Hi, Just wondering how does it feel to live in more economically stable countries like uk and us? It's everything but stable here. In my country we don't have such a thing as income tax (mostly). How much is it in your country and what do you think about the amount? How many years it takes for an average person to work in order to buy a house? Is it even necessary to buy a house there in your country?
Are you wondering about general living, or more specifically housing and taxes? In Canada we pay about 13% tax on almost everything we buy, then get taxed again annually based our annual total income (the richer you are, the more you get taxed). I can't answer your housing question (because I don't know). Although I do know certain Canadian cities (Toronto, Vancouver), most people can't afford to buy a house. While I am thankful that I live where I live, Canada isn't perfect and I hope to see some change over my life time
I want to know about everything, But specifically about economic aspects of people's life. But that's too much to ask. We don't pay much tax generally. We don't have a real economy. Just a circle of clerics and their families sell the raw oil and spend it carelessly. No one knows how much is everyone's income. It's a heaven for some people and they live like kings. Thanks for the info.
United States It's the best life imaginable if you're wealthy, you can have/do literally whatever you want whenever you want with no restrictions that can't be overturned with enough money. ($250,000+ per year income is what I consider wealthy, not counting ultra high expense areas like San Francisco and NYC of course which would be more like $400,000+) It's a pretty great life still if you're middle class and upper middle class, you can't do whatever you want like the wealthy, but if you save and invest wisely you can still do most of what you want within reason over your lifetime. (I consider middle class about $35,000-$120,000 and upper middle class about $120,000-$250,000) If you're lower middle class/working class, life sucks hard. You're poor and don't have the money to do basically anything other than pay rent and buy food. You don't get most of the government welfare benefits because despite being poor, you're not poor enough to get free welfare money. You're just kinda permanently stuck being too broke to have a nice life, yet not broke enough to rely on the government for help, and your boss can destroy your life in 5 seconds by firing you and taking away your only income so you're also pretty much a wage-slave and forced to deal with terrible bosses with no way to stand up for yourself. (I consider lower middle class about $15,000-$35,000) If you're in total poverty, life still sucks obviously, but your quality of life being in total poverty here is a lot better than it would be in most of the world. Nobody starves to death here because the government will give you free foodstamps, tons of charities will give you food and housing if you're homeless etc. while most countries would just let you die in the street and not care. (total poverty would be $0-$15,000) The U.S. tax system is extremely complicated and too difficult to explain, but basically you pay between 0% and 40% of your money in income taxes, the more you make the more you pay, and there are other taxes too like property tax, sales tax etc. which take another 10% or so of your money.
I believe every province in Canada has both PST and GST besides Alberta and a couple Territories, we only have GST. In Alberta we pay 5% tax on all goods. Housing's pretty reasonable as well. A one-bedroom/bachelor apartment here is anywhere from $900-$1200/month in a decent neighbourhood. With a decent job, a person could probably buy and own their own home, with the exception of the major cities as mentioned previously. All Provinces and Territories also have their own public healthcare system. I'd also add the climate. The West Coast (BC) has pretty mild winters, though they make up for it by the amount of rain. Here in AB, the temperatures in the winter can go down to -40 degrees Celsius. Whereas the summers can get up to +30 degrees Celsius. On average we can pay anywhere from 80 to 130 cents a litre for fuel. Fuel prices typically go up in the summer, and drop in the winter.
I guess the UK is more stable than Iran from an economic perspective, but don't be fooled into thinking it's all good here. We are facing some very difficult economic headwinds as we attempt to divorce ourselves from our 45 year relationship with the European Union and quite frankly we have a Prime Minister who is amoral, unscrupulous and totally ineffectual leading the government. I pay 20% income tax on my salary, which is automatically deducted and a further 12% in National Insurance - also deducted. Last month my total deductions were over £800. In addition, most goods in the UK are subject to Value Added Tax at a standard rate of 20% and fuel, alcohol and cigarettes are subject to additional government duties. Petrol (Gas) costs around £1.15 per litre in the UK at present. I don't actually begrudge paying my share in taxes if it leads to decent public services, but I do begrudge paying tax when we have a government that squanders public money or uses it to feather their own nests. The cost of housing in the UK is ridiculously high, especially in and around London. A two bedroomed home with hardly any land could set you back over £250,000. Many people rent, rather than buy.
In terms of the economy, the UK is going to sh*t with Brexit and COVID. I respect one's right to vote Brexit but it really hacks me off that I've been stripped of my right of freedom of movement in the EU because of a referendum that took place when I was 14 and too young to vote. I feel that the country only has the interests of old Conservative party supporters at this point. I really feel as a young person that I've been shown the middle finger by a generation that will be dead in 20 years. Listening to things about Brexit is just doom and gloom. People really struggle in the UK to get on the property ladder, I think it's gotten worse with each generation. As it stands, I don't want kids so I'm not going to be looking for a large house in my 20s but it's just so expensive to buy anything. People used to get houses fairly early in life, no longer the case. The current prime minister frankly makes my teeth itch. Loathe the man and sadly his main opponent in the 2019 election was unelectable and should have been ditched by Labour a long time ago. I like the new Labour leader and want him to be the next PM. If Boris or his eventual replacement wins again in 2024 (the year I am scheduled to graduate uni), I'll reconsider whether or not I stay in the UK and it would be a great shame to leave as I do genuinely feel at home there and can't imagine living abroad. I don't see Scottish Independence being the answer, no matter how much Nicola Sturgeon thinks it is (not a fan...at all).
I really don't want to talk about how it is good or bad. It's just curiosity. I like to know more. I guess people have to work very hard there. I mean, Here they don't do the job properly at all. Especially in government jobs, They just sit there without doing anything. So, How much a middle class or lower middle would be able to save each month in the UK?
That seems to be the same pretty much everywhere... in the United States it's been well known for 100+ years that government workers aren't going to put in more than the absolute bare minimum effort for anything, since it's nearly impossible to fire them. With exceptions for law enforcement/military/postal service who are very hard workers.
This is one topic where "it gets better" does not apply. Middle class people (middle-middle, upper-middle, and lower-middle) had more options, and in more parts of our country. This is changing for the worse. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. It's a hard thing to watch. In our daily lives, we don't usually come into contact with this huge problem much. We see it on the news, in articles, and if we go through poorer areas. It can make a person think how their parents and their friends' parents would have done under current circumstances and in recent times.
People in the lower classes in the USA often have to choose between eating or paying for medical care. I myself have been homeless more than once because as someone on disability there simply is not enough money to pay for essentials but those who have more say that it is due to my waste or the "fact" that I am just a leech and do not deserve to live. If a person cannot even buy the essentials or even pay rent, there is no way they have a savings account. It is attitudes like this and the sheer expense that have driven me to live out of the USA and to refuse to go back.
Well, I suppose my husband and I would be considered middle-class, but we really have very little left at the end of the month once we have paid all bills and expenses, even though we live quite frugally in one of the cheaper areas of the UK. Over the last few years we haven't taken any long holidays out of the country to try to save money. We live in a competitive economy and society, so you can't expect to coast along in any job and not do your work. Even though it's difficult for an employer to fire staff, they can do so if you are not fulfilling your contract (to work). As silly as it is, we have to work at least 35 hours per week to earn anything like a decent income.
I see. So, Is there a minimum salary in your country? In Iran, We have a min salary and employers must pay their workers according to it. But in reality no one respect that. If you have difficulty in finding a job, You will eagerly say yes even to the lowest salaries. They know there are thousands job seekers and don't bother with paying properly. However, In many cases I think they can't pay more anyway. Because we don't have a strong economy and employers don't have that much income in their company.
There is a legal minimum wage and contrary to what people imagined, it hasn't led to mass unemployment. Having said that, the legal minimum offers very little in terms of financial security and stability and there are unscrupulous employers who will attempt to game the system. You would never be able to buy a decent home on the minimum wage and if you have insufficient hours you may still need 'top-up' state benefits. However, it is generally easier to find alternative work if you are presentable in appearance and can already demonstrate a track record of getting up and going to work.
It is similar to this in the USA, most jobs have a legal minimum wage. However, it is not just that you cannot buy a home on minimum wage. In every single state it is impossible to even rent a one bedroom apartment on a full time (40 hours per week) minimum wage job. Also, virtually no minimum wage job actually allows you to work full time, they do that in order to not have to provide benefits. This means that on minimum wage you have to pay for your own health insurance which is hundreds per month and health care at that level really does not provide much.
Not true at all. Many of my friends here in northern Florida are paying $500-$600 per month for one bedroom apartments that are decent. My apartment is only a few hundred more than that and is actually considered one of the best in the area. It's the same way throughout most of the south outside big cities. I know of one place that's $250 even though it sucks pretty badly. Our minimum wage = $8.56 per hour, which is $17,120 per year. Becomes $15,318 after taxes. After paying a $600 rent ($7,200 per year), that's $8,118 left, minus maybe $1,000 for utilities etc. is about $7,000 left after it's all paid. On minimum wage.
Misleading bait article. Every state more or less has a big city, which drives up the average by a lot. in South Florida yeah the rent is like $2,000 minimum, but on this half of the state it's not. NYC is obviously stupidly expensive, but Syracuse is not. You can't use blanket state comparisons when the cost of living is very different in each part of a state.
I don’t know about income tax but I’ve never worked. I’ve paid taxes on an inheritance ( as in we are sorry your uncle died give us a portion of what you got). I have a disability so I get some money from the government but I still live at home. My parents and most of my older extended family have finished paying off their mortgage and own their houses outright. But it took over 20 years for some of them.My siblings are both renting places to live but they both are jobs and doing well. My brother decided to live in the capital of Ireland and my sister decided on London so they both ended up in what has to be the most expensive part of each country. Ireland seems to believe in everything getting a college education. There is just a registration fee (€3000) but no tuition. A lot of people quality for the grant. Healthcare is free for me because I have a disability but it’s not a great system. To a specialist in anything your GP has to refer you. So any medical problem GP first. You then wait years for non emergent appointments. Unless you have health insurance or can pay thousands to see a private doctor . But even then you have to go through your GP. I don’t know about the poorest people in my country. I know about the charities that help them. I live in a small town and the big cities have the homeless. We have social welfare that helps some people. My country is spending a lot of money due to COVID. Paying people not to go to work. And trying to make schools safe. I know we were doing okay before Covid but I don’t know how we’ll be afterwards.
