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Comment by pharmakom | Hacker News Reader

I’m not sure about that. Middle income America has cheaper housing, food and durables with higher wages than middle income in Western Europe.

The very bottom of America is (of course) much worse off

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I split my time between the US and Europe and I am quite sure low and middle income Europeans have it better.

Quality of life is a pretty subtle thing to measure. It’s not directly tied to the number of square meters in your home or how many cheeseburgers you can buy with an hour’s wage. It has more to do with the amount of fear and deprivation in one’s life. With a strong social safety net, low crime, strong employee protections, universal healthcare, inexpensive higher ed, plentiful time off, and a culturally rich environment with high social cohesion, Europeans live contented lives and don’t spend much time thinking about doom scenarios like what if they get laid off, get sick, or become a victim. Certainly they are jealous of American’s big paychecks and cheap iPhones.

The dark side of this is that wages and savings are quite low and the essentials take up most of people’s budgets, so something like the energy price shock can cause a lot of suffering. It’s sort of unthinkable in the US but lots of people sat in the cold last winter.

in the end the hedonic treadmill will smooth it out anyways

Indeed. The hedonic treadmill kicks in once you reach a certain level a bit above poverty. A higher percentage of people are on the treadmill in Europe than in the US.

I associate the hedonic treadmill with a life of advertising-driven consumerism, and the US seems way ahead of Europe in that regard.

In my idea of the hedonic treadmill, one can be on the treadmill but slow it down or even switch it off and cease to run on it. More people in Europe are on the treadmill in the sense that they've maxed out their happiness, but they aren't necessarily running on it. Perhaps of the people who are on the treadmill, more people are actively running on it in the US, driven by the consumerism (essentially addiction) that you point out.

And in some ways you never get all the way onto the treadmill in the US. Even very well paid people can be one layoff or diagnosis away from disaster and there’s a constant undercurrent of anxiety as a result.

Yes. After a couple of years in the US I returned to Europe, specifically one of the smaller poorer western European countries. The first thing that struck me, quite viscerally, was that nobody was afraid. And why should they be?

Yup. I spent some time in Portugal this summer. I just got back to Florida and went to a LGBT bar last night. There was a guy at the door in head to toe tactical gear, just hanging out. For a moment I wondered if it was some early Halloween costume or if he was some nutjob. Then I realized that the bar had PAID him to stand there and that he was 100% ready to stop the next mass shooting. Chilling. Have we sunk so low?

> With a strong social safety net, low crime, strong employee protections, universal healthcare, inexpensive higher ed, plentiful time off, and a culturally rich environment with high social cohesion, Europeans live contented lives and don’t spend much time thinking about doom scenarios like what if they get laid off, get sick, or become a victim.

Yes, the grass is always greener on the other side. And people tend to be more aware of problems around them than those further away (baring extreme cases like third world countries and disaster areas).

I live in one of the richest European countries according to the linked article. I've often seen it held as shining beacon in English language press. But according to our local media and parliamentarians, a large and increasing share of the population is falling into poverty, increasingly has to choose between food or heating or sports/music activities for their children. In a national opinion poll 48% cites crime as a large/very large problem.

I don’t base my opinions on what I read in the media. I don’t think that reflects any reality anymore. The media is addicted to doom and gloom.

Having spent significant time in both continents, I believe regular people have it better in the EU. I think the rich have it better in the US with low taxes, extreme wages, and a market that offers them better versions of everything in life for those that can pay.

> In a national opinion poll 48% cites crime as a large/very large problem.

Perception of crime is isn’t the same thing as reality.

I don’t know what country you’re in so I can’t speak any further, but just going off of hard data, the US has a much higher violent crime rate than does Western Europe.

> according to our local media and parliamentarians, a large and increasing share of the population is falling into poverty, increasingly has to choose between food or heating or sports/music activities for their children

Similar vein to above, but also “increasing” means a different thing depending on the starting point. Doubling the poverty rate from 1 to 2% (obviously a made up number here, just making a point) doesn’t mean you’re doing worse than a place that is consistently holding at 10%.

> It’s sort of unthinkable in the US but lots of people sat in the cold last winter.

It's weird, but the US _does_ have assistance for heating for low income families. This is not to say that it's always adequate, but it does exist. Do Europeans have similar programs? Are they just underfunded relative to need in times when fuel prices spike? Or are they too hard to get into?

This issue, last winter, was that energy prices spiked much higher in Europe than they did in the US due to the fact that most of the gas used in Europe used to come from Russia. This issue has been largely sorted out, and I do not expect things to be quite so drastic this winter.

That said, there were definitely programs to help out the hardest hit; it was tough for some, but people weren't freezing to death.

> Middle income America has cheaper housing, food and durables with higher wages than middle income in Western Europe.

Is food really cheaper? That's not what I heard but I don't know.

But that's a weird take. Quality of life is not entirely dominated by your purchase power if you have enough to sustain life. What about having time for culture, friends, family, quality of the environment, safety, access to healthcare etc. The only exception may be housing.

Some cities here (in europe) have an absolutely incredible quality of life and I would never factor in the price of groceries because it doesn't matter. Everyone in the middle class can afford groceries. Housing maybe, in some cities it's a real issue, but I personally don't care as much because I don't really need an abundant apartment so I always find something. I want beautiful cafes just around the corner, vibrant, active culture from fine art to independent, small artists and beautiful parks and buildings.

I would never trade it for a big car and a big house in some suburb.

A friend of mine is working 32h a week and I am starting to think that he has figured out how to really improve his quality of live. On a programmers wage you're still middle class, you just earn so much. And he's travelling so much, meeting friends, getting into hobbies or just enjoying a really nice coffee in a cafe, taking in the beautiful autumn lights, while everyone else is working that you're always a but envious.

In which country is your friend working?

germany, but in a more mature startup and not an old, big company

Can I ask which city that is where your friend is enjoying life?

Speaking from an American food perspective, my family avoids grocery stores and unhealthy processed foods. We receive almost all our food directly from farms and fishermen, the other products we buy wholesale from smaller companies that emphasize quality and lower added costs. For example, a 25 kg bag of oats for $60. We've substantially improved our quality of life and lowered our costs. Like with many areas within American society, the quality is there if you're willing to figure it out.

That's great but of course the problems is that for Americans that work 2-3 jobs and commute by bus there isnt much time for cooking, let alone scouring their area for good unprocessed foods.

As always, only the rich can afford the cheapest-over-time options.

Food worth eating is not much cheaper in the US than in most of Europe and much harder to find. I remember my wife being very disappointed with the quality of the produce in supermarkets like Harris Teeter in Cary NC when we were there for a few months some years ago. And that was the best supermarket in the area. And when it comes to basics like bread it seems that most of what the US eats would qualify as cake in Europe because of the sugar content.

Sure in terms of purchasing power of the middle class I suspect you are right. More holistically, in terms of access to good healthcare, education, safety (both physical and financial), culture, free time, quality of the built environment, livable cities, general health level, etc. it seems to me Europe is better off than US.

You really piqued my interest when I hit sports in your comment. Granted, I do not watch any sports. How do 'sports' translate into being 'better off'? I'm genuinely curious.

Edit: did you change your comment or did I just misread it originally? I swear 'sports' was in there.

Yes, sorry, I meant it under "general health" as in people playing sports in their free time.

The poster talked about a higher quality of life for a bigger fraction of the population, not higher purchasing power for the middle class.

I hate conversational moving targets so much, because it shows people are quicker to speak than to listen.

> Middle income America has cheaper housing, food and durables with higher wages than middle income in Western Europe.

Any data on who reports higher levels of happiness and life satisfaction?

> Taking this approach, Aristotle proposes that the highest good for humans is eudaimonia, a Greek word often translated as "flourishing" or sometimes "happiness". Aristotle argues that eudaimonia is a way of being in action (energeia)[14]: 230–251 that is appropriate to the human "soul" (psuchē) at its most "excellent" or virtuous (aretē). Eudaimonia is the most "complete" aim that people have, because they aim at for its own sake. An excellent human is one who is good at living life, who does so well and beautifully (kalos). Aristotle says such a person would also be a serious (spoudaios) human being. He also asserts that virtue for a human must involve reason in thought and speech (logos), as this is an aspect (an ergon, literally a task or work) of human living.[1]: I.7(1098a)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicomachean_Ethics

Overall self-reported life satisfaction seems comparable between Western Europe and the US, with the US sitting middle of the pack, and nordics reporting the highest life satisfaction.

That suggests that some of the extra wealth effect in the US is balanced by social safety nets in Europe, when it comes to life satisfaction.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/happiness-cantril-ladder?...

All of these countries are pretty wealthy in the scheme of things: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-vs-happiness

American exceptionalism probably affects this quite a bit, I would imagine, in terms of biasing US residents to overestimate their own happiness because of a skewed understanding of what the rest of the world is like by contrast

> overestimate their own happiness

How can you overestimate your own happiness? Either you happy or you aren’t.

In my experience, comparing yourself to others, regardless of circumstances, only leads to unhappiness.

> How can you overestimate your own happiness? Either you happy or you aren’t.

Wishful thinking for one:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wishful_thinking

E.g., how many people are "happy" in abusive relationships?

Yeah anyone working for FANG probably also an example

It's actually pretty common and one of the hurdles of getting comparable data.

An anectode from an Amartya Sen book: Uneducated women in rural India, when asked anout their health status, effectively said everything is fine. After getting access to better healthcare and health education, self reported health scores went down. Classic case of unknown unknowns: The women didn't know that live actually could be better than what they experienced so far.

The same is true for this discussion: I'd wager that thanks to Hollywood and world news coverage, the average citizen of a small EU country like Norway has (or at least thinks they have) deeper knowledge of live in the US than the average US person about live in Norway. So the Norwegian, when asked about their own happiness, can position themselves in context of this knowledge.

I don’t think any of this is comparable across all of the US or the other countries due to extremely large differences in quality of life for different socioeconomic classes.

Maybe comparing each decile by country would be a meaningful comparison, if even possible.

It’s hard to just say “America has cheaper” anything. It really depends on where you live.

For instance it’s cheaper to live in Ohio than California.

Housing is generally cheaper (or it was, the pandemic ruined a lot of markets), but when food is cheaper in the US it's mostly also much lower quality, Europeans often pay less for higher quality items. Durables are more expensive mostly because of taxes, which help pay for things like good health care and a social safety net.

I only have Paris as a sample (but aren’t big cities supposed to be high CoL?) but much of the good food at their grocery stores and market stalls seemed a hell of a lot cheaper than the same back in my “low CoL” American city. And often at higher quality than we had at any price.

Dunno about junk food, maybe that was more expensive.

> America has cheaper housing, food and durables with higher wages than middle income in Western Europe

But off the roof expenses for anything else, so in the end it evens out or even comes at an advantage for Europe.

yes but in Berlin cigarettes are 6EU, Beer is 2EU, and there's plenty of lottery. Just the right prices to keep the city bound, car-less proletariat happy

What good is cheap cigarettes and booze if you can't find a decent apartment? I only care about booze and cigarettes being cheap when I'm going on vacation/partying, but if I want to live somewhere long-term then the housing market is way more important.

> The very bottom of America is (of course) much worse off

Are you sure?

According to [1] (page 139), 36.4% of US adults have net worths between 100k an 1M, and 8.8% are millionaires. 26% are under 10k, 45.2% are over 100k.

But 32.8% of Europeans are under 10k, and only 29.5% are between 100k and 1M, and only 2.7% over 1M. So 32.2% are over 100k.

Median wealth for the US is 83k, and for Europe, it's 26k. (page 130).

Looks like Europeans have a far larger proportion of poor people, and far smaller upper middle + millionaire class.

[1] https://www.credit-suisse.com/media/assets/corporate/docs/ab...

This is all likely true, the claim was that Europe is far better at translating wealth into quality of life.

Not relevant.

Even if Europeans are twice as good at turning a dollar into a smile (and how could anyone believe such nonsense), the middle-class American still has three times as much money.

And either way, the problem to solve is creating the most overall wealth and well-being. Being better at a sub-problem (money->happiness efficiency ratio) is less important than overall effectiveness.

"The middle-class American" is going to get bodied into penury if they get sick. A Dane will, generally speaking, not.

I know I'd trade a very large portion of my very large salary for assurances that that wouldn't happen. I don't have the option, though.

Very relevant. Again, personal wealth does not equal quality of life. That's a very American thing, since the US lacks so many basic quality of life tenets that Europeans already have.

You can't compare wealth as simplisticly as you imply, for a multitude of reasons, the top three being:

* Wealth includes house ownership, but in many EU countries living in a rented apartment is normal and even preferred, mostly because strong regulatory protection of tenant's rights. As an example our family could easily afford owning a house in the suburbs but still lives for rent in the city, because quality of life is better here.

* In the US, wealth includes savings for pension, whereas in many EU countries pensions are organized collectively, like an insurance. In other words most EU pension schemes are not visible in wealth statistics.

* Same for healthcare. I know of noone in my social circle saving for eventual healthcare crises because that is cared for by health insurance.

Higher education is also similar

You’d need to look at PPP for all goods and services and not just networth (paper networth). EU countries provide a lot of social based lines, like education, childcare and healthcare. Also there is a huge variability between EU countries - Swiss are quite wealthy for example.

The difference in the 100k-1m range was a lot smaller than I expected, given the tone of the post.

Guessing the way retirement works in the US is a large part of the difference in net worth and millionaire calculations.

Either way, lots of the difference is sure to be among the elderly (they’re who have any net worth of note, the actually-rich excepted) and you need a whole lot more money in your private accounts to have a comfortable retirement in the US than in the EU.

The degree and scope of poverty in American are vastly overstated. The most popular metric in this regard is the official US Census estimate of poverty, which explicitly excludes the vast majority of welfare transfers. It excludes all in-kind transfers (Housing, Food Stamps, Medicaid, etc) and all de-facto cash transfers (such as "refundable tax credits", which are deemed "negative taxes" and so are not counted as cash income, even if they result in a check in the mail). In other words, if your pre-tax income puts you $1 below the poverty line, the US government announces that you are in poverty--even though you are eligible for (and presumably receive) tens of thousands of dollars in welfare support in the form of free housing, free healthcare, free food, free early education for your kids, free cash through tax credits, and subsidized cell phone and internet access.

Once you account for in-kind and de-facto cash transfers, America's poor are supported at a lifestyle which is close to the median American household and significantly higher than the median European household.

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