It was quite jarring, for me, as I had been quite sought-after, before (Which was why I had the job I had, at a marquee corporation).
Turns out out, it was because of my age.
Lot of these laid off folks, are probably gonna encounter the same thing.
What do you mean? Are you young and they were interested? Or a senior level developer who was older and they were interested?
The ageism in tech is pervasive. People seldom even bother hiding it; even though it's just as illegal as sexism or racism.
Lots of smiling young faces. Maybe one or two gray heads, and you often find out they are Principals, in one way or another.
One of the dirty little secrets of tech ageism, is the ones doing it, are often older folks, themselves. IBM has been caught doing it, and the impetus came from their (quite gray) C-Suite.
Especially people in their late 30s to 40s with kids who haven't left yet. I suppose there's really no too old to have kids who are not yet independent, given that a non-negligible percentage of millenials and zoomers will still be living with parents and whatnot
What's it like when being laid off in the UK? Do you get guaranteed severance and some breathing room from the stress of rent or mortgage payments? Do you worry about access to high quality Healthcare?
Overall, do you think being in the UK makes you less worried that a layoff will leave you broke and homeless?
You get a minimum of 2 week's extra pay if you have over 2 years service, and Job Seekers' Allowance is about 77 quid a week - so imagine living on less than $500 a month.
Healthcare access (via the NHS) is unaffected, you might be able to get free prescriptions too.
But in general it's terrible.
As always in Europe you either want to be an ultra-rich landowning aristocrat (little to no property tax, inheritance tax, etc.) or very poor/unemployed (e.g. a refugee) so you qualify for state housing, etc. - work does not pay. You pay high taxes and then don't qualify for assistance when it matters. The USA is better by far where you can just manage your own savings with your 3-4x higher salary, healthcare is still an issue though.
First of all you get around 1kish a month no questions asked, more if you have bills etc. you can prove you need to pay
and if you opted into "unemployment insurance" while employed, you'd be getting 60-80% of your salary for the next 12 months
this insurance costs around 100e a year to opt into
I just left an inappropriately long comment saying, in effect, actually the same thing.
The US isn't perfect, but if you want to work you're generally able to move up the economic ladder easier from what I've seen. High income taxes combined with consumption taxes make wealth creation via employment almost impossible.
Depends on what 'wealth' means here, but you can get a 1% salary in England in your late 20s by contracting in tech and save several grand a month. Put that in shares & buy-to-lets and you'll be very well off by 40 compared to the average person. With the lower cost of living I don't see any issues here... If that's what drives you of course.
According to recent Nobel prizes in economic (Duflo and Banerjee), moving up the economic ladder has degraded so much in the US that it's currently lagging slightly behind Europe.
Their study dates back to ~2018, though.
When my partner became unemployed in the USA i was amazed that she was getting $750 a week and her healthcare plan was $200 a month due to the marketplace subsidy.
I studied, lived and worked in high demand field all my adult life in Europe, am in my mid 30s and have nothing really to show for it. Salaries are lower than USA, the taxes are ridiculous, (progressive up to 50%), reasonably new house prices in reasonable locations are in millions. And health care... lol.. ok - it just about works, but as you can imagine anything public is prone to corruption and lowest passable quality
Seeing USA, the last bastion for people who could make something out of themselves by real work crumbling and crawling to its death is disheartening.
I was merely pointing out the fact that it was possible to ascent to higher wealth class in USA with regular 'honest work' some years ago, whereas in Europe this is in general impossible due to taxation schemes designed to suck the life out of anyone who decides to work as opposed to being born an 'aristocrat' inheriting money, land etc...
Marginal tax rates in California are also around 50% as well (above or below, depending on income). Houses are certainly in the millions.
But on top of this you get to pay separately for extremely expensive health insurance and education, things that in most countries are very reasonably priced or even "free" (not free since it's paid for by the taxes, but at least you get services in exchange for your taxes, unlike in the US where you pay the taxes and have to pay separately for all the services).
$35,000-$80,000 [25%] $80,000-$170,000 [28%]
I'm just going to let you know that in Europe (Austria) personal income of 32,076 to 62,080 is taxed at 42% rate above 60k is taxed with 50%. And this does not include social and health insurance that is mandatory...
To give you TLDR of the European experience, you look at the gross salary, multiply by 0.45 and this is the real money you would see landing in your account, .. enjoy .. :)
Have you ever spoken to a (non-white) refugee in Europe?
> Do you worry about access to high quality Healthcare?
I don't have private healthcare. Unless you're very rich most people in the UK just put up with the NHS. I'm young and healthy though so almost never need it anyway. In general I don't think any worries about access to healthcare here.
> Overall, do you think being in the UK makes you less worried that a layoff will leave you broke and homeless?
I'll give you a long answer to this because social mobility and the affordability of homes is something I care deeply about and apparently have a controversial opinion on... But the TL;DR would be that I'm more worried about being broke, but less about being homeless than someone in a similar situation to myself living in the US.
Now the long answer...
The UK is weird in that if you're from a background like mine and you want a decent life (a home and family) you're generally better off not working. With the exception of myself the only people I know from my childhood who have their own homes are those without jobs and on benefits. I don't believe this is the same in the US.
In the UK if you work you're unlikely to be able to afford your own home unless you have fairly wealthy parents who can give you money, or a very good job – and if you're from a council estate you're almost guaranteed to have neither.
So I'm not worried about being homeless because the state will give me a home, but I often feel I'm in an impossible situation in terms of moving up the economic ladder via employment. Imo there's no real wealth mobility in the UK because we're taxed so aggressively and progressively on income. In effect the more you try to earn to not be poor the more the state will hold you back to ensure that never happens, but if you're super wealthy already then you're not taxed a penny on what you have while the poor will pay for your public services and pension via income tax and various consumption taxes.
The end result is that it means the best way to be wealthy in the UK is simply to inherit it (in ways that avoid inheritance tax, obviously). Although I would acknowledge starting a business is another viable option as that way you don't need to worry about income tax – but that's obviously not easy and requires a decent amount of luck.
So I think the right answer your question is that it's just different here. If you're poor the state looks after you very well in comparison to the US. I know single mums who have been given £500,000 houses to live in by the state and £30,000 a year to live on (untaxed). But if you're from a background like mine and want to work for a living there isn't a practical path to afford a £500,000 house in your 30s as a single parent – not to mention the luxury of not having to work a single day of your life for that lifestyle.
Speaking purely from a personal perspective, I would I'd feel much more financially secure in the US because the tax system is fairer there. My understand is that in the US you're taxed less for trying to build wealth and I don't believe you have consumption taxes. I think this is generally why people who work hard in the US can end up wealthy, but in the UK similar things don't really happen.
But I would point out that most people in the UK disagree with me on this. Those who claim to care about social mobility the most here are generally the loudest advocates for even higher levels of income tax.
If you’re not working, sure there are some state benefits but to assume that life on benefits is some sort of ‘easy ride’ is nonsense. Your quality of life will be poor, there will barely be enough money to heat and eat and your “house” will most often be a poor quality council flat. Some accommodation is so bad there have been deaths caused by mould.
It sounds like you may have developed a skewed view of the situation perhaps due to your personal experiences. You should read up on some of the myths about benefits at this website:
https://www.poverty.ac.uk/editorial/exposing-benefit-‘myths’
Income tax rates for the highest earners are relatively low in the UK compared to other European nations. Denmark has the highest personal income tax rate, at 56%, compared to 45% in the UK.
I do agree there is a problem with inherited wealth in the UK though. Money makes money.
But on your overall point — nope. For the vast majority of people in the UK, all the stats evidence that your life is likely to be way more pleasant if you’re earning.
Here's a real world example for you – my sister is a single mum with no qualifications. Were she to get a job and work her ass off the most she'll realistically make is about £20,000. Some of this will be taxed and she'll no longer receive state benefits. But if you're a single mum on benefits you make around £2,000 a month tax free and have housing provided. The fact you think she can work to afford a house and a better quality of life than this is almost laughable.
But to your point if you're a median earner, say someone who's middle class and you work your ass off, then yes, you'll probably make a bit more – maybe £28,000. But keep in mind you'll have to work every day of your life and struggle for that privilege.
Point is the statistics suggest something that isn't true – that most poor people in the UK are better off working.
To give another example, my girlfriend's mum is a single mum of 5 children. Last year she decided she wanted a part time job because she's getting bored sitting around doing drugs and drinking all day (this is actually what she said). My girlfriend was obviously really happy about this and went with her to the job centre to help her find work for the first time in her life. But guess what happen? The job centre advised her not to get a job because she would be financially worse off for doing so. Unlike the link you provided this isn't some hypothetical calculation based on median UK salaries verse some hypothetical entitlement to state benefits, is a real example of what happens when you're poor. And I could cite you more examples like this from real families I know. So I respectfully I don't think you know what you're talking about here.
And I'm sorry if I'm coming off as defensive, but I need you to understand I feel people like yourself are in part responsible for the crap I have to deal with on daily basis. This single mum I'm citing just this week went to hospital for liver failure. Had she got a job last year this probably wouldn't be happening. And almost all of the kids in my family end up on drugs, in prison or in gangs. In my opinion this is largely because they have no reason to work. It's fucking hard watching people you love in pain constantly and encouraged to fuck their lives up by the state.
I know I won't change your opinion, but I guess just question some of what you read and ask if the statistics are painting a representative picture. Maybe ask why so many people aren't getting jobs and choosing to live on benefits if what you're saying is correct – do you think they're just too stupid to understand that working would be better or something?
But you see, every time without fail I try to have this conversation someone like yourself pops up citing me stats trying to disprove things which I have direct experience with and it's frustrating because I just don't think this this can be resolved until more people suffer and understand what's happening to poor families.
Anyway, to be clear, because I wasn't in my last comment, I actually don't think benefits are generous enough, which might surprise you? The problem we have in the UK is that the majority of our tax gets allocated to boomers in one way or another, mostly via the NHS and pensions. Boomers as the wealthiest generation shouldn't be the largest beneficiary of state support at the cost of young workers. What we should do is keep all of the support currently offered but stop making that dependent on not having a job. What should be conditional is benefits like pensions and free healthcare to those with wealth (not income). Tax should be more dependant on wealth and not income. This would allow those trying to build wealth an easier path to do so while also taxing those with the most, not just those earning a lot but poor because they're single parents and need to pay for a house and two kids.
To your point on UK income tax rates being low relative to other European countries, I believe what I'm describing is a problem elsewhere in Europe too.
> For the vast majority of people in the UK, all the stats evidence that your life is likely to be way more pleasant if you’re earning.
I agree, but we're not all middle class.
Your experience is your experience, all I can say is mine is different and almost certainly less relevant to this thread.
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/benefits/help-if-on-a-low-...
The single parent on 30k presumably is either disabled or has a disabled child?
Good luck with it
- high guaranteed severance (~3-5 months of salary), then benefits that quickly decrease from pretty good to rather bad for 1.5 years;
- lower severance (1-2 months of salary), then high benefits for one year (nearly full pay), then low benefits for a few months.
In either case, you get ~1 year of the same health care coverage as you had before layoff, then you get downgraded to cheap health care coverage.
Still highly stressful, though.