• Comrade_Mushroom [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    3 days ago

    An unending maelstrom of human anguish and death, orchestrated solely to fuel the insatiable greed of a handful of the most nightmarishly evil human beings to ever exist: okay

    One nightmarishly evil human being getting blasted: not okay

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆OP
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      2 days ago

      Salary only has meaning when contextualized against the cost of living. As a European, you don’t worry about going bankrupt and ending up on the street if you get sick, you likely enjoy functional public transit, and so on.

      • imogen_underscore [it/its, she/her]@hexbear.net
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        24 hours ago

        you don’t worry about going bankrupt and ending up on the street if you get sick

        in ireland a lot of people do. contradictions around this stuff are probably worse here than anywhere else in western europe tho

    • Hexamerous [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      2 days ago

      Yeah, I was chocked as well. But it could be that they count “household” income (average household is like 2+ people I think).

      But also when you factor in that all burgers, even the poor, must have a shitty expensive car to go anywhere. They need health insurance that alone probably cost more than the total income tax for most of Europeans, and even then it doesn’t actually cover the medical expenses. Then, as I understand it, they don’t really have a pension system, so all those “savings” are actually for not starving to death when they get old. Then there’s school, kinder-garden and no paid vacation, so you need to save for that as well.

      Yankees basically pay over 70% tax on income if you add up all the “hidden costs” when you sigh up for American Inc subscription. But hey, you get to live in a cardbord box with a square patch of grass outside.

      • invalidusernamelol [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        2 days ago

        I make just under $80k in a small american town, probably in the top 10% of workers here, and I’m still paycheck to paycheck.

        Food for 3 people comes out to like $2500/month, rent is $2000/month, taxes are $1600/month, health insurance is $400/month with about $50-100 out of pocket for meds. More of someone has to go to the ER or Urgent Care. Rest of it (~$200) goes to general expense, and we frequently have to dip into credit.

        Also that $400 health insurance doesn’t even cover doctors visits and if I bring it up, the price skyrockets from $50 to $250 because thats what BCBS says it’s worth. Gotta hit that $8000/year deductible before any of that money I pay in can even be used.

        And no I’m not in some mansion or anything, I’m in a 110 year old house with 2 bedrooms and a rotted deck that the landlord refuses to fix. Most of the other houses here are occupied by elderly people who are paying $200-$300/month for their mortgage or renters living 2 to a room spending $1800-$2000/month to a landlord that bought the house after the old person that lived in it died.

    • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml
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      2 days ago

      Cost of living. Problem is when you live in shithole area like Poland where the costs of living are 1/2 of German ones but your wage is 1/5

      • Andrzej3K [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        2 days ago

        Yikes, is it that bad these days? I haven’t been for years, but when I visited in the 00’s things still cost like 10% of what they did in western Europe

        • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml
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          2 days ago

          Depend where, worst is in big cities, but since 2020 it’s been going worse pretty fast everywhere. Though to be fair, it’s been going worse in Germany too.