The Stagnant Working Class

[Immersiveunreality]

Bofferbrauer2 said:

Immersiveunreality said:

Do you take in account that a lot of european citizens firstly take a pretty big cut on their wages for unemployment/retirement and health insurance....and that is not included in that graph or is it?

I mean on top of higher taxes all included i pay more than the highest amount on that graph and i do not have a very high payed job in Europe,some countries here are way more expensive than the US and it does look like you guys have a bit more money on the side on average not to mention that the people i know that worked in the US got payed a decent amount more than they got in this country for doing the same work.

Sacrifices will need to be made to have a decent healthcaresystem for everyone and more cuts on wages might happen,but i do support a good healthcare for the US ofcourse!

It is included in the graph. After all, that's how the numbers come together in Europe. Also, it depends what you understand under big. Unemployment, health insurance and retirement (by far the biggest chunk of the 3) just add up to 9.5% (7.5% retirement, 1.75% health insurance and 0.25% dependency, which is unemployment both because you can't find a job and being unfit to work due to physical or mental illnesses or disabilities) in Luxembourg.

Unless you're earning minimum wage (where you don't pay any taxes at all anymore), you also don't pay that much in taxes, especially when you're in a couple (how much depends on your yearly household income, we got a progressive chart for that: https://impotsdirects.public.lu/dam-assets/fr/baremes/recueil-bareme-01012017.pdf  It's in French and German, but I think the numbers are easily understood. Starts at page 18 Tax class 1 is single, 1a single with child or widow(er), and 2 official couple, married or otherwise legally bound together). And that's all before you start deducting anything from your taxes (like childcare, home improvement costs, education-related expenses, running credits... it's all listed on the pages before the table). So the actual value of your taxes is often about half of what you see in that table.

It should be said however that the employer also has a share to pay on health insurance and dependency (not sure about retirement), so the actual amount is above those 9.5%. On the other hand, employers can deduct much of these costs from the taxes.

May I ask which country you're from?

I'm from Belgium ,work in Belgium and live in the Netherlands.

I should have spoken for Belgium only cause it looks like we are amongst the highest taxpayers :p