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Would you look at that, Brazil has all of those! The problem with UHC is that right wing politicians have been doing everything in their power to dismantle it ever since its inception.
The previous govt (fucking bozo) was also keen on “isn’t it better to have some work and no rights, rather than having rights and no work?”
Public universities, while being free, often can only be attended by the well off, since class times might be all over the week (Monday morning, Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday morning AND night), fucking anyone that needs to work to sustain themselves.
Paid sick leave exists in some US states, for example vermont. It’s not a lot but it’s better than nothing.
Sadly we are all not blessed by having Bernie as a governor.
Bernie isn’t our governor. Republican Phil Scott is. With ~70% of the vote.
Whilst you are correct, he said a governor, not the governor. So they were implying your Congress members and senators are also governing bodies. (Bernie being one of your 2 senators)
Reddit tier well ackshually level comment
What an idiot
Yeah. The Democrats screwed up that opportunity for us. Twice.
Free college is no longer a thing here in the UK. But our student loan terms are bloody generous.
The world isn’t this black and white, so you can’t just compare things at a basic level like this
For example the Netherlands has intuition fee’s for universities. It’s about 2500 euro per student per year. I’d much rather have it free, but it’s still nothing compared to the 50K or 100K some people pay for an American University
And the UK for that matter. You only get free education up to A Levels (18 years old).
If you want a degree then you pay for it.
Hey, leave Scotland out of this. We get tuition fees paid plus a student loan which you can just sort of never pay back 👌
Similar in Canada. It may not be free, but it’s ridiculously cheap compared to what the US deals with and we still have great financial assistance for those who can’t afford that.
Exactly. Germany also has free Universities but there are mandatory charges you have to pay in order to study. Its just not a university fee but a fee for a mandatory university service (still mutch lower than other countries with university fees).
Same in Austria (27,50€ per year)
Republicans: Don’t care, owned the libs.
What was that quote? “A Republican would eat shit if they thought a Democrat would have to smell it”?
Luckily there’s still many other important things such as food safety, workplace safety, consumer protection… um…
Add disaster management and informing people about disease outbreaks ans product recalls! America is so great about… um.
It’s not strictly true collage or university as it’s know in the rest of the world, in the UK it’s only Scotland that gets free tuition, not the rest of us, higher education which is 16-18 is free
In France, college is free only if you’re from a underpriviledged social class, and only for a limited time.
I didn’t qualify as “boursier”, my tuition was around 400€/year through out bachlore and master degrees (école d’ingénieurs). It’s not so expensive. I still was able to claim 90€/month of help for housing (CAF). My friends who qualified paid 0€ for tuition, and they also got more for housing but I don’t remember how much. This was from 2011~2016.
In south Germany today, a foreigner, who can’t claim any financial help, has to pay
3000~4000€/semester1500€/semester.Still far far away from what education costs in USA from what I’ve heard.
Edit: Corrected the price of tuition in Germany.
I’m a foreigner without access to financial aid paying ~€400/semester in middle Germany for a master’s degree (bachelor’s is €100/semester less). Granted, I’m now married to a German, but I wasn’t when I started the program and the cost didn’t change when I got married.
I would honestly shop around a little if I were you, other universities should be much cheaper. Unless you’re including rent, I guess.
After asking more precise information to the concerned person: Stuttgart university, non-EU foreigner has to pay 1500€/semester. If married to EU citizen, it becomes 190€/semester.
That’s insanely expensive and they should probably transfer (edit: I don’t know them or their situation, maybe they’re happy with it, but they could certainly save money elsewhere). Lots of businesses target wealthy and/or desperate foreigners, and that sounds like there’s something funky going on. I didn’t even meet my husband until I was partway through my studies and I’m not an eu citizen, so it’s not because of that.
I’ve learned that if something is too geared towards foreign students, I’m probably getting taken advantage of somehow, because it’s really disturbingly common. I’m lucky, in that I don’t stick out much (tall, pale, and with a super German sounding name) and I’ve got C2 German and a background in contracts, and I’m still frequently seen as an easy mark by landlords, cell phone services, banks (?!), and other businesses with variable and opaque pricing.
Our local university charges $440/year for parking :/
How much is tuition?
Some have different tuition for if you’re in state or from out of state, so around 10K usually for in state and around 20K for out of state, but some are 30K to 60K for the fancier universities in my state.
That’s per year or total?
I’m pretty sure it’s per year, it’s been a while since I looked at tuitions but the in / out of state tuitions for my school (8k and 33k) match what they list on the schools website for a full academic year for in and out of state students.
That’s just tuition so it doesn’t include cost of the dorm (8k), meal plans (5 or 6k depending on the level), and books (estimated $700), among other fees and stuff.
Foreigners from outside the EU pay between 3000€ and 4000€ by year (not semester) today in France, but licence, master and even PhD are cheaper than 400€ for European students. We are lucky, but still it’s not free.
It sure is not free. I am very fortunate it didn’t have to worry about money during my studies, as my parents were supporting me. But for my friend who was “boursier” and didn’t have to pay anything for the tuition, he still had to go in debt in order to have money for all the essentials (groceries, gas, etc). Studying engineering in France it not something you can do while having a part time job. We had around 35h of classes per week not including self study, practicing for exams and the almost mandatory parties :D
Almost mandatory?!
Yeah, no, livving isn’t free. You aren’t paid to study. However the loans offered, at least in Sweden, are at the lowest interest found. They even beat public sector interest rates. So you’d be hard pressed to find better terms.
Imagine having to pay 20-30k extra per year on top of that. Unless you are ambitious…
Still far far away from what education costs in USA from what I’ve heard.
More than 2 decades ago, that was just about the cost of community college (2 year associates degree).
Not perfect but that’s sooooo much better than throwing them in jail for cheap labor.
Came to say this. Most people in the UK have to pay tuition for university. There is a govt loan but you’re still paying it, plus interest
Should be interest free. No reason for anyone to profit off higher education, other than the actual educators. Admin can suck a dick.
The USA also has states that have free college, which is done with lottery funds.
Higher education is 16-18? That’s still included in our compulsory education in the US. Can children choose to drop out at 16 there?
How it works in the UK:
- School: 5 - 16 years old
- College or Sixth Form: 16-18 years old
- University: 18years+
College is actually akin to high-school in the UK, and is tuition free but university is not. The person who made this graphic probably googled ‘free college UK’ and didn’t understand the word means something different there
Not legally, but some of them do. You need to be in some form of education until you turn 18
It’s probably a vernacular thing then. In the US, 16-18 is “secondary education” and college is considered “higher education”
In the UK, secondary education is 11-16, further education is 16-18 and higher education is after that.
When I was in secondary education you could leave at 16.
But to confuse things even more, colleges are places to go from 16, not to be confused with sixth-forms which do much the same thing, but are attached to secondary education schools.
Yeah probably better to say we have a state run loans system, with fair repayment terms, that any resident is entitled to. So better than some countries but still not free.
We used to have free college, but college students protested things which pissed off Reagan so he campaigned against it
This is new to me
Well, there’s one country I’m not moving to. It amuzes me that a first world country, hell, a global superpower, doesn’t have any of that stuff, it would benefit everyone, especially free healthcare because you wouldn’t have to worry about going bankrupt just to get that surgery you know you need. It doesn’t even have to be free, just making it affordable for everyone is already a huge step.
America isn’t a first world country. It favors the rich in the same way as most African and Central Asian nations.
The first/second/third world designation is a cold war relic. America is first world by definition, but we probably should have ditched the whole framework after the Berlin Wall fell.
I agree that it should no longer be used in a modern context. It’s like calling Russia the USSR; people usually know what you mean, but it doesn’t make sense, and when talking about specifically American geopolitics, it’s easy to misunderstand what is meant if you are older than 35.
Yet it still considers itself a global superpower with the biggest economy in the world (or one of the biggest, I can’t even remember). To me, it’s just laughable that they made it to this point.
Superpower in terms of military dominance maybe, but that’s about it.
You just made everything make sense.
We’re a first world country for the top 10% of the population and a third world country for the bottom 90%.
FYI, many Americans do have many of these things, they just aren’t mandated or evenly distributed to all citizens.
It’s still fucked, though.
Do you really have it if your employer can take it away?
Right, which is worse in many ways.
Weird.
It amuzes me that a first world country, hell, a global superpower, doesn’t have any of that stuff
They imported workers from countries that have free education.
Indeed, but nothing is for free and we pay for the so-called “free” services through taxes. Yes, the 1st Class EU members are way ahead of the piss poor US labor laws and public services. Thanks to the MAGAts, working conditions will become 3rd World.
One matter, the blue-collar apprenticeship system in Germany is outstanding and the only organization that comes close are the trade unions in the USA, but it depends on which local you are in. Some are superb and some are WTF.
Yes healthcare is paid for via taxes so it isn’t strictly speaking isn’t free, but it also isn’t the same as paying for health insurance. For one thing you don’t pay more money just because you’ve got a Pre-Existing medical condition. In a way everyone pays less because all of the people that would otherwise pay for private healthcare, still pay the taxes, so everyone else is being subsidized by the rich, who in the US wouldn’t contribute to anyone else’s healthcare.
I don’t think anyone ends up paying more in taxes than they would if we operated under the US private health care system.
So while your point is strictly speaking true, it’s also a bit pedantic.
No disrespect to the guy individually but “it’s not free, it’s paid for by taxes” is mentioned every single time when this conversation comes up.
Everybody knows. Nobody actually thinks these these things appear out of thin air. We all know how taxes pay for public services and employment rights.
I love the way Germany has trade unions that are trade wide rather than smaller unions. I wish we could import that to America.
We need to stop calling it “free” college. It’s not free. It’s a worthwhile investment we all pay for and reap the benefits of.
We don’t call it a “free military.”
College is free, uni isn’t
Not our fault just one country uses the word incorrectly
Uni is free if you live in a sane part of the UK
Scotland: the only part of the UK that consistently votes left of centre.
You’re missing the point. They’re saying it’s not free, it’s funded by the government/tax dollars.
Also languages develop regionally and sometimes use different words. It’s so 2010 to assert regional differences are “wrong.” Gag me with a spoon.
I don’t understand why that matters ultimately? The point is “free” is not a good word for it, whether it’s college or university. It’s not “free” and we don’t call anything else we pay for with taxes “free.” All it does is create an easy attack vector for detractors and misrepresent it.
I think free is a great word for something you can rock up to and collect without paying, and you don’t have to remortgage your house because your parent got cancer.
You do pay for it. You don’t get free roads. You don’t get free hospitals. You don’t get a free military. They are funded by tax dollars, that’s the entire point. Yet we say “free college.”
Yes I do get free hospitals. I live in the UK. Hospital visits are free and I don’t pay for them. I pay for parking if I park on site, but I absolutely do not pay for the healthcare. The healthcare is free. My daughter gets it free, I get it free, unemployed people get it free, billionaires get out free, everyone gets it free, no one is charged for it. The government pays the whole bill. Unlimited healthcare based on need, no cost.
It’s earning a salary that isn’t free. That costs me 20% above a certain threshold. But, no, the hospitals are completely free.
They’re not free. You pay taxes to fund them. Your countrymen pay taxes to fund them. You are all paying for it collectively all the time, which is a great thing to do and is a worthwhile investment. It is a sane and sustainable way of running healthcare. But it is not free.
You say the government pays for it: where do you think the government gets its money? For the UK it’s not entirely from exploiting former colonial vassals anymore, y’all pay taxes. Same as the rest of us.
You’re twisting words to mean what you want them to mean. The healthcare is free but earning a salary is not. It’s very simple. You don’t pay for the healthcare, ever, no matter how often on expensive it is, but earning a salary is not free, and you get charged every time according to how much you get. The healthcare is free for everyone. Free. No charge. Unlimited. Free.
I feel like it depends on your translation and how you define “free”.
I like to compare it to the differences between expenses and costs. Which is something people often confuse. Expenses are talking about the outflow of money and costs are talking about the effect of it on the bottom line.
“Free” education is free, because it’s not an expense it can be considered and indirect cost. It might never be something that is paid if you never pay taxes for whatever reason.
People also consider their social security income free because they don’t need to do more for it than filling in a form often online
It also isn’t free for people here, it’s paid. They pay you (not a very large amount but still) to go to any education above the mandatory education.
Yes that’s what I’m saying.
Define "worthwhile investment "
the health of your people is absolutely a worthwhile investment by all definitions. It’s the right thing to do/ethical, it makes them happy/support their government if you’re thinking politically, and a healthy populace does more for society/the country/economy/whatever you care about.
What’s with the bait nonsense say what you want to say.
There is an obsessed with going to university - yes education is excellent but to end up in so much debt at such a young age is awful.
Especially the stoopid requirement for so many “entry” level corporate roles that demand a degree, despite the role never using any skills from that degree. Recruitment seems to think having a degree automatically means a person with a degree will be the best hire.
And trades - they are overshadowed because having a degree seems to be a better route career wise.
I am not obsessed with going to university. I think everybody should have access to university. That does not mean everybody should go.
We have somewhat started to fund trade schools and community colleges and such here in the US so the assumption would be that if we had a universal education of some kind it would include community colleges and trade school and conservatories.
Agreed that there must be greater access to education. Its just sucks for the less well off to be saddled with so much debt to do so.
An educated electorate.
Having a bunch of uneducated dumbasses fucks up your country.
I think I understand your concern, but how do you very briefly describe what’s happening a better way?
Schools in the US are “free”, although they are generally funded by taxes. I think if you said to most people that society benefits from a good basic education for everyone, they would agree.
If you said that should apply to higher education, it doesn’t sound like too much of a stretch.
If you then said “we should have the same standard of education and funding for the entire nation”, many people would say “No way”, because America, and that would mean centralized funding and standards and stuff. It’s always that last part.
National education. Funded degrees. Paid-for education. Universal education. Lots of options.
We don’t call it free healthcare do we?
yes we do
We do in the UK. Because it’s free.
It’s called the National Health System and it’s paid for with taxes, yes?
Earning a salary isn’t free. You get charged all the time for that.
Going to hospital is free. You get unlimited visits and any procedure you need at zero cost to you, taxpayer or not, no charge. Free.
I am not having the exact same conversation in 2 places.
It looks to me like you are, because you said the same nonsense lots of places, but that’s up to you, I guess.
But renaming mountains and bodies of water are going to solve all of that, our orange god king told us so.
/s if it’s not obvious
Plenty of states offer free community and state college admission for residents; not saying the chart isn’t right (and sad) but I hate the stigma that the only good colleges are for-profit private ones.
I’ve never worked a single job in the US that didn’t have sick and vacation hours. Granted it was like 5 seconds allowed every 7 years but still.
Neither of them are actually a legal requirement. What is offered is basically part of the “compensation package” (it’s considered part of your pay) in the US. Also there are A LOT of jobs in the US that don’t give paid sick time or vacation time, they are usually pretty far down the hierarchy though, and the jobs that do give paid time off typically don’t give it to you until you have been employed there for at least a year.
I don’t think this graphic is stating you cannot get any of these things in the US, but none of these things are guaranteed by the government.
At least Illinois requires 40hr of pto/yr
Shit that’s crap. That includes all sick days and emergency care of dependents, and bosses get arsey if you take any holiday, right?
Yup. Plus many workplaces have a points system for tardiness or calling off.
Late by 5 minutes = 1/2 point and 5/6 points you’re fired. Points drop off after one year.
There’s something called FMLA (family medical leave act) which you can use to take additional time off to care for a family member, but it’s unpaid.
That’s awful.
Yeah, that’s why Americans are pissed off all the time.
Uuuuuhhhhh. Then you have 0 pto/y.
They automatically take your PTO if you call in or are late and you must exhaust your PTO before you can take FMLA. Yeah.
40 hours? For real?
UK’er here. I get 230 hours of annual leave per year, fully paid. I pay less tax and national insurance on days off, so I actually earn more for not being at work, go figure. 6 months sick at full pay, 6 months at half pay. 4-day week, 36 hours.
When you factor in weekends and bank holidays, I work a grand total of 175 days per year.
As a percentage of the entire hours in a year, I spend just under 19% of them at work. It feels like so much more, but you guys, man, you have it so much worse.
America, land of the free? My arse.
They just passed that last year. Other states have no requirements to offer you any kind of time off. It’s up to you to figure this stuff out when you apply for a job. They generally put some info in the job ad, but it’s usually vague. “Two weeks vacation” “health, dental, vision insurance” 401k.
That doesn’t tell you anything because there are too many variables to consider. Some companies make you take an entire day off, others have Paid Time Off hours that accrue at a certain rate depending on how long you’ve been working there, some require you to take at least a certain amount off at a time, some let you use a single hour. Health insurance is a minefield, could be a high deductible plan with a deductible and then you pay a percentage up to your out of pocket max. Sometimes the individual cost is minimal and then jumps considerably for dependents. Dental can cover certain things and not others. Sometimes they will only match your retirement contributions at 50% up to 6% sometimes they’ll match them dollar for dollar.
It’s a system that makes it difficult to leave a shitty job.
Part time workers rarely get any benefits.
28 vacation days/y + holidays. I think 38 pto/y total. In post-Soviet Russia. USSA can’t manage be on par with Russia.
That’s just a minimum. Some work places give you more, some don’t.
But yeah, it’s bullshit.
i dont even have sick hours anymore its all pto. so if i get sick i just lose my vacation
Then you don’t have pto either.
Yeah that’s a change that kinda sucks. If I’m sick just don’t pay me for that day. Don’t take it outta my vacation funds lol
my company used to do that but now that they went corporate if i call in sick and dont have vacation i get a point if i get too many points i get fired. i already have 3 because i got sick in december. absolute horseshit
I hope you’re able to find better work somewhere else man. That’s total BS.
got an interview monday so heres hoping lol
Think bigger
Not exactly sure what you mean in this context. Should I think about taking bigger vacations?
I think they’re saying that those conditions are still poor and you (as in everyone) should fight for more
Yeah that makes more sense.
Yeah the data all shows and has shown for a long time that people do better work and have better morale when companies treat them better. Unfortunately it costs the companies a little money so GET BACK TO WORK
SLAVEEMPLOYEE I DONT CARE IF YOU GET EVERYONE AT WORK SICK.I will never understand why bosses want me to come into work and potentially take out EVEN more of your staff with illness lol. Like yeah your short handed if I’m gone. You’re gonna be even more short handed when all three of your customer service staff get sick Becky.
I used to work at a company that did this. White collar, but we would often work stat days, and we were salary. So our PTO was x days vacation time, y days stat days, and z days sick days. Vacation time was the legally mandated or higher, stat days were the legally mandated, and then sick days were on top of that (no legally mandated paid sick days where I live). If you got sick a lot (and actually didn’t work anyway) you had less vacation time. If you didn’t get sick a lot, you had more vacation time. If you worked some stat days, you had even more vacation time. It worked for everybody and meant there was no reason to worry if people were actually sick when they took a sick day - it was just unplanned PTO.
If you get additional PTO to allow for sick days, I’m not sure why you’re complaining. That’s a perspective issue. If you don’t, I definitely get it.
i dont get any additional PTO for sick days, so its basically get lucky enough to not get sick or never take a day off
And many jobs also pay you health insurance. But the point is that in other countries, social security is not attached to your employment. If you get fired, you receive unemployment and health care until you get your next job (details and quality of social system vary per country though).
Even if you have a job that pays for health insurance, it’s still not as good as a universal health system with a single payer. There’s deductibles to pay. In Canada, if I need to go to the ER, my biggest financial concern is paying for parking.
And even if you eliminate the deductibles, it’s still not as good as a public health system because you also need to worry about whether a provider is in network and then your insurance company can just deny coverage because their whole point is to profit and not doing what their stated purpose is is an easy way to make more profit.
There are different models. For example in Portugal and in the UK there’s public health system where you have the right to health care as a citizen, and it’s paid by social security, which is a tax on you income. In Germany you instead have mandatory insurance, but the government pays for you if you can’t. This you pay a % of your salary but it’s not considered a tax. In the end it’s just different models of the same thing.
In Germany you instead have mandatory insurance
Eeeeh. Isn’t UK mandatory insurance too?
in the UK there’s public health system where you have the right to health care as a citizen
Because it says as a citizen, not as a human being.
No, it’s called national insurance, but that’s just the name they gave it when they started the national health service, state pension, and welfare for those out of work for whatever reason. It’s just taxation.
It’s free healthcare, not mandatory insurance. Nobody has to ever deal with an insurance company and decisions about your healthcare aren’t made by profit motive driven companies.
If it does not cover all people, regardless of citizenship and residence, then I call it mandatory health insurance. Yes, it is state-run, but for me covering tourists too should be requirement for healthcare to be called universal.
I didn’t call it universal, I called it free. A lot of tourists are covered because of reciprocal agreements with their countries.
It’s not mandatory health insurance because you’re covered whether you’ve paid the tax or not, cradle to grave, and the original hypothecated payments haven’t covered it for decades.
It’s free healthcare. I disagree very strongly with some people having an immigration ruling that they have no recourse to public funds, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t free healthcare.
Are the insurance providers in Germany public or for-profit private entities?
There are both. Most people are on the public insurance which is non profit. Rich people sometimes move to private insurance.
Me neither, but in the US a business is not required to offer paid sick or vacation time, so it stands to reason that some don’t. Actually I take part of that back - as a software developer I have done contracts for agencies that did not offer either. Of course the pay rate for contracting is so high it didn’t matter to me, but the fact is they didn’t.
Well contract work is categorized different from “full time employment”. I’m not saying it’s right but I don’t know of any contract gigs that give anything other than money.
Self employment is the big difference. There are agencies that deal with freelancers and others that hire people as employees and send them to client sites. I’ve worked for both kinds but when they offered benefits they weren’t that great. I remember literally laughing out loud when I read one benefits brochure - the insurance cost like $3k a year and had an annual coverage ceiling of $7k. Maybe enough to cover one ambulance ride and ER visit lol.
Yeah I worked for a prestigious hospital years back, but through a contracting company so I couldn’t even get medical from the hospital I worked at.
Eventually I got coverted over to an actual employee of the hospital, but I still couldn’t afford their coverage because I wasn’t making enough at the time lol.
Our medical industry is so fucked.
Our medical system is fucked, but the Freedom feels so great doesn’t it?
Yeah, those bottom two are flat-out wrong. Now, if it said something like “generous paid sick leave/vacation,” it remains correct.
No they aren’t.
I’ve worked many jobs, mostly retail and food service that has no option for any pto, sick or otherwise.
If you wanted time off outside of your scheduled hours, you could try to switch shifts with someone, or get someone to cover your shift, or, depending on the company, ask them for unpaid time, some would sometimes allow that, some wouldn’t.
retail and food service that has no option for any pto, sick or otherwise.
How many frags did you make?
Right, but this chart it saying it doesn’t exist at all. That’s not true. “Universal” paid sick leave/vacation would be a better descriptor than “generous.”
Australia could have been included here, the only missing one is free ‘college’ which is known as University here.
The UK has both colleges and universities. Colleges are usually seen as “lesser”, usually with vocational style courses rather than purely academic learning.
In England, college is free but university is not. In Scotland it’s all free up to a certain age. I’m not sure about Wales and Northern Ireland.
Colleges ARE lesser, are they not? They provide a lower level of qualification and are usually attended at a younger age. I’ve been out of education for a while so happy to be corrected.
In a lot of Europe, you graduate from high school, and you go either to college or university at the same age. Either or.
There are other differences as well, for example to get a PhD you have to get a masters first, but then PhDs are almost all paid. Usually not well paid, but paid nonetheless.
In the UK, college is for 16-19 year olds and university is for 18+.
Fair enough, in Australia we generally call those lesser institutions ‘TAFE’.
Though as a peculiarity the Australian Capital Territory calls year 11 and 12 education college, in a break from the rest of the country.
