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cdoxsey

Why do you think the social safety net is non-existent? The US has tons of social welfare programs:

- TANF (temporary assistance for needy families)

- Medicaid

- SNAP (food stamps)

- CHIP (child health insurance program)

- unemployment

- disability

- housing assistance

- social security

- ...

States and cities also have many welfare programs along with private charities.

It is absolutely possible to save money on an average salary. In general, Americans are indebted and live beyond their means by choice, not by necessity. And once they get into the debt cycle it can be extremely difficult to get out.

Check out Dave Ramsey for practical tips: https://www.daveramsey.com/store/product/the-total-money-mak...

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I think its more complicated. For example, lets say you file for unemployment in Colorado. It can take 4-6 weeks for your claim to be accepted, but you must start (by their rules) looking for work as soon as you open your claim. So imagine, you are living paycheck to paycheck when you had a job, and falling through the cracks now that you don't. You start applying for jobs as soon as you file your claim, but need to buy clothes for interviews, money to drive to interviews, etc - but that money is not coming for another 6 weeks in worst case scenario. And there are already bills like rent, phone, car insurance, maybe a credit card to be paid.

There are all these little gotchas - when there are no margins in your life - where a crack opens a little here, or there, and you fall through, and without help just becomes all the more harder to pull yourself up.

From my Scandinavian perspective US welfare has always seemed like a plausible deniability scheme rather than a genuine attempt.

It's not for lack of trying. The US spends an enormous amount of money on social programs. See here for an example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_social_we...

It's less than Denmark/Norway/Sweden, but more than the UK for example (per capita).

Yes but the welfare spending doesn't go as further as it does in in Australia, NZ, Denmark, Norway, Sweden e.t.c

Mostly because US spends a ridiculous amount of money just moving records and doing busy work with layers and layers of middlemen. The healthcare complex is a good example.

The US "safety-net" health system --- medicare in particular --- is significantly more efficient than the private market health care system in the US, which makes that example poor evidence for the argument you're trying to support.

Is that the bar we're setting?

Why do you think cost per capita is a good indicator for what's a genuine attempt at implementing welfare programs?

> It is absolutely possible to save money on an average salary.

Not to pick on your use of average in general concertation, but it appears the average income is around 45 000/year and the median is around 30 000 - for all demographics.

I'm not sure what 30k is after taxes most places in the US... 25k if you're not a home owner?

It may be feasible to save some money in areas with low cost of living - I don't know.

I also only get these weekly/yearly numbers to line up if I multiply with 52 weeks - but is paid vacation and sick days the norm in the US?

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/wkyeng.t05.htm

https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/COLA/central.html

Salaried employees typically get paid vacation and sick leave. Employees paid hourly wages do not. Some don’t even get unpaid leave.

That's simply not true. Most full time hourly workers accrue vacation hours just like salaried workers.

Tell that to every retail and fast food worker out there.

And how many of them are “full time”?

I didn't see any specification of "full time". Besides, what does that have to do with the issue anyway? If we're talking about calculating annual incomes, many of those workers work well over 40 hours per week across multiple jobs.

You didn’t see any specification in the response that you replied to where I said “Most full time hourly workers accrue vacation hours just like salaried workers.”?

Even the original post I replied to said Salaried employees typically get paid vacation and sick leave. Employees paid hourly wages do not. Some don’t even get unpaid leave.

The distinction of who gets paid vacation and sick leave is not based on “salaried” vs “hourly” but based on “full time” vs. “part time”. The distinction isn’t nevessarily based on that either.

While I don’t know of any salaried jobs without benefits, I know of plenty of part time hourly jobs with benefits and know of very few hourly jobs that are classified as “full time” that you don’t have paid holidays and vacations.

In fact my wife could go part time and still get full health benefits. I know plenty of people who do what she does part time specifically for the benefits where their checks are basically a token amount while thier spouses make most of the money doing something without benefits like owning a small business or in my case depending on which way the wind is blowing, doing contract/consulting software development instead of working in a salaried position.

Many people I know who do part time work DO get leave and health benefits.

But the original post by e12e I was replying to above doesn’t say anything about full time - it was just talking about calculations to extrapolate wages from income: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17637626

US Median household income is about $60k/year.

It wouldn't surprise me if, on average, one household had two income earners, so it seems in line with the parent's point.

Mean earners per US household is about 1.3

Unsurprisingly, this number rises with household income. It's ~0.4 for the lowest quintile and ~2.0 for the highest.

It might be only 'the press' skewing our view here in the EU. Social safety means that I don't have to worry no matter what happens; the stories in the article and in this thread do not seem to point to anything like that in the US. When I get ill, I cannot wait for months for help or money; it needs to be near instant. I also cannot do too much work to get it; I am ill; if I could go to all kinds of offices and fill paperwork and talk with people, I could work. So it needs to be automatic mostly. I might be wrong, but I do not get the impression that's the case with any of these. But that might just be people being negative or the press likes to put down things?

If you're referring to Hospitals, they are required by law to treat you regardless of your ability to pay:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Medical_Treatment_an...

There are many medical conditions which are not covered and require insurance or out of pocket payment.

> If you're referring to Hospitals, they are required by law to treat you regardless of your ability to pay

Hospitals—well, emergency departments of hospitals that take Medicare—are required to screen for and stabilize any “emergency medical conditions”, as defined in law, regardless of ability to pay. As your source noted, that is not a mandate for general treatment, or even stabilization of medical conditions generally.

And not only the coverage of the hospital: also the coverage of not being able to work for a period or forever. In a social security system I expect both to be covered.

Social Security covers long term disability: https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/disability/

> - unemployment

Let's see. In the US, as soon as you can qualify for unemployment, you usually get USD 1,000-2,000/month in post tax income for 6 months.

In Switzerland, you get 70-80% of your last salary.

Are you guys still sure you are not getting ripped off buy your government (respectively the billionaires who own it)?

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