Hacker News Reader

Comment by Scoundreller | Hacker News Reader

Wait until you see what happens when Americans get 4-6 weeks of holiday per year like the rest of the world

Absolutely nothing. They'll either not use it like now, or not be able to afford, like now.

> or not be able to afford, like now.

The top 250 million adult Americans are richer than the top 250 million adults in Europe, Asia, Latin America, or Africa. So what are you talking about?

The median American is far richer - with a far higher income and disposable income - than the median in Europe, Asia, Latin America or Africa. It's not remotely close in fact.

The median in Europe for example, pegs you down toward an income of just $12,000 and a net worth of only a few thousand dollars.

The US is a country of 330 million people where the median person is wealthier than Germany or Sweden. The US is by a considerable margin the wealthiest per capita large population in world history.

In the US four in ten people can’t come up with $400. People are paid a lot more than in other countries, but retain hardly any wealth. A large percent of Americans are paycheck to paycheck, meaning once housing/food/healhcare/other essential unmovable costs are paid for, there is no money left to save for anything. America might have the greatest level wealth inequality in the world.

> In the US four in ten people can’t come up with $400.

I'm pretty sure this is due to some really poor surveys, not the actual state of things. There's a number of debunkings, too. [0]

> America might have the greatest level wealth inequality in the world.

According to Wikipedia, the gini wealth coefficient list (as of 2000) goes Namibia, Zimbabwe, Denmark, the world as a whole, Switzerland, and then the US. [1] Most people would not consider Denmark to be a particularly unequal country. For more recent numbers it seems that Russia, India, Thailand, Indonesia, Brazil and China all have a higher proportion of wealth in the hands of the 1% than the US does. [2] That's as of 2016, and I don't think the US was able to 'catch up' that much in the past 3 years.

0: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-04/the-40...

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_distribut...

2: https://www.statista.com/chart/6908/the-worlds-most-unequal-...

40% of american families can't even afford a $400 emergency. Most people live paycheck to paycheck, regardless of their income. Retirement funds are a HUGE problem here because 25% have ZERO saved. Zero. Not to mention the 1.5 trillion in education debt.

https://money.cnn.com/2018/05/22/pf/emergency-expenses-house...

Often (not always!) this is due to lifestyle inflation, retail therapy and poor money management. A lot more people have the means to be saving for $400 emergencies but instead buy some plastic crap that gets used once, eat out too often, get the latest iPhone every year or buy a car or house beyond their means. And I've been guilty of this as well.

Just look at garages. They are often so packed full of junk there is no room to park a car (and then end up filling driveways and the street bumper to bumper). Once you start paying attention to this you notice it a lot.

I think we're all aware of the reason this exists. People are shit at budgeting. That just reinforces my argument that nothing will change with more time off.

That will unfortunately never happen.

Apparently 5 millions of americans already work as digital nomads

That number seems 20X higher than what I would have expected. Either the bar to be a nomad is meaninglessly low (e.g., works occasionally from local coffee shop) or I've grown out of touch.

I 'm also surprised by the number, but i ve found it in multiple sources. and digital nomadism is indeed a hot trend

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/may/11/digital-n...

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=...

Recent college grads couch surfing and trying to make a career of blogging/youtubing? Are we counting the beach/ski bum sort? Migrant farm workers?

About 3% of the US workforce seems way high not to be including a bunch of stuff one wouldn't expect.

They're not using the 2 weeks allocated to them as it is.

That should be mandated. Harder to hide embezzlement/fraud.

It typically is in the finance sectors, but not many other places.

It’s good for business continuity too. You don’t want to overly depend on any particular person, as they could quit/hit by bus/leave at any time.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com