PS9k per year. Interest rates are high and you don't
| have to pay it back unless you earn over a certain amount so
| in reality, it's more like a graduate tax for many, but it's
| definitely not free.
|
| - Childcare is limited to a few free days a week, often has
| extras to be paid for and is otherwise very expensive. For
| those on higher incomes that's reduced too.
|
| - 52 weeks parental leave is for the mother only and is only
| at statutory pay after 6 weeks (about PS150 per week).
| Paternity leave is 2 weeks at statutory pay.
|
| - 6 weeks of holiday is not normal. Normal would be about 4
| weeks.
|
| - The state pension is PS185 per week. Nearly everybody
| contributes a decent amount to a private pension too.
| Moissanite wrote:
| > Normal would be about 4 weeks
|
| The legal minimum is 20 days plus 8 public holidays. I
| don't know anyone in a white collar job who gets fewer than
| 25 (+8) days off, and in the public sector 30 seems to be
| the low end.
| pavon wrote:
| > Then I started looking into what does the average British
| citizen make and found it was incredibly low at 38K.
|
| There are many ways to define and measure this (mean vs median,
| pre vs post tax, everyone vs just fulltime), so I don't know if
| the numbers are directly comparable, but US median earnings are
| $45K[1], which isn't that much different, especially once you
| take into consideration differences in government benefits.
|
| [1]
| https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2022/demo/p60-27...
| Nimitz14 wrote:
| I see 61k for male and 51k for female for fulltime workers
| (median)?
| jeroenhd wrote:
| I don't get it. Lawyers, doctors, and engineers aren't rich
| anymore?
|
| That 150k, assuming pounds, is a bit under five times the
| normal median income. Assuming dollars, the same number would
| be true for the US.
|
| UK wages aren't low. You're rich.
| lhnz wrote:
| What you're saying is basically true: if you're a skilled
| professional, you'll do much better in the US, than you would
| do in the UK.
|
| US society has even more inequality than the UK. In fact, as a
| Brit, it was really strange to hear that President Biden
| disagreed with the UK's tax cuts for the wealthy -- doesn't he
| realise that the US taxes its rich significantly less than we
| do? It seemed absurd to me but I felt that he probably realises
| that it's in America's interest to continue to attract highly
| skilled workers by taxing them less, and would prefer if the US
| continues to have a monopoly on this advantage.
|
| The average salary in London is higher than PS38k, but it's
| definitely not high enough to buy a property here. You likely
| need to be making upwards of PS150k to buy a house. That is
| quite possible at a hedge fund, HFT or prop trading firm, but I
| don't know any other jobs that pay well enough for home
| ownership in London. Of course, if you have dual incomes and
| are happy to get a heavily mortgaged flat and live on the
| outskirts of London then you have more options..
| nerdawson wrote:
| How does the cost of flats in Manhattan compare to the salary
| of the average American?
|
| London real estate is notoriously expensive and it's not a
| practical way to measure wages.
|
| The top rate of tax on earnings over PS150k (until the pound
| crashed recently would have been around $200k) applies to
| roughly 600,000 workers. The UK has a population of 68M. If you
| earn upwards of PS150k, you're rich.
|
| > In my mind that salary does not make anyone rich, I mean
| that's a low to mid level engineering salary in the US.
| Basically almost any US professional (lawyer, doctor, engineer
| etc) is going to make that or much more.
|
| When your world is tech and you're familiar with the salaries
| on offer, it's easy to lose sight of life for people who aren't
| inside that bubble. Your point of comparison is wildly skewed.
| subsubzero wrote:
| Umm no, 150k US or UK is not rich! look at just rent in these
| US cities:
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/11/how-much-money-you-need-
| for-...
|
| what I am getting it is not a critique of the UK, its just
| that housing, cars and alot of other things are wildly
| expensive compared to what people make(in the US and UK). And
| in the US alot of folks I know are making at that level or
| above and are solid blue collar, police and firefighters, and
| electricians, or nurses(they are based in the bay area so
| that may skew things)
| jimjimjim wrote:
| But, you need to take into account people in the US needing to
| pay for health care, retirement/pension, education, sales tax
| (although the UK has flat rate vat), tipping, insurance for
| everything health related especially if it prevents you from
| working. And house prices in london are like house prices in
| SF, i.e. not representative of the whole country.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| I know that things don't work as well as they should here, but to
| my ears this opinion piece sounds more like parody than reality.
| Take this line.
|
| >Take out Greater London--the prosperity of which depends to an
| uncomfortable degree on a willingness to provide services to
| oligarchs from the Middle East and the former Soviet Union-- and
| the UK is one of the poorest countries in Western Europe."
|
| Yes. London _is_ a financial centre. A large portion of the GDP
| of the country is generated by it 's biggest (main?) population
| centre. Is there a problem that london chooses to indulge in the
| more lucrative financial services over Victorian industry?
|
| Still, i do agree there are historical, major issues with lack of
| productivity and industry. The tories don't seem to have any
| vision for the economy future. They just throw money where its
| popular. I thought for a short while Liz Truss would be the
| answer, but she has turned up short in the IQ department, but i
| don't think its the picture of doom the atlantic thinks it is.
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| mattkevan wrote:
| You're talking rubbish mate.
|
| Lived all over London for 20 years, including pre-
| gentrification Hackney and very gentrified parts of Lambeth
| and there's never been anything like that.
|
| Not even in Croydon, and they're _feral_.
| sealeck wrote:
| Have _you_ ever been there? I've never seen that and I would
| not say London is a shithole (try walking around central
| London, e.g. Regent's Park, Hyde Park and surrounding area).
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| I've lived here my whole life and i don't know what you're
| talking about.
| weavejester wrote:
| I've never seen raw sewage running down the street.
| Admittedly I've not been everywhere in London, and some parts
| are better than others, but it doesn't seem any different
| from any other city I've been in. It feels cleaner than New
| York, for example.
| makomk wrote:
| The UK actually seems to do a better job of treating its
| sewage than other European countries. What happened is that
| a lot of the British press absolutely _loathes_ the current
| government over Brexit and wants them booted out, so they
| created a narrative that our rivers and oceans are suddenly
| full of sewage based off the number of recorded overflows
| increasing due to much better monitoring. (The main problem
| is that the sewers are old, mix storm and waste water, and
| that overwhelms treatment capacity when it rains heavily.
| There 's no easy way to fix it.) I guess one of those
| articles probably got mangled in repetition at some point.
|
| Meanwhile, other nearby countries that are EU members still
| have urban areas with no sewage treatment plants at all and
| just dump all their sewage into waterways in normal
| operation, something that's against EU rules and I'm pretty
| sure was stopped a long time ago in the UK. That doesn't
| get as much media coverage because it doesn't fit a useful
| narrative, though, to the point even people from thsoe
| countries are convinced their country is doing a better
| job.
|
| Also, this story largely originated in the Guardian, and it
| turns out prior to Brexit they were pushing the narrative
| that the big megaproject to 95% fix this in London was
| completely pointless and only served to channel cash to the
| Tories' pals, the problem wasn't really that bad and the
| overflows were mostly rain water anyway: https://www.thegua
| rdian.com/environment/2014/nov/27/london-s... This is, uh,
| rather different from the current narrative they're
| pushing.
| orf wrote:
| Lived here for a decade and don't know what you're talking
| about.
|
| If I was to indulge this for even a second I'd point out this
| massive project sewage project involving 6 tunnel boring
| machines: https://www.tideway.london/the-tunnel/
| jen20 wrote:
| Where, exactly? A street name, preferably.
| sealeck wrote:
| The comment is also _completely_ without any substantial basis.
| Sure, London provides financial services, but there's no data
| provided to suggest that a substantial portion of London's
| economic activity is generated by providing services to shady
| individuals.
| umeshunni wrote:
| What's even worse is this chart that the article is based on
| is:
|
| https://www.newstatesman.com/chart-of-the-day/2022/07/wages-...
|
| Title: UK income has fallen significantly behind that of its
| rivals
|
| Actual data: Change in median disposable income
|
| I'll repeat my common comment that I wished I lived in a world
| where 'journalists' had to take basic math lessons.
| Nimitz14 wrote:
| Talking with a colleague (while in the UK) I remember us agreeing
| that the UK felt distinctly behind other WE countries. The
| quality is often lacking.
| United857 wrote:
| Link is 404 for me for some reason. archive.oh to the rescue:
| https://archive.ph/bSovb
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