Comment by neplus | Hacker News Reader

Comment by neplus | Hacker News Reader

I was born and raised in Canada. I, like many of my peers at the "top" Canadian universities, focused solely on recruiting to the "top" American companies that came to campus to recruit[1].

I would describe Canada as generally being tightly range bound. One of the most striking things about coming to the U.S. is the large class of what I would consider to be the working poor. People who are truly just doing enough to get by and are one mishap away from financial ruin. Of course, having lived in SF and NYC this is constantly juxtaposed with extreme, incomprehensible wealth that is equally striking.

In Canada, in my experience, the vast majority are still in the middle with few outliers in either direction. Earning potentials are significantly capped - even in areas like banking and tech - and social programs make it quite difficult for there to be the kind of working poor I observe daily here.

I've often thought to myself that I couldn't imagine what it would be like to make $50k in the United States (even living in a low CoL area). From health insurance, to private school costs (given the quality of many public schools), to college costs. It would seem an intense burden. Certainly if I had offers that paid between $50-100k in both the U.S. and Canada I would move back to Canada. I would feel I have no other choice.

With all that said, I make many multiples - especially after tax - of what I could ever have hoped to make in Canada. I have been inside institutions with the kind of institutional framework with no comparable in Canada (from a human capital and technological perspective). Opportunities have been afforded to me here that either do not exist or are analogous, but significantly inferior in Canada. The United States has given me a wonderful life and I'll always be grateful for the opportunity to be here.

I make no claim as to which economic system is better. I would just observe that Canada is a much easier place to live, but in my experience lacking in the kind of dynamism you see in the United States (that translates into personal opportunities, income, and fulfilment).

[1] Top is obviously somewhat subjective. McGill, U of T, UBC, and U of Waterloo would be the "top" schools. The "top" jobs are FANG or FANG-adjacent, investment banks or hedge funds (GS, JPM, Citadel, etc.), and consulting firms (McKinsey, BCG, Bain).

> I've often thought to myself that I couldn't imagine what it would be like to make $50k in the United States (even living in a low CoL area). From health insurance, to private school costs (given the quality of many public schools), to college costs. It would seem an intense burden. Certainly if I had offers that paid between $50-100k in both the U.S. and Canada I would move back to Canada. I would feel I have no other choice.

I wonder how much of this perception comes from the fact that people who have lived in both Canada and the U.S. probably lived in places like SF and NYC, and those American cities are particularly dysfunctional. And that dysfunctionality is particularly visible because of differences in housing patterns. (Toronto versus Chicago is a good example. The two cities are the same size, but Toronto's metro area has 6.5 million people, while Chicago's has almost 10 million. If housing patterns were similar, Chicago would have another 1.5-2 million middle class people living in the city, lessening the impression of gaping wealth inequality between the city's various neighborhoods.)

The fact is that Canada spends almost exactly the same percentage of GDP on social welfare as the U.S., and slightly less per student on K-12 education. It's hard to imagine that Canada really manages to get a dramatically different safety net for the same money. More likely to me is that U.S. urbanites have little experience with American families in suburban Georgia or Kansas--places where making $50,000 and getting employer-paid health insurance (like most middle class families get), and sending your kids to the perfectly good neighborhood school makes for a quite comfortable life.

> It's hard to imagine that Canada really manages to get a dramatically different safety net for the same money

Hard for you to imagine maybe, yet the numbers speak for themselves.

I have thought about this quite a bit and tried to word my initial post as a personal statement (not an objective fact of the inferiority of making $50k in Kansas as opposed to Quebec).

I entirely agree with your point that American families in Kansas, et al. seem reasonably content and the kind of fears that would lead me to look to Canada over the U.S. if I made $50-100k are perhaps entirely irrational.

My response though - again personal in nature, not objective in any sense - would be:

Canadians grew up in Canada with an imperfect healthcare system. Nevertheless, it's there and assessable whenever it is needed. There's no fear of random bills or imperfect coverage (there is a fear of waiting weeks or months, however, which is perhaps more important).

Canadian immigrants only understand the U.S. healthcare system in the abstract -- so losing your health insurance or having it and getting dinged with a large bill is a bit of a boogeyman (scary, but perhaps only because we don't fully understand how it all works in practice).

Likewise K-12 and college in Canada is a much simpler affair. I grew up in a city of 100,000. We had no private schools so everyone went to K-12 together. When it came time to go to university, my top-ranked school (in Canada) cost $7,000 a year and was quite easy to get into.

So for a middle-class Canadian family the notion of setting up your child to have the very best Canadian education available isn't an overly stressful affair. K-12 is public and college is reasonably affordable with reasonably high acceptance rates. Importantly: even if private K-12 is available, it's not overly difficult to get into McGill, et al. so why bother?

For a middle-class American family - because private K-12 is available and likely helps with getting into the best colleges - you feel somewhat compelled to send your child there (lest you do them a disservice). Then - again because elite colleges are available and better than privates - you feel compelled to help your child get into and pay for an elite, private education (even the top public options are quite pricey).

In reality what America provides is better alternatives. An issue I see with many colleagues with children is spending $10k a year on private K-12, but feeling like a bad parent because they can't afford the $30k option that has superior outcomes (a classic urban insecurity that is likely not entirely rational). In Canada there are few choices (or in health care only one choice) and while they are inferior to American comparables, they are much more widely assessable. You send your child to the public K-12, because that's just what's available. Your child has just one healthcare option. Your child can only pick from four "elite" universities and if she or he applies to them all, will likely get into one (at a reasonable cost).

It's all the paradox of choice, I suppose.

I find the US colleges to be "clubs" with lots of alumni support. I haven't watch NFL in a while, but for some reason pros who have been in NFL for 10 years still say which college they went to. I think this motivates people to pay extremely high fees to get into the club.

Whereas in Canada, like you said, "if she or he applies to them all, will likely get into one". And in 10 years nobody cares where you went school. Oddly more of a meritocracy than in the US, which you wouldn't expect in a more socialist Canadian system.

On what dimension is Canada "socialist?"

On a provincial level, the NDP socialist political party has had success getting voted in. Recently they are usually not re-elected in after messing everything up, but socialism in Canada has strong roots: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism_in_Canada.

This paradox of choice largely doesn't exist in the US either. The majority of people in both countries didn't graduate college. For almost everyone, the elite universities aren't even on the radar (much less the elite employers like FANG into which those universities feed). This upper middle class striverism is over-reported in the media, but is irrelevant to the vast majority of Americans.

My wife went to high school in rural Iowa. Everyone went to the local high school, and then the smart kids went to U of Iowa, the next tranche went to Iowa State, etc. Her parents were "rich" (her step-dad is a surgeon) but there wasn't much in the way to distinguish them from everyone else. Other “rich” families owned farms, a couple of stores in town, etc. She did FFA (Future Farmers of America) and worked her way through college babysitting. (Tuition at U of I is $8,500 today, about the same as University of Toronto or McGill.)

I should add, in Iowa under 10% of people are below the poverty line, about the same as Canada, infant mortality rate is about the same as Canada, the homelessness rate is 1/10 what it is in Canada, 94% of the population is covered by health insurance, etc. I just got back from Des Moines. Talk about a prosperous, broadly middle class society. The child poverty rate in Des Moines is 14% versus 25% for Toronto. There are no FANG jobs, but millennials with completely normal colleges-graduate jobs own houses. If you want to know why many Americans don’t view their country as a loaf-apocalyptic wasteland, it’s because they don’t live in New York or San Francisco.

I wouldn't disagree with any of this except to suggest my comment was narrowly tailored to parents who feel compelled to provide their children "the very best" education and opportunity set in the country (predicated on ranking and exclusivity). If you believe American parents who aim toward this have an undue paranoia about class and an unhealthy amount of insecurity, then I'm afraid we entirely agree.

However, the point was that in Canada, because the peaks are lower, getting "the very best" education is much more readily achievable by those in the middle than in the United States.

> If you want to know why many Americans don’t view their country as a loaf-apocalyptic wasteland, it’s because they don’t live in New York or San Francisco.

I certainly hope my post hasn't given this impression. I have a green card and am proudly in the pipeline to become an American citizen.

This is a wonderful, special country which has provided me immense opportunity that does not exist within Canada (the primary thrust of my original post).

The vast majority of NY is more like the cliches people spout here and elsewhere about Kansas than NYC. The capital district of NY has about a million people, and IT jobs paying $50-70K. Just as you say, "normal college graduates own houses". You can get a place here for the same inflation-adjusted price as 25 years ago.

*if you're straight and white.

For many, living in Iowa isn't really a choice. Same for many places that are not major cities.

I won’t claim to know what it’s like to be gay in Iowa, but as a non-white person myself I’d love to live in Iowa. Des Moines has roughly the same percentage of Hispanics and non-whites as Portland or Seattle. The income gap between Hispanic and non-Hispanic households is also narrower in Iowa than the national average.

Iowa City, home of the University of Iowa, has a large, active, prosperous gay population. Activism is outspoken. Churches have gay ministers. The Gay Pride parade every year is boisterous and hugely attended.

Not that there isn't gay-bashing, like so many places. But I'd guess there's 'safety in numbers' going on?

Anyway even back in the day, I had several gay classmates (but back then they weren't outspoken about it). These days, my son's classes had coming-out parties etc for classmates.

My daughter-in-law's parents are gay and outspoken about it. My cousin's daughter is married to a wonderful lady, and they've adopted 4 kids who are amazing additions to the clan. We have lunch once a month and catch up.

So some parts of Iowa, at any rate, are not wastelands of backwardness.

I live in an area of New York State, near a tertiary city, where the median household income is ~$50,000. Parent's comment that to earn this would be an "intense burden" is borderline offensive. I agree with you that urban elite likely have little experience with American (or even Canadian) families living in these conditions. For perspective, such an income puts these families in the 90th percentile, globally.

Parent described how grateful they are to have the opportunities they do. They are obviously very privileged, they should be very grateful.

> The fact is that Canada spends almost exactly the same percentage of GDP on social welfare as the U.S.

If by spending social welfare you mean transfering taxpayer dollars to big health corporation dividends, then yes, the US and Canada spend about the same amount of GDP on "social welfare".

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