Why is take home pay in the UK, so much less than other Western Countries?

grizzly1911

chewmylegoff wrote: »

The US allegedly spend 18% of GDP on healthcare but publicly funded spending on healthcare per capita is actually higher in the US than it is here, according to the guardian at least. If the US funded 80% of healthcare publicly (currently about 50%) as we do their tax rate would be much closer to ours, as a % of GDP.

I had also read somewhere, wouldn't have been the Guardian*, that their mediccare or whatever it is called, does indeed cost more per capita than the NHS does. That is just to provide the basic care provision not the bells and whistles NHS service.

I also understand that in the "private" schemes patients don't often have much choice in the level of care they get as the providers shop around for cheap deals.

* Before this forum I never read the Guardian but with all the links it can provide a interestingly different perspective. I don't tend to believe any journalism until acceptably demonstrated on several fronts.

zagubov

chewmylegoff wrote: »

Who gets included in the Singapore stats? 1/3 of their population consists of migrant workers, most unskilled, and I bet they aren't included in the healthcare outcomes stats (as they probably aren't elgible to access healthcare) which probably just considers Singaporean citizens (but obviously the productivity of migrant workers is included in the GDP stats). This may lead to spending looking lower than it really is.

I agree they'd probably be left out. I wonder if they'd have to return home if unfit to work.

But wouldn't migrant workers have to be fit and young enough to be less prone to diseases than underage/retired locals, so would they make the stats that much worse? I suspect if they were included they wouldn't make that big a difference, or would they?

movilogo

In case you are not aware, UKIP proposes a flat rate tax for everyone.

http://www.ukip.org/content/ukip-policies/2560-ukip-tax-policy

PaulF81

somethingcorporate wrote: »

Well, not really. If they cut income tax where do you expect them to get the money to fix the huge deficit from?

Increase VAT? Corporation Tax? all have massive downsides.

Taking a single point of view is completely blinkered when it comes to considering macroeconomic policies of a nation and it will never be solved by pulling a single lever.

Cut the NHS and state pensions budgets by 10%

drc

BritAbroad wrote: »

I live in the US and in my experience we pay significantly more tax than your calculation would suggest. Also, health care costs are very, very high - think several hundred dollars a month to have the insurance, and then you still have out of pocket expenses for every visit to the doctor, hospital appointment and prescription. The quality of care is not any better than the UK either. We also pay substantially more for household and car insurance than in the UK (my house insurance last year was almost $3000 and my car insurance was around $1500), because the insurance companies require you to have cover in case of liability or health costs.

Public services here are not good - I was shocked by the number of beggars I have seen. There is no safety net here and it's not at all unusual for people to be bankrupted by medical costs. The public education system appears to be mediocre at best.

My annual property tax is equivalent to what I paid in the UK for council tax, but with fewer facilities provided. We have HOA fees (a bit like factoring), I am lucky that my HOA is cheap but some are very expensive. My gas, electricity, water and waste bills are about triple what they were in the UK and there's no choice of provider either.

Petrol here is undoubtedly cheaper - currently running at about $3.10 per (American) gallon. Car tax is about the same as I paid in the UK. We also pay sales tax when you buy a used car.

Sales taxes vary significantly here, to the point where it can be cheaper to travel to a different city or county if you're making a major purchase and have something delivered, rather than buy it locally.

Things like clothes are generally cheaper, but the quality is not great compared to in the UK. Food in the supermarket is more expensive than it is in Britain yet eating out is cheaper.

I think the point is that looking at tax and NI alone only tells part of the story. Overall, I think the cost of living in the US is about the same as the UK.

Thank you, this is interesting to know.

somethingcorporate

PaulF81 wrote: »

Cut the NHS and state pensions budgets by 10%

And then who picks up the tab for all the pensioners living in poverty and what happens to all those ill people?

The A&E waits are already over 4 hours and the NHS queues are as long as ever (no matter how they manipulate the stats).

What do we do with those people? just let them die off? That will teach them to be old/ill.

drc

somethingcorporate wrote: »

And then who picks up the tab for all the pensioners living in poverty and what happens to all those ill people?

The A&E waits are already over 4 hours and the NHS queues are as long as ever (no matter how they manipulate the stats).

What do we do with those people? just let them die off? That will teach them to be old/ill.

Is this what we can expect for our taxes - 4 hour waits and long NHS queues for operations that many end up paying for privately instead?

grizzly1911

drc wrote: »

Is this what we can expect for our taxes - 4 hour waits and long NHS queues for operations that many end up paying for privately instead?

IME real casualties do get seen well under 4 hours. If you have stubbed your toe or sprained an ankle you may wait longer for the reasons taht are self evident. Save a life or dispense a paracetamol.

Again life threatening operations will get done, nice to haves will need to wait. Chances are you won't be able to pay for really life threatening cases as the private sector won't want to touch you.

In statistics we always like to dwell on the < 5% of cases that don't meet spurious targets and ignore the >95% that get done well within target. not much different to IT system availability where the target may be 99.5% + availability, woe betide the onece you fail.

rtho782

Some of the figures in the OP are a little suspect, so I'll do my own calculations.

National Average UK salary is around £26k.

UK:
Salary: £26,000
Tax: £3,579.00
NI: £2,208.96
Take Home: £20,212.04

You have to also note that for an employer to pay you £26k they need to pay Employers NI, on £26k this is £2,554.66 a year, meaning that the equivalent US salary would be £28,554.66 (as in, for the same cost they could employ a US worker on that amount)

US
US Salary: $46,524.11 (£28,554.66)
Tax: $4,839.15 (£2,970.26)
NI/Social Security: $2,537.47 (£1,557.49)
Take Home: $37,534.38 (£23,037.14)

In other words, in the US, the same cost to the employer results in a 13.97% larger pay packet. In fact, at the UK average salary this is enough to pay for private health insurance for a single person and have a chunk left over.

Now factor in that Sales Tax is much lower than VAT, and I believe property tax is much lower than Council tax, and certainly housing costs are much lower.... Seems like we get a bit of a raw deal.

somethingcorporate

rtho782 wrote: »

Some of the figures in the OP are a little suspect, so I'll do my own calculations.

National Average UK salary is around £26k.

UK:
Salary: £26,000
Tax: £3,579.00
NI: £2,208.96
Take Home: £20,212.04

You have to also note that for an employer to pay you £26k they need to pay Employers NI, on £26k this is £2,554.66 a year, meaning that the equivalent US salary would be £28,554.66 (as in, for the same cost they could employ a US worker on that amount)

US
US Salary: $46,524.11 (£28,554.66)
Tax: $4,839.15 (£2,970.26)
NI/Social Security: $2,537.47 (£1,557.49)
Take Home: $37,534.38 (£23,037.14)

In other words, in the US, the same cost to the employer results in a 13.97% larger pay packet. In fact, at the UK average salary this is enough to pay for private health insurance for a single person and have a chunk left over.

Now factor in that Sales Tax is much lower than VAT, and I believe property tax is much lower than Council tax, and certainly housing costs are much lower.... Seems like we get a bit of a raw deal.

Did you read post 19?