Good question.
Weekly (average) earnings for an adult is about $1800 before tax and superannuation deductions. So, about $60,000 a year. Low income earners are on about $40,000-$45,000. Unemployment benefits for a single are $520/fortnight but more due to covid currently.
The $1800/week is a little more for public servants and they have slightly higher compulsory employer paid) superannuation injections. Figures are about $200 less for women.
The problem is wages have not kept up with inflation and is unlikely to do so at any stage of course.
For instance petrol (gas) was $1.70/L prior to covid. Curiously about $1 now though. (4 litres make up a gallon). So, expensive. Insurances, staple foods, power, water and gas (natural gas for household usage), proper medical, school fees etc. is all costly. There's a lot of people struggling here.
You mention low 6 figures...That's the exception not the rule here.
I hope this helps.
LA living is like that, salaries are a little higher than the rest of the country but the thing is we work ourselves to death man. 6-7 days a week, 10 hours/day is common for years on end. I know a lot-lot-lot of people who won't take a vacation and haven't for several years. I used to be that guy
We're comparing rents and securities to pay and I don't know how ya'all afford it! That's some discipline, Australia wages with LA prices--I never knew.
glad you out this article together
I would've had to use my conversion app so thanks for recognizing my indoctrination system. 👍🏿 $4 a gallon?! Sir, that's even more than LA--about $3.75. Here in Tennessee, $1.69/gallon which... wait, hold on....
..
.....
Bout 43 cents/liter. (did I do that right?)
Yep, good math sir, 0.43US (0.59 AUD)
I used to work a lot, my industry calls for it really, but I tend to manage it quite well these days. I am a 9-6 weekdays salaries employee but I'll be honest, my actual contact hours (actually working) is something around 3-5 hours a day usually. I manage to get what I have to get done in that time. I spend a lot of time in cafes with myself, and clients sometimes, but generally I have a lot of flexibility. That makes it tolerable. I'm usually up around 0500-0600 and off to bed around 2330-0000 so I tend to fit a lot into my day, even if that's just watching shows or reading. (Watching Strike Back currently). Life's too fucking short, and far to underpaid to do anything but whatever it takes to live my best version of it.
I know that many probably find this post boring or unrelatable but the weekly rents a city commands is very telling for those who look deeper, as you have done.
Currently the price of fuel here is about 1,40€/L or $6.30 a gallon. before Covid, it was around 1.70€/L or about $7.50 a gallon.
The yearly average salary is about 34K€ = about $40K
Thanks for chiming in @tarazkp, wassup man? That's outrageous. Are your rents comparable as well to LA prices? I don't mean to sound uppity cuz I'm far from it, but you can't live in LA on 40k a year, dude trucks cost that much. You have to be outside the city and, even then, you're gonna struggle with that income in California. You'd have better luck in a mid-west or southern state.
I guess it's likely my culture spends a lot more on stupid shit we don't need than your culture and more regularly, would you agree? If rent's the same and fuel alone is that expensive, add consuming which I'm sure is normal in Finland wether it's a little or a lot, it just seems to me like that majority of Finland would be below the poverty line. Am I way off?
Do tell, sir, I'm all eyes. This shit's fascinating to me.
One thing I learned traveling for two years is it's the only way to learn. Food in my country is so expensive compared to UK and EU. Here, an apple is $2.99, just one (I thought that was normal). Everywhere else, you get 6 of the same apples for $1.
Cars in Finland as well as fuel are heavily taxed (fuel has a 75% tax). A pretty basic honda civic costs about 27K€. Rent for a small apartment is probably pretty low in comparison - around 700-800€ a month.
Well, the US has 5% of the worlds population and consumes something like 30% of the global energy, so I would say that consumption is pretty extreme there. Here it is not near that, but there is far less gap between rich and poor - with even the poorest doing okay in comparison to many countries, including the US. Taxes are high, but healthcare is good and generally "free" - as is education including university. Social services are pretty decent and there aren't many people living in what would be considered "real" poverty. Crime is low, industry is doing well on average, there are plenty of IT startups (I work for one) since the reduction of Nokia phones (Nokia Networks is still pretty strong), people travel globally, nature is clean.
I think that while not everything is brilliant, overall I would say that the average Finn has a better quality of life than the average American - with this being based on the comments of American friends that live here now and still have family state-side. Finland is definitely not a poor country overall and while things are changing quite rapidly, a lot of Finns still have decent savings as consumerism hasn't set in fully yet.
I think in Finland one of the major differences in the past at least is that rather than consuming goods, people consumed by adding to their home. Finns are a bit less social, so they tend to improve their home more than sit out in restaurants. This means that not only do they spend less on throwaway experience, they might even add a bit of value to their real estate.
One of the fallacies Americans seem to hold is that something like healthcare is too expensive to give to all - while spending the most on healthcare per capita in the world, with what would be considered very ineffective results from a general European standpoint.
The other thing that is interesting here is that Finns are generally pretty down to earth kinds of people and don't need a lot of glamour or complexity to have a good time.
Make sure you're sitting down for this one.
Pura has pancreatitis right so we're in a constant battle. Costa Rica, EU, even Israel and State of Palestine, her medication was free. In England they even reimbursed her train fare.
When we left we knew she'd run out, she and I weren't married long enough for my insurance to cover her when I left the trade. I'm covered, we pay cash for her. Again, something we believe is normal until we traveled. Come to find out, nobody but us (Americans) knows wtf co-pays are, prescription costs, deductibles, shit like that. So yeah, we knew she'd run out of medication and she did.
We paid outta pocket to see a dr, $69/month, pay for the visit--$119. Get the prescription. 60 pills. 2 a day, normal, yata yata. Those 60 pills, a one month supply, which we just got like two weeks ago.. ready?
15 hundred fucking dollars! One thousand five hundred dollars for 60 pink and green capsules that we didn't pay a cent for while abroad. Bout a 17 hundred dollar day.
I guess everything's relative, even the billionaire needs more. You're right, I, personally, as well as Pura, people trip out how minimal we are--it's fun. But we're 2 out of 300 million. We purchase with our eyes and flaunting is normal behavior. It's embarrassing most of the time. Cars on rims and stupid stuff like that, television is full of diamonds and gold.
When our salaries reach numbers that seem high, it's still balancing on that poverty line because it's so expensive to live. I miss England.
Finland sounds like a peaceful place, thanks for sharing that with me, now it's on my to-do list. Well, if EU allows my damn passport! Pura's British so she's cool, they'll look at my passport like "nope! Not you!"
That is crazy. For a reference -I have treatment for my stomach with a medication that when I started taking it 4 years ago, was 30K a year for 6 treatments. I think I paid 9€ a visit. It is still valued at about 7K a year I think - but have no idea really. The healthcare here is pretty good and they spend more on preventative healthcare than most places - though they could do more.
It seems from what I have seen, Americans think that looking after people is expensive, but the real expense is to not look after people. I would say that it is somewhat by design due to the money it churns. In some ways it is like that business quote.
As said, Finland is far from perfect and there are many points of contention for me, but I do think that there are some positives to helping people live better lives. The US seems to act on an exclusion, rather than inclusion when it comes to basic well-being and I think we are seeing a lot of the ramifications of creating huge gaps in outcomes now.
When I tell me buddies here these types of things and how we're the only culture to pay for medicine, they usually are too busy working to listen.
Have you ever been here man? Ever ventured anywhere through the US?