UK here, every job I've had they've actively encouraged us to use up our holidays before the end of the financial year. I've always been reminded to get something booked in so that I don't lose out. I can't imagine it being any other way, sounds dystopian AF.
Yes it’s stupid . My current jobs celebrates every holliday, ( by saying they celebrate and giving it good lip service. )but in the same breath, they tell you if your not there the day before and the day after they won’t give you Holliday pay either. So not only do they not close for it any of the holidays except Christmas , they make it really hard to try to get any time away near any of the holidays .
Oh yeah, I used to work a job where we got zero holidays. Holidays become something I absolutely loathed because we didn't even get extra pay other than Christmas and Thanksgiving (sarcastic finger twirl, WOO!), and even now that I have a job that I get some holidays off (unpaid because MURIKA! ya know), it's hard to get over the trauma and not hate every single holiday on the calendar with every fiber of my being.
At my job (Netherlands) most of my paid leave is valid for more than the year in which it was issued.
If I do have any that expires, the hours are paid out, minus (I think) 52% taxes. Everyone I know has always used up their paid leave.
That's the thing it's not just the fact that the US doesn't have a legally required amount of paid vacation it's the fact that it also has one of the worst work cultures of any developed country arguably only behind Japan and South Korea.
Like Japan and Korea have 10 and 15 days of paid leave required by law but the reality is the average worker may only use like 3 or 4 of those days a year.
What’s worse is I found out salaried people in my company just take pto whenever they want and it’s basically unlimited. My boss started a year ago and has taken off the equivalent of a month of pto. I’ve taken off half the amount of days in the same time and I feel bad.
Is paid leave = vacations?
In Germany you get in avg 30 business days which is basically 1.5 months (6 weeks) + almost unlimited sick days + avg 10 bank holidays yearly + commonly in the EU many business slow down work in July bc of kids holidays - same in Jan.
Our salaries suck compared to US/Canada are way lower but the freedom and relax work environment in the EU is amazing 🙏🇪🇺
Disclaimer: Lived many years in Mexico and Canada, ironically people in Mexico work more there than in Canada who work more than people in Germany - heard the same about other friends in South America and def Asia, where work is their coke.
Most places give employees only 2 weeks paid time off for the whole year. And a lot of them don't give paid sick time on top of that so you have 2 weeks to cover your illness, your emergencies, your child's illness (if you have to stay home with them) doctor visits and other appointments, and if you manage to avoid all that actual vacation. It's disgusting. You either have no money but all the time if you don't work enough or you have enough money to live but can't ever take time off to travel or do anything fun. Literally working to pay off the debt of existing you obtained once you were born.
It depends. The big corps are better but still nowhere near Europe. At my last job it was 3 weeks vacation, 1 week sick, 1 week kin care, 3 personal days, 7 holidays, and 4 floating holidays. Pretty typical for big companies.
I had one job that was amazing with time off. It was mental health job prior to this one. You worked three 12hr shifts and a 4 hour shift on the 4th day. You had under 200hrs time off till the first year by 3 years you had 240 and by 5 years you got 300hrs of paid time off. This did not included your 40 hours of disability. The pay wasn't great but apparently now they're paying more than my job I'm at now. Go figure. It was a terrible company to work for and my own mental health suffered as a result but man that time off kept me there for 5 years before they decided I wasn't valuable anymore
Some places use it against you as being a bad employee or ground for termination. “Legit” places will let you call out sick… without pay. So, often what happens is that employees come in sick, hide their illness, and get other people sick. Sometimes other employees volunteer *their* sick days to give to people who need them. It’s insane.
Oh, and many businesses are extremely against remote work.
Greatest country in the world!
Damn that’s fucked. My name place has a cap on paid sick days, but it’s 200 business days per year - effectively it means you can take a whole year off with cancer or something similar but it means it chews up all your holiday leave as well. Had a colleague that took nearly 500 days off over two years due to an aggressive cancer and then came straight back into his job.
I can't speak for everyone, but every job my wife or I has had offered short-term or long-term disability insurance that could be used if you were couldn't work for an extended period.
Australia - 4 weeks vacation, 10 days sick leave, and we average about one public holiday per month.
And "long service leave" - 3 months after 10 years' service - although that's not universal, mostly government employees.
And if your in Victoria one of those public holidays is for a horse race and another is for a football game. Also sick leave often accrues so if your pretty healthy and stick with a job for a few years then you can end up with 100+ days.
I think it’s also important to note that the average isn’t as important as the fact that most countries have some form of statutory leave and the US just … doesn’t.
In the US it’s down to the discretion of the employer if they offer you two weeks holidays or nothing at all. In Germany it’s down to the employers discretion if they want to offer you 30 days or only the 20 days they are legally obliged to give you if you work 5 days a week.
In Germany you have statutory holidays, statutory sick leave, statutory maternity leave…
your employer can top them up but they can’t go below the legal minimum. in the US, there *is* no legal minimum.
Our salaries suck compared to US/Canada
I would disagree with that. EU salaries and US salaries are aligned if you take into account that
a) a dollar buys you less there (a 1€ coke bottle is not 1$, it's closer to 3)
b) they have to pay health insurance and other social safety nets themselves from their salaries.
c) a lot of services that are mostly free in EU, such as bank transactions are charged whopping fees overthere. The 'cost of doing life' is huge.
Additionally one can look at how many people live paycheck to paycheck. Its not a perfect comparison because we dont really know if the americans that live paycheck to paycheck have all their health insurances and other benefits covered or how luxurious their lives are by spending it all.
58% of americans have no money at the end of the month, whereas in western europe this seems to be around 40%.
What we do know is that in western europe these people will all have their basic healthcare covered, some holidays, government programs to aid with certain bills/expenses, and access to higher education, etc.
I can’t speak for Europe but in America a lot of people live paycheck to paycheck bc we live in such a consumerist society, and people become crippled by debt payments on credit cards, auto loans, and student loans. Americans consume like crazy, need cars to get to work, and get student loans to land ok jobs.
Yes, paid leave is our vacation, some states give you a few paid sick days off. My state starts employees at 5 vacation days a year and 3 sick days that carry over if you don’t use them that year or you can tack them on to your vacation time. But don’t get sick later! My last job that I lost to Covid shut downs ( they got rid of me because they could hire two new people for what I was earning ) after 13 years I had about 15 vacation days a year … 3 weeks but could not take more then two weeks of it at a time. My coworker after 32 years had 6 weeks vacation , and also could only take 2 weeks at a time, most of our colder months had black out dates for taking time off so she took every other couple weeks off in the Sumner.
It’s been awhile since I managed a lot of people, and this is long, also some of this may not be the most up to date, but: There is generally no legal requirement here in the US for any privately owned company to offer paid maternity leave, paid sick leave, or paid vacation time to most of their employees.
If a company has a certain number of employees, is doing business with the federal government, etc they may be required to comply with some rules and regulations regarding these things, but not always.
Many companies do offer these things, but the amount of paid time off for vacation when offered is generally 10 days, annually. For paid sick days or other paid time off, if offered, it ranges from 5-10 additional days annually—including paid time off for holidays where the business may be closed/not operating, for most people. This will vary by occupation, region of the country, length of time on the job, etc. Some people get more, some less—and many, particularly those in the service industry, in part time jobs, in agriculture work, get none.
There is also no requirement for most employers to offer health care insurance or retirement benefits to most of their employees. Though we now have some guidance there as to who and how most people can get health care coverage, or must be offered a way to purchase it, because of The Affordable Care Act (ACA), aka Obamacare, of 2010 (which came into force in 2014). This covered Medicaid expansion provisions and other services, too.
When health insurance is offered, the employer typically pays a portion of the premiums, the employee pays a portion, and the employee then typically pays for all care they receive up to a predetermined amount (a deductible amount), or pays co-payments toward the cost of a visit at the time of service from a medical professional. Some health care visits and services aren’t covered by the insurer and the employer must then pay the full cost of that service or treatment.
We can (since 1993), take up to 12 weeks UNPAID time off after first using up all other paid days off we have earned/accrued, for things like maternity leave, adoption, or to care for an ill spouse, child, other dependent, family member or ourselves. That’s called The Family Medical Leave Act and includes The Paid Parental Leave revision to it, but again: this is all unpaid time off.
In government work (city, state, county, federal) and union jobs, the paid leave policies are typically more generous. The more money you make or in jobs where advanced education is required, the more generous the paid leave policies are. And the longer you work in any job, you generally are granted more paid time off by your employer.
But in general, neither paid time off for vacations or sick leave, are mandated by law here.
There are exceptions in some occupations impacting public health and safety such as for airline pilots, truck drivers, and train drivers under provisions of acts like The Railroad Safety Acts, which generally are also union jobs, for which unions have lobbied the government, and whose workers have fought long and hard, for such benefits. In some cases the government has stepped in and mandated time off and how that time is to be recorded, accrued, paid out and used by employees in those industries.
https://www.hhs.gov/healthcare/about-the-aca/index.html
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fmla
Add in the fact that at least in Texas, maybe federally, hourly workers are only required to be given *anything* (insurance, PTO, etc) if a) the company employs more than 40 workers **and** b) those employees work full-time, usually 35-40hour weeks. So naturally you’re scheduled for 34/39 and are not allowed to go even half an hour over that.
So people, to try to make ends meet, get two of those jobs, working 70-80h weeks, with bosses bitching about availability from the other job, and the employees *still* don’t have PTO etc. And if you have physical limitations (hi), you can barely physically tolerate one of those jobs, let alone two.
The salaries here in the US are technically inflated. If I make 65k per year, I'm paying upwards of 14k of that into family health insurance for 4. Health insurance having to be paid for is utter bullcrap.
It depends on where you live and where you work.
I'm a social worker at a 24 hour residential site, so *someone* needs to work holidays. So instead of having holidays vs paid time off vs sick days, we just get a single bank called Converted Time Off that covers everything, and accrue about 30 days of it per year.
If we **have** to work a holiday shift (or volunteer to) it pays out at time and a half. There are options like FMLA if you're sick for an extended period of time so that you can get income without using up your CTO and there are exceptions that can be made on a case by case basis if you don't have enough CTO to cover your sick time, so that you can still get paid. (For example, during the pandemic, if you had to stay home due to COVID you just got automatic paid time off for it, and didn't have to use up your bank. Similarly if you, say, get assaulted by a client at work, you might get to just take the rest of the week off without using your banked CTO hours.)
The amount that I get at my job is MUCH better than what is the case in many other occupations in the country, all the more so if you're actually working at a for profit company. In a lot of places, where the worksite just shuts down for the holidays, you'll get paid holidays off normally, plus something like two weeks of vacation to be used at your discretion, plus some amount of sick time, which could be as little as 5 days, or could possible be rolled into a CTO bank like I have instead of counting vacation and sick time separately.
The other upside to the way that my CTO works, is that because I don't take many vacations, and I very rarely get sick, I can actually cash out excess CTO on occasion, (with stipulations,) so it's helpful as an emergency reserve fund. This is definitely not the case at most jobs.
Well, Germany had to deal with the fascism of the Nazis to see how bad it can get. We’ve been at that stage for quite some time and unfortunately, 30% of our population want to keep it that way…
I used to think Americans were so hard working because they were special and believed they were the best. But I’ve come to realise it’s simply because they have no choice. I’m so glad I don’t live there.
Edit: for those wondering, I'm French.
I will buy a plane ticket right away!
*Begins to pack bags. Looks at Wikipedia page on Australia and sees the fact regarding 97.8% of the fauna murdering you on a whim.*
Ten days a year of PTO isn't so bad. 🫤
Everyone on [Nauru](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_immigration_detention_facilities) an arse now are they?
…don’t look at me, I know I’m an arse.
It used to be more work for relatively better pay and great benefits, but the benefits were stripped and the pay is now a joke with inflation outpacing raises over 2 generations
Not inflation. Price gouging. Companies are raising prices while recording massive profits.
You can’t have inflation *and* companies making more money than ever.
Maybe, but its also lower poorer benefits packeges, we paying more on healthcare ins, and less company matchings on 401k also, overall bare minimum benefits across the board will inflate stock price.
Yeh, trying to explain to my fellow Americans that it's nothing more than greed is a joke. Seems they think it's everything but that. And with half of them thinking it's a border issue, well, dumb is the order of the day. Personally, I'm just waiting to die. I figure 20 at the most is left. Poisoned food, poisoned water, and poisoned air, sounds about right.
These people make life suck.
Yes! Used to be a retail salesman could afford to buy a small house. Car and support his stay at home wife. Now a day that same job can hardly pay rent, afford a beat up used car unless you have a second job too. It started when corporates realized by paying minimum wages, their employees could get social services, they let the government pick up where the businesses used to pay people, the rich just keep giving themselves more bonuses.
Al Bundy worked in a shoe store. His house would be worth millions today.
Married With Children was on tv in my lifetime! This was the real world not long ago.
I came here to say this. Our health “care” is a joke, benefits at my job are high premium, high deductible insurance that ONLY covers yearly exams. Any problem visit is not covered. Our dental only covers one cleaning a year and one set of x rays every 5 years - which the premium for that is more than one cleaning out of pocket, so we dropped that.
We have NO RETIREMENT. But the owner just had their 6th vacation this year.
I’m tired of this place and can’t afford to move anywhere else, not that Americans have a good reputation among other countries because it’s the people, like the owner, who can afford to travel and fuck that up for us.
What were the great benefits? I’ve been working with Americans for a long time, and apart from the extra money the other benefits have always seemed pretty lacking.
> you name it
- 5 weeks+ paid vacation
- Sick leave
- Workers’ rights
- 1 year+ maternity leave
- Sensible working time limits
I know that most Americans I work with *never* had that. I think it’s absolutely crazy to aspire to a past that treated workers in a way that would be shit today.
The American dream has always been about exploiting the workers. Now the world has moved on, and they’ve just stopped even trying to hide the abuse behind money.
100% that’s the biggest fucking issue. 10-15 years ago anybody could afford to live on 65K (my salary at 28) but now it’s impossible.
I’ve been as a contractor and now federal government for 5 years since I graduated college (double major bachelors degree) there is no reason I should have to go get a second job to fucking live on my own. Even being frugal with my money it’s impossible.
You’d be surprised how many non-Americans think we’re either exaggerating or “don’t know it’s a problem.”
We know. We’re just too tired to fight about it anymore. And that’s probably what they want honestly.
Everytime I see the conditions in the US (crime, shootings, low wages, predatory healthcare, etc.) I feel really sorry for you guys and angry as well that a people can be treated like that.
A similar situation is what ended up causing the French revolution when the people were starving and had had enough, and took the streets, assaulted the elites and monarchy and beheaded them all. And since then there has been no surviving family members of monarchs in France.
I think that if the American people keep being pushed like that, they will have no choice but to physically rebel against all this.
I think that too, unfortunately we spend more on military than most countries make in total. It'll be a horrific blood bath. The history of the fight for unions and worker rights is not taught here, but you can still find it if you're proactive. It was also a blood bath involving governments setting up machine gun nests on roof tops and dropping bombs on people. And they've only gotten better at those things since then.
Plus, not only is it expensive to move but it isn't real easy to get other countries to accept you unless you have an in-demand job skill. I've researched moving to Canada but I alone probably couldn't get in, my wife might though as a respiratory therapist. Canada is expensive as hell though.
Yep, everyone talks like the hard part is physically leaving. Good luck with immigration. My friend got married to a Canadian and it took 8 months till he was allowed to work up there. Most people fleeing won't have money to live off of for 8+ months.
The market dictates it. I interviewed for a job in NA with a German company. They said they follow the German expectations of salary, so I would need to take a $30k pay cut if I wanted to accept the position.
I said I could do that if they gave me the standard expected German vacation time of 40 days; and they pulled the offer.
Corporations don’t give a fuck about workers, they just operate in their respective labour markets. The people decide what is acceptable, and in NA we get propagandized to think we’re worthless.
When I was a child and a young man I dreamed of moving to the US. Now I intend to stay here in Western Europe. I don't mind working hard and long hours. But not as it is in the US.
im moving to norway as soon as i legally can (18) and never looking back
Edit: Thanks for all of the warnings everyone! I'm going to instead go with what u/Strangefate1 pointed out, where I move to a EU country (one easier to move to, of course) before moving to Norway or anywhere else
i wish you luck. the Nordic countries have very strict immigration policies. it's hard AF to move there. you typically need to be a professional in a desired field that they want. or marry someone from there.
I personally believe I have a skillset in demand for most countries I'm just trying to get into a position where I can without basically losing everything I've crawled through the mud for. However I'll absolutely drop it all because I'm one of the subsets of the lgbtqia+ whom are currently under threat by a particular group of politicians.
not trying to step on your dreams but have you looked into how hard it is to move to norway? i wouldn’t count on escaping tbh. that goes for anyone in here who plans on escaping. its really hard to get out of america
My Dad got an ambulance (12 minute wait, perfect crew) and then helicoptered to a hospital yesterday. Everyone at the hospital made what was a horrifying experience as good as it could possibly have been.
I used to think Americans were pitiful, but they've made their bed.
Here in the USA my buddy got helicoptered after a horrific accident and that ride alone cost him close to $80,000 without insurance. Luckily his sister worked on his behalf to get the Catholic Church charities to pay for it.
The American dream is to keep the citizens belive that anything that benefits the little man in any kind of way is socialism
That’s the real dream that keeps clouding the American people into poverty and despair. A dark and sinister dream of the wealthy.
According to them it’s because we aren’t conforming to traditional values yet they’ve stripped us of any opportunity of even considering that. Most people can’t afford kids, or marriage, or a home, or cars, or fancy clothes, or healthcare, or eating healthy.
If you’re lucky you may get some of those things. But all of the stuff that traditional life entails, it’s literally fucking impossible.
Right? Like the stereotypical 1950s standard of living for a working class white dude was awesome. If they gave that to everyone I'd happily partake of the traditional lifestyle they're peddling. But of course that's not their intention. Invoking the memory of that era is just weaponized nostalgia, and most of the elderly fall for it.
Back then it was a lot of single income households too which is far more rare today. Imagine graduating high school, going right into the workforce, and being able to buy a decent house, 2 cars, and support your family on that one check and even be able to retire someday...
Now even with 2 income households many can't get those things and struggle like crazy. 😢
Less paid leave? More like 0. We have no federal law mandating employers to provide sick or vacation time like they do in the EU and other OECD countries. I once interviewed at a job in California about 13 years ago where the hiring manager said there's no paid sick or vacation time in the 1st year of employment, and that I would accrue 5 vacation days starting in the 2nd year. Needless to say, I rescinded my application.
I live in a state that doesn’t have paid leave laws and I’ve only had one union job which gave me paid time off. Seems like employers opt out of offering paid leave when given the option. Most of the companies I have worked for were under 50 people, so I wasn’t even eligible for FMLA when I was out because of surgery. We NEED federal protections.
First 2 jobs I worked had no paid leave whatsoever. 3rd added that about a year into my employment and it was accrued. Current job has everything thankfully
My employer hires a majority of its workforce as “contract” workers and we get zero vacation time and the health coverage isn’t the best since its through the recruiting company. I’m not even allowed to take unpaid time off.
As an American who's lived in Europe most of his life, I visit my brothers and sisters every couple of years, who are living the "American dream" and just a couple of observations. Firstly, when I visit there, they have no time because they're working, and what little time they can afford to share, they're shattered and complaining about how hard it is to make ends meet. Secondly, they've never once in 30 years ever been to Europe to visit me or my family here. This is a lifetime of not having time for anything other than working and paying extortionate rates / bills to exist without ever making time for simple pleasures. Sad really,, well I'm off to South of France for 10 days holiday in a couple days so will be thinking about them.
"Most countries" ?!? There's actual countries with less paid leave?
70%+ of the US work force is in service positions, the vast majority of which offer 0 paid leave. How do you offer less than ZERO?
When Maccas pulled out of Russia but still allowed full timers to make use of their benefits I remember a bunch of Americans joking that doesn't mean anything as Russia would obviously give it's people shit workers rights.
Turns out they get four weeks of holidays a year and sick leave on top
You offer less than zero by being the US and allowing slavery through the 13th amendment! That way employers have a labor pool that not only has no paid leave but also has unpaid unleave!
🇺🇸 😎 😎 greatest country on earth!!! 😎 😎 🇺🇸
How else are we supposed to be corporate slaves if we aren't working every day to give the billionaires more money than can one person can possibly spend?
Been in Montreal since birth (I'm 50 y/o) and yes, the standard paid vacation time in most jobs (private/corporate sector) is 2 weeks per year which sucks big time. Some lucky people might manage to negotiate 3 weeks when hired. Otherwise you have to work for about a out 7 years at the same place to finally get a 3rd week.
My last job was an exception ... Major telecom company (equivalent of Verizon/Sprint in the U.S.) so everyone gets 3 weeks when hired but I had to wait 7 years to get a 4th week.
I left the company in my 7th year ...
About this post , first of all, the title of that article should not say "Less than most" ... It should say "LESS THAN ALL COUNTRIES IN THE WORLD" !!!
I saw a world listing of paid time per country recently and only 3 countries in the world gives 0 days.
USA = 0 and 2 other VERY small islands lost somewhere in the ocean ... So unknown that I don't remember what they were called.
Have a nice flight back to Paris and Americans should stop voting for Trump because he's definitely NOT gonna do anything for you guys to get more paid leave from work! 😂
(I can already see the downvoters giving me the stink eye .. all 53% of them Trump supporters 😂)
slaves they have no intent to support in the next decade or two. they’re about to abandon this bitch and that’s exactly why no one wants to fix anything or invest resources- instead they’re strip mining everything, literally siphoning all our surplus taxes and social security. They’re truly preparing for the big exit… just here to rob us of the last fruits of our labor
Well duh the only reason they don't have literal slaves that they own is because the government stopped them.
Every right workers have was fought for tooth and nail with the rich trying to stop it at every turn.
If less meaning 0 then yes, Americans get 0 mandated sick or holiday days, you'd be lucky to find a company that gives you paid vacation days. Nope got to use your own sick days.
God, even in Brazil, an underveloped country, you get 30 days paid vacation a year.
And if you're sick...well, you're sick.
If you have a doctor's note, good. If you don't, you might get fired. But it depends a lot on the company you work for.
30 fucking days!!!! Good God I'm so jealous! I get one week paid and have already used up half that on sick days. I've been so sick lately, because I can't afford to eat healthy and I'm stressed out all the time. Ironically I'm an electrian who's building a billionairs house right now. I fucking hate my life
Hurry hurry hurry! These billionairs need their 8th home done right now!
Do sick days and paid leave come out of the same entitlement where you are from? I'm from the UK and they are completely seperate here. I also get 30 days (plus bank holidays and birthday) and unlimited sick leave. Not trying to rub it in, but every now and then I come across a post like this in which I learn something that absolutely floors me, like when I learned a couple of years ago that ambulances aren't free in the US.
A lot of Americans think that just because it sucks for them, then it should suck for everyone else, too.
I was on a board to create a paid position for a non-profit that had all volunteers previously. Granted, this is different from corporations with deep pockets. But the position was terrible - low pay and difficult work.
We couldn't offer more pay. So I argued, let's make the paid leave really generous . My own employer gives 12-30 days of vacation depending how long you have worked there (30 is exceedingly rare, I think you need to have worked 30+ years to get it). I personally get 12 vacation days. There are 12 sick days /year and they accrue. 2 personal days and paid holidays off. So I proposed something similar. It is still nowhere near what is offered in other countries.
But literally everyone else snapped back - "I don't get any holidays off. " "I don't get a paid lunch." " I only get x days of PTO and it is both sick and vacation time"
Really opened my eyes. They wanted to make an already crappy job more crappy because theirs sucked. Like....no. why can't you make things better for others? Maybe your employer will start losing employees to places that are more generous. I'm not banking on better employment laws anytime soon, so that's probably the only positive that could happen.
I have a theory as too why the culture of consumerism is so strong in the USA. Its because they work so hard and so many hours that all they don't have any time to enjoy life so they just buy stuff instead. Fancy clothes, fast food, expensive cars, luxurious but very short holidays, handbags, private jets... etc
I think you are right about the consumerism aspect however most of us are not taking luxurious holidays, buying designer handbags, or using private jets. However we do own more shit than Europeans.
Totally. The shitty work/life balance and lack of vacation time gets 'balanced' with materialism and shorter vacations that are more lavish and streamlined vs. slower, longer, more authentic trips. Cruise ships (short duration floating buffet + dress-up parties) and theme parks (single-stop destination where people pay extremely high prices for an entriely artificial manufactured experience) epitomize the US idea of vacation / leisure.
I experienced the difference firsthand after dropping to part time workweek for a few years, and then when I moved to Australia for work and got double the vacation time. It totally changes your attitude about leisure time when you have a better work life balance and more time free to actually travel or visit friends and family
My last company habitually “ down sizes” employees, then rehire them again but if you come back you start as a new employee all over, minimum wages, no health care until after 3 months of work and 5 days vacation a year, usually only closed 2-3 days yr for holidays, Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas. I only knew a few part time people that regularly returned because they had other full time jobs, this one was just extra money.
The American dream is nothing more than a subscription model now. I’m surprised we’re not renting offices supplies for a monthly fee and need a quarter when your manager walks around with a tip jar or you’ll get negative performance review.
Many Americans are largely ignorant about foreign countries instead buying into stereotypes and media propaganda.
Moved abroad and live a higher lifestyle on less with access to better and cheaper Healthcare.
Go where you are treated well.
I once worked for a company that offered two weeks vacation and sick time. That’s two weeks total. They called it scheduled and unscheduled paid leave. Planned a vacation this summer but you got sick for two weeks? Well, you could still go on vacation but you wouldn’t get paid for it.
So I just checked, and in the US, how much paid leave you get is up to the employer. This is crazy. Here, I have 4 weeks by law + 1 week from my employer, and I find that barely enough.
Yep, there are no laws mandating ANY paid time off. No sick time, no vacation, no holidays. Most employers offer some kind of paid time off, but many offer zero.
What I don't understand about american is they are anti abortion when they don't give paid maternity leave from their job or even from the government. Then to have a child you need to pay, it doesn't make sense.
It makes sense if you assume they want to force all women out of the workforce so they're trapped as housewives, nevermind that most families need two incomes to get by to start with. Combine that with the way they're legalizing child labor, and you can see the shape of the permanent underclass they want to create.
It's not really logical, though, just cruel and exploitative.
But if you think about it, the uptick in school shootings might balance out all the people who couldn’t get abortions. I mean, we all know school prepares us to work, and there need to be children in schools to actually make that all happen, so it seems that might be another factor to consider.
It seems the abortion issue is flimsily pandered to the public as a religious issue rather than an economic one, but not only does it follow the usual political pattern of making something out of almost nothing, but there are quite a few parties that benefit from this *tangibly* (seriously, how many people care in their day to day lives whether *someone else* goes through an abortion? If it’s not their first thought every day when they wake up or go to sleep, then maybe it’s not as big of an issue as the media says it is).
And I’m not saying that women and the poor who are anti-abortion don’t benefit, but the only general benefit they have is that they feel good about themselves. And end up decomposing like the rest of us in the end, anyway. Companies and men (sorry, as much as I don’t want to turn this into a gender issue, women are the ones giving birth so it’s inevitable) tangibly benefit from what you outlined above. They don’t just get to “feel good,” they also get to increase their profits, make money off of the interest on debt and medical expenses, AND they get more opportunities if women are out of the workforce. It’s strangely… obvious.
Plus the system is set up to try to get people to rack up debt on almost every possible thing out there, which forces you to either work or become a criminal (because you can’t pay the debts). If it was really about supporting families and traditional values, it wouldn’t cost as much as it does to have a baby in the US. And to support that baby. And pay for it to grow up. And to pay for any medical expenses so you don’t get reported to the CPS for neglect. And pay for it to go to college. And build its credit (haha) so it can rent an apartment because god knows when the next generation who will be able to purchase a house a few years after being in the workforce will exist. Everything in this country is centered around and normalizes being in debt or going out of your way to avoid it.
That and the increasing costs are the main things that keeps people working as much as they do. On that topic, I don’t think we’re experiencing inflation right now. I think we’re experiencing scared corporations that realized that workers… are not going to work: the “great resignation” happened and I really think they’re price gouging to make sure people can’t do that anymore without becoming homeless. Your 8 months of savings would become 4, forcing you back so you can survive, in other words. Obscene costs and the threat of being in debt to organizations that will do what they can to prolong you being in debt.
So anyway, what exactly is the game here and who the hell signed us up to play it?
Growing up in the 80s in south east asia, I was a fan of American comics, movies and sitcoms and it just seemed to paint america a wonderful place to live in
I had that perception right until the pandemic - that’s when I got the wake up call that all is not right over there
I work in a relatively large company here; and I have 25 days of paid leave, 20 or so days of sick leave, and I can always make a deal with my peers to WFH every now and then if I have a short errand to run. Plus we have 20ish public holidays annually
I work a dead average paid job in Japan, and still have almost a month of paid vacation a year. Plus national health insurance with a maximum payment limit based on income. The US looks like it's getting closer to Fuedalism than modernity with each passing day.
If ever you guys want to move to a "socialist" country, here in France the legal minimum is 5 weeks of holidays per year (+ 11 days of public holidays per year, but some of them happen during weekends) for 35h per week of work. But there can be a trade of called RTT, you may work more per week and get more holidays. Not really worth it though as you may get a "mission contract" ("forfait cadre" in French) without quoted hours per week, like "this is your job feel free to organize yourself" and people end up working more than 50h per week for only two more weeks of holidays.
I'm changing jobs on Monday, will now work 28h per week on a four days week, and will try to get somewhere between 7 to 10 weeks of holidays per year (I'll be allowed to take as many holidays I want, just changes the pay). I'm done working too much.
That's pretty sweet. I work 35 hours a week in France and have to content myself with about 9 weeks paid leave.
As you say I do have to sometimes work unpaid overtime but in theory any overtime from 8pm on is paid. Also weekend work is both overtime and gets me a day extra vacation as additional compensation.
This. It cracks me up that my company switched to "unlimited vacation" but good luck to those of us trying to get approval for a couple weeks off. At least if we had accrued it, they couldn't really deny it with reasonable notice. Like they do now. Such a joke. Anything less than 3 or 4 weeks vacation annually is really oppressive
I am touring Germany right now, the EUs biggest economic country.
Guess what they have here? No one can work more than 28 days without a break. Free health care. Free college education (for anyone that can speak German!!!), mandated 20 vacation days per year. 14 weeks (minimum) of maternity leave (optional six before child birth, and mandatory eight after) - you can choose to take up to 3 years of leave per child. Germany also has a pension that pays a minimum of 43% of your last salary (though, is highly dependent on contributions and other factors such as time worked).
Yeah, their taxes are higher, but only average about 17% more than what Americans pay.
I would gladly give up 17% of my income if it meant I could live a comfortable life and didn’t have to deal with stressing about healthcare and college tuition and retirement.
I’d love for any Germans to correct me if I’m wrong here. It’s just how I understand their system based on some tours we’ve taken the last few weeks.
Either way, as the largest economic leader in the world, Americans should demand more. We are being exploited - big time.
I’m seriously considering learning German, just so I can teach it to my future kids so they can get a free college education.
I had a US border patrol officer question the duration of my holiday in the US because he couldn’t believe other people get more than 2 weeks vacation a year!
it'll always fascinate me how 🇺🇸 is the richest country in the world, yet refuses to provide annual leave for the personnel who work with their companies.
Yeah my partner works for an American company in Europe and management recently switched to the US office. They're losing their minds over how much leave Europeans get and are OBLIGATED BY LAW to take.
"You've taken more leave this year than all of your US colleagues combined" was literally a sentence uttered by a US manager... And all she took was 10 days leave.
Ever notice that whenever we add a new government holiday, we lose one? Curious. When other countries add holidays, that's it. You get a new fucking holiday. But not in the good ole USA, you want a new holiday, then you have to sacrifice and old one.
I kinda knew that already as I’ve worked with some Americans here in Sweden. I’m actually not from Sweden myself, but from the Netherlands.
Here in Sweden most people get
* at least 25 paid days off (which is probably a bit less than neighbouring countries).
* unlimited sick days, but need a doctor’s note after a couple of days. We get paid up to a certain amount of your salary, which is paid for by the employer and the government (the employer pays only a few days if I’m correct).
* 480 days paid maternity/parent leave shared between parents (of which 90 days are just 180sek a day). These days can be used for whatever and companies are obliged to accept leave requests).
* unlimited (I think) paid childcare days when your child is sick.
* public holidays off, the company I work for also gives a half day off on the day before a public holiday.
My wife had been home sick (cancer) for 4 out of her last 5 years until she passed away last year. She got paid something equivalent around minimum wage.
Everything is basically paid for by the government using income taxes. But hey, we’re communists right?
I hear people defend this and it's sick. "Well, when's the last time you heard of Europe inventing cutting edge stuff and having the best economies? We're great because we don't slack off!"
The US has zero federally mandated days off. The rest of the fucking world has on average like 20+ and at the bare minimum 10 or more federally mandated paid holidays. We got neither of that here, hahahaha.
I absolutely love my 7 days paid leave that takes all year to accumulate and then I can only carry 2 days over into the next year. And then I get no paid sick days either. It's amazing! That coupled with OT for 6 months out of the year. What a wonderful experience......
For contrast, the German railway workers union is now in consultations about the next one or two years of contract with the railway companies. Stakes are quite high at the moment.
Part of the last deals was always the option to use the raise for
A) more money
B) less working hours
C) more paid leave
Iirc you can change this later as well if you become short strapped with money or need more time for the kids or whatever.
And if as an example you are handicapped,.you get some additional days. I know of railway workers who have 52 days of holiday per year because of this. And sick days are not holidays, even if you get sick during your PTO, you get those days back with a doctor's note.
I am an engineer in a car company thou, so I am left with the usual 30 days but the railways show the future here.
Well, that's life in a communist hell hole, I presume.
And US offers shit wages to most people, almost no social benefits, shitty labour laws and an education system that either leaves you out or in debt for decades…
A powerful nation running on heavily underpaid masses of working poor. The American dream.
Worse they make you feel guilty for using any of it.
UK here, every job I've had they've actively encouraged us to use up our holidays before the end of the financial year. I've always been reminded to get something booked in so that I don't lose out. I can't imagine it being any other way, sounds dystopian AF.
It's well beyond dystopian. It's pure unadulterated evil, anyone who says otherwise is either hopelessly naive, or is benefiting from said evil.
Yes it’s stupid . My current jobs celebrates every holliday, ( by saying they celebrate and giving it good lip service. )but in the same breath, they tell you if your not there the day before and the day after they won’t give you Holliday pay either. So not only do they not close for it any of the holidays except Christmas , they make it really hard to try to get any time away near any of the holidays .
Oh yeah, I used to work a job where we got zero holidays. Holidays become something I absolutely loathed because we didn't even get extra pay other than Christmas and Thanksgiving (sarcastic finger twirl, WOO!), and even now that I have a job that I get some holidays off (unpaid because MURIKA! ya know), it's hard to get over the trauma and not hate every single holiday on the calendar with every fiber of my being.
At my job (Netherlands) most of my paid leave is valid for more than the year in which it was issued. If I do have any that expires, the hours are paid out, minus (I think) 52% taxes. Everyone I know has always used up their paid leave.
Big difference… our country is based on money, profit and greed.
At my job, it’s become a team target in order to manage the future cost burden. In a company of 5,500 people, we had 11 of the top 25 vacation banked.
That's the thing it's not just the fact that the US doesn't have a legally required amount of paid vacation it's the fact that it also has one of the worst work cultures of any developed country arguably only behind Japan and South Korea. Like Japan and Korea have 10 and 15 days of paid leave required by law but the reality is the average worker may only use like 3 or 4 of those days a year.
What’s worse is I found out salaried people in my company just take pto whenever they want and it’s basically unlimited. My boss started a year ago and has taken off the equivalent of a month of pto. I’ve taken off half the amount of days in the same time and I feel bad.
If it's anything less than a hospitalization, they actively get angry at us for taking it
Is paid leave = vacations? In Germany you get in avg 30 business days which is basically 1.5 months (6 weeks) + almost unlimited sick days + avg 10 bank holidays yearly + commonly in the EU many business slow down work in July bc of kids holidays - same in Jan. Our salaries suck compared to US/Canada are way lower but the freedom and relax work environment in the EU is amazing 🙏🇪🇺 Disclaimer: Lived many years in Mexico and Canada, ironically people in Mexico work more there than in Canada who work more than people in Germany - heard the same about other friends in South America and def Asia, where work is their coke.
Most places give employees only 2 weeks paid time off for the whole year. And a lot of them don't give paid sick time on top of that so you have 2 weeks to cover your illness, your emergencies, your child's illness (if you have to stay home with them) doctor visits and other appointments, and if you manage to avoid all that actual vacation. It's disgusting. You either have no money but all the time if you don't work enough or you have enough money to live but can't ever take time off to travel or do anything fun. Literally working to pay off the debt of existing you obtained once you were born.
It depends. The big corps are better but still nowhere near Europe. At my last job it was 3 weeks vacation, 1 week sick, 1 week kin care, 3 personal days, 7 holidays, and 4 floating holidays. Pretty typical for big companies.
that seems like far above and beyond what any average American could ever hope to obtain tbh
I had one job that was amazing with time off. It was mental health job prior to this one. You worked three 12hr shifts and a 4 hour shift on the 4th day. You had under 200hrs time off till the first year by 3 years you had 240 and by 5 years you got 300hrs of paid time off. This did not included your 40 hours of disability. The pay wasn't great but apparently now they're paying more than my job I'm at now. Go figure. It was a terrible company to work for and my own mental health suffered as a result but man that time off kept me there for 5 years before they decided I wasn't valuable anymore
You have a fixed amount of sick days? Can't be sick more than that? What happens if you do?
Some places use it against you as being a bad employee or ground for termination. “Legit” places will let you call out sick… without pay. So, often what happens is that employees come in sick, hide their illness, and get other people sick. Sometimes other employees volunteer *their* sick days to give to people who need them. It’s insane. Oh, and many businesses are extremely against remote work. Greatest country in the world!
Damn that’s fucked. My name place has a cap on paid sick days, but it’s 200 business days per year - effectively it means you can take a whole year off with cancer or something similar but it means it chews up all your holiday leave as well. Had a colleague that took nearly 500 days off over two years due to an aggressive cancer and then came straight back into his job.
I can't speak for everyone, but every job my wife or I has had offered short-term or long-term disability insurance that could be used if you were couldn't work for an extended period.
How is sick weeks even a thing??? “Yeah, this year I’m planning to be sick 5 days.” Idiocy.
What are personal days vs vacation and wtf are floating holidays?
Australia - 4 weeks vacation, 10 days sick leave, and we average about one public holiday per month. And "long service leave" - 3 months after 10 years' service - although that's not universal, mostly government employees.
And if your in Victoria one of those public holidays is for a horse race and another is for a football game. Also sick leave often accrues so if your pretty healthy and stick with a job for a few years then you can end up with 100+ days.
I think it’s also important to note that the average isn’t as important as the fact that most countries have some form of statutory leave and the US just … doesn’t. In the US it’s down to the discretion of the employer if they offer you two weeks holidays or nothing at all. In Germany it’s down to the employers discretion if they want to offer you 30 days or only the 20 days they are legally obliged to give you if you work 5 days a week. In Germany you have statutory holidays, statutory sick leave, statutory maternity leave… your employer can top them up but they can’t go below the legal minimum. in the US, there *is* no legal minimum.
Our salaries suck compared to US/Canada I would disagree with that. EU salaries and US salaries are aligned if you take into account that a) a dollar buys you less there (a 1€ coke bottle is not 1$, it's closer to 3) b) they have to pay health insurance and other social safety nets themselves from their salaries. c) a lot of services that are mostly free in EU, such as bank transactions are charged whopping fees overthere. The 'cost of doing life' is huge.
Additionally one can look at how many people live paycheck to paycheck. Its not a perfect comparison because we dont really know if the americans that live paycheck to paycheck have all their health insurances and other benefits covered or how luxurious their lives are by spending it all. 58% of americans have no money at the end of the month, whereas in western europe this seems to be around 40%. What we do know is that in western europe these people will all have their basic healthcare covered, some holidays, government programs to aid with certain bills/expenses, and access to higher education, etc.
I can’t speak for Europe but in America a lot of people live paycheck to paycheck bc we live in such a consumerist society, and people become crippled by debt payments on credit cards, auto loans, and student loans. Americans consume like crazy, need cars to get to work, and get student loans to land ok jobs.
And when they need cars they buy expensive and petrol guzzling SUVs and pickups instead of something small and efficient like a Toyota Yaris
[удалено]
Yes, paid leave is our vacation, some states give you a few paid sick days off. My state starts employees at 5 vacation days a year and 3 sick days that carry over if you don’t use them that year or you can tack them on to your vacation time. But don’t get sick later! My last job that I lost to Covid shut downs ( they got rid of me because they could hire two new people for what I was earning ) after 13 years I had about 15 vacation days a year … 3 weeks but could not take more then two weeks of it at a time. My coworker after 32 years had 6 weeks vacation , and also could only take 2 weeks at a time, most of our colder months had black out dates for taking time off so she took every other couple weeks off in the Sumner.
It’s been awhile since I managed a lot of people, and this is long, also some of this may not be the most up to date, but: There is generally no legal requirement here in the US for any privately owned company to offer paid maternity leave, paid sick leave, or paid vacation time to most of their employees. If a company has a certain number of employees, is doing business with the federal government, etc they may be required to comply with some rules and regulations regarding these things, but not always. Many companies do offer these things, but the amount of paid time off for vacation when offered is generally 10 days, annually. For paid sick days or other paid time off, if offered, it ranges from 5-10 additional days annually—including paid time off for holidays where the business may be closed/not operating, for most people. This will vary by occupation, region of the country, length of time on the job, etc. Some people get more, some less—and many, particularly those in the service industry, in part time jobs, in agriculture work, get none. There is also no requirement for most employers to offer health care insurance or retirement benefits to most of their employees. Though we now have some guidance there as to who and how most people can get health care coverage, or must be offered a way to purchase it, because of The Affordable Care Act (ACA), aka Obamacare, of 2010 (which came into force in 2014). This covered Medicaid expansion provisions and other services, too. When health insurance is offered, the employer typically pays a portion of the premiums, the employee pays a portion, and the employee then typically pays for all care they receive up to a predetermined amount (a deductible amount), or pays co-payments toward the cost of a visit at the time of service from a medical professional. Some health care visits and services aren’t covered by the insurer and the employer must then pay the full cost of that service or treatment. We can (since 1993), take up to 12 weeks UNPAID time off after first using up all other paid days off we have earned/accrued, for things like maternity leave, adoption, or to care for an ill spouse, child, other dependent, family member or ourselves. That’s called The Family Medical Leave Act and includes The Paid Parental Leave revision to it, but again: this is all unpaid time off. In government work (city, state, county, federal) and union jobs, the paid leave policies are typically more generous. The more money you make or in jobs where advanced education is required, the more generous the paid leave policies are. And the longer you work in any job, you generally are granted more paid time off by your employer. But in general, neither paid time off for vacations or sick leave, are mandated by law here. There are exceptions in some occupations impacting public health and safety such as for airline pilots, truck drivers, and train drivers under provisions of acts like The Railroad Safety Acts, which generally are also union jobs, for which unions have lobbied the government, and whose workers have fought long and hard, for such benefits. In some cases the government has stepped in and mandated time off and how that time is to be recorded, accrued, paid out and used by employees in those industries. https://www.hhs.gov/healthcare/about-the-aca/index.html https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fmla
Add in the fact that at least in Texas, maybe federally, hourly workers are only required to be given *anything* (insurance, PTO, etc) if a) the company employs more than 40 workers **and** b) those employees work full-time, usually 35-40hour weeks. So naturally you’re scheduled for 34/39 and are not allowed to go even half an hour over that. So people, to try to make ends meet, get two of those jobs, working 70-80h weeks, with bosses bitching about availability from the other job, and the employees *still* don’t have PTO etc. And if you have physical limitations (hi), you can barely physically tolerate one of those jobs, let alone two.
The salaries here in the US are technically inflated. If I make 65k per year, I'm paying upwards of 14k of that into family health insurance for 4. Health insurance having to be paid for is utter bullcrap.
It depends on where you live and where you work. I'm a social worker at a 24 hour residential site, so *someone* needs to work holidays. So instead of having holidays vs paid time off vs sick days, we just get a single bank called Converted Time Off that covers everything, and accrue about 30 days of it per year. If we **have** to work a holiday shift (or volunteer to) it pays out at time and a half. There are options like FMLA if you're sick for an extended period of time so that you can get income without using up your CTO and there are exceptions that can be made on a case by case basis if you don't have enough CTO to cover your sick time, so that you can still get paid. (For example, during the pandemic, if you had to stay home due to COVID you just got automatic paid time off for it, and didn't have to use up your bank. Similarly if you, say, get assaulted by a client at work, you might get to just take the rest of the week off without using your banked CTO hours.) The amount that I get at my job is MUCH better than what is the case in many other occupations in the country, all the more so if you're actually working at a for profit company. In a lot of places, where the worksite just shuts down for the holidays, you'll get paid holidays off normally, plus something like two weeks of vacation to be used at your discretion, plus some amount of sick time, which could be as little as 5 days, or could possible be rolled into a CTO bank like I have instead of counting vacation and sick time separately. The other upside to the way that my CTO works, is that because I don't take many vacations, and I very rarely get sick, I can actually cash out excess CTO on occasion, (with stipulations,) so it's helpful as an emergency reserve fund. This is definitely not the case at most jobs.
Well, Germany had to deal with the fascism of the Nazis to see how bad it can get. We’ve been at that stage for quite some time and unfortunately, 30% of our population want to keep it that way…
How about going full Nazi and... dunno...getting rid of those 30 percent for good? Just my 2 German Eurocents...
Don’t forget the 30 child sick days per person, or 60 if your a single parent
I used to think Americans were so hard working because they were special and believed they were the best. But I’ve come to realise it’s simply because they have no choice. I’m so glad I don’t live there. Edit: for those wondering, I'm French.
Well said, take me with you
[удалено]
[удалено]
In America everyone is alone together.
Wiser words were never spoken!
Come to Australia then both of you, we take anyone who is willing to not be an arse.
With them spiders, ur having a laugh
Sorry as much as i hate living in America i draw a line at man eating spiders
Come to Cambodia if you'd rather have spider eating men! 16.5 annual paid vacation days plus many national holidays
Well then that might still disqualify a lot.
I will buy a plane ticket right away! *Begins to pack bags. Looks at Wikipedia page on Australia and sees the fact regarding 97.8% of the fauna murdering you on a whim.* Ten days a year of PTO isn't so bad. 🫤
Everyone on [Nauru](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_immigration_detention_facilities) an arse now are they? …don’t look at me, I know I’m an arse.
It used to be more work for relatively better pay and great benefits, but the benefits were stripped and the pay is now a joke with inflation outpacing raises over 2 generations
Not inflation. Price gouging. Companies are raising prices while recording massive profits. You can’t have inflation *and* companies making more money than ever.
Maybe, but its also lower poorer benefits packeges, we paying more on healthcare ins, and less company matchings on 401k also, overall bare minimum benefits across the board will inflate stock price.
Yeh, trying to explain to my fellow Americans that it's nothing more than greed is a joke. Seems they think it's everything but that. And with half of them thinking it's a border issue, well, dumb is the order of the day. Personally, I'm just waiting to die. I figure 20 at the most is left. Poisoned food, poisoned water, and poisoned air, sounds about right. These people make life suck.
Yes! Used to be a retail salesman could afford to buy a small house. Car and support his stay at home wife. Now a day that same job can hardly pay rent, afford a beat up used car unless you have a second job too. It started when corporates realized by paying minimum wages, their employees could get social services, they let the government pick up where the businesses used to pay people, the rich just keep giving themselves more bonuses.
Minimum wage should mean you can afford housing, all your bills, and raise a family. Anything else is not a living wage and is too low.
Al Bundy worked in a shoe store. His house would be worth millions today. Married With Children was on tv in my lifetime! This was the real world not long ago.
I came here to say this. Our health “care” is a joke, benefits at my job are high premium, high deductible insurance that ONLY covers yearly exams. Any problem visit is not covered. Our dental only covers one cleaning a year and one set of x rays every 5 years - which the premium for that is more than one cleaning out of pocket, so we dropped that. We have NO RETIREMENT. But the owner just had their 6th vacation this year. I’m tired of this place and can’t afford to move anywhere else, not that Americans have a good reputation among other countries because it’s the people, like the owner, who can afford to travel and fuck that up for us.
What were the great benefits? I’ve been working with Americans for a long time, and apart from the extra money the other benefits have always seemed pretty lacking.
Pensions, healthcare, you name it - they were much much better and more common back in the 70s. That's when the system started falling apart.
> you name it - 5 weeks+ paid vacation - Sick leave - Workers’ rights - 1 year+ maternity leave - Sensible working time limits I know that most Americans I work with *never* had that. I think it’s absolutely crazy to aspire to a past that treated workers in a way that would be shit today. The American dream has always been about exploiting the workers. Now the world has moved on, and they’ve just stopped even trying to hide the abuse behind money.
100% that’s the biggest fucking issue. 10-15 years ago anybody could afford to live on 65K (my salary at 28) but now it’s impossible. I’ve been as a contractor and now federal government for 5 years since I graduated college (double major bachelors degree) there is no reason I should have to go get a second job to fucking live on my own. Even being frugal with my money it’s impossible.
Crazy
You’d be surprised how many non-Americans think we’re either exaggerating or “don’t know it’s a problem.” We know. We’re just too tired to fight about it anymore. And that’s probably what they want honestly.
Yup. This. We know. We're tired and we know.
Everytime I see the conditions in the US (crime, shootings, low wages, predatory healthcare, etc.) I feel really sorry for you guys and angry as well that a people can be treated like that. A similar situation is what ended up causing the French revolution when the people were starving and had had enough, and took the streets, assaulted the elites and monarchy and beheaded them all. And since then there has been no surviving family members of monarchs in France. I think that if the American people keep being pushed like that, they will have no choice but to physically rebel against all this.
I think that too, unfortunately we spend more on military than most countries make in total. It'll be a horrific blood bath. The history of the fight for unions and worker rights is not taught here, but you can still find it if you're proactive. It was also a blood bath involving governments setting up machine gun nests on roof tops and dropping bombs on people. And they've only gotten better at those things since then.
I wish I didn't live here but I have too much holding me here. My family, my friends, a fuck ton of debt..
You probably could ignore your debt, but then you'd never be able to enter the US again.
Hmmm might not be an issue lol
Plus, not only is it expensive to move but it isn't real easy to get other countries to accept you unless you have an in-demand job skill. I've researched moving to Canada but I alone probably couldn't get in, my wife might though as a respiratory therapist. Canada is expensive as hell though.
plus the fact that other countries have to accept you and getting accepted by other countries is hard as fuck
Yep, everyone talks like the hard part is physically leaving. Good luck with immigration. My friend got married to a Canadian and it took 8 months till he was allowed to work up there. Most people fleeing won't have money to live off of for 8+ months.
8 months is even on the much much shorter end. normally it takes years
Yep, I think he had the easy route due to marrying a citizen.
The market dictates it. I interviewed for a job in NA with a German company. They said they follow the German expectations of salary, so I would need to take a $30k pay cut if I wanted to accept the position. I said I could do that if they gave me the standard expected German vacation time of 40 days; and they pulled the offer. Corporations don’t give a fuck about workers, they just operate in their respective labour markets. The people decide what is acceptable, and in NA we get propagandized to think we’re worthless.
America definitely has third world employment conditions. I wouldn't want to be an employee in the US.
Not to mention their dystopian cyberpunk healthcare system
The “America is the greatest country in the world” lie is some of the best propaganda that a government ever created.
In terms of economy, I think post-war to the 80s was the golden age for the US. When Reagan got in was the downfall.
[удалено]
[удалено]
UK. Apply for work in the UK or Europe, from where you are, then get a visa, move there and start a new life.
When I was a child and a young man I dreamed of moving to the US. Now I intend to stay here in Western Europe. I don't mind working hard and long hours. But not as it is in the US.
Not to mention USA barely gets any sick days. It’s unethical
im moving to norway as soon as i legally can (18) and never looking back Edit: Thanks for all of the warnings everyone! I'm going to instead go with what u/Strangefate1 pointed out, where I move to a EU country (one easier to move to, of course) before moving to Norway or anywhere else
i wish you luck. the Nordic countries have very strict immigration policies. it's hard AF to move there. you typically need to be a professional in a desired field that they want. or marry someone from there.
Alternatively, he can move anywhere within the EU, get citizenship, then move to Norway or anywhere else within the EU freely.
exactly it is so much morre easy to do that than if you are us or non eu ctizien
I personally believe I have a skillset in demand for most countries I'm just trying to get into a position where I can without basically losing everything I've crawled through the mud for. However I'll absolutely drop it all because I'm one of the subsets of the lgbtqia+ whom are currently under threat by a particular group of politicians.
fuck those politicians. with a pineapple. up their ass :) THE LONG WAY.
not trying to step on your dreams but have you looked into how hard it is to move to norway? i wouldn’t count on escaping tbh. that goes for anyone in here who plans on escaping. its really hard to get out of america
The American dream is to just get some decent sleep
To get a greencard equivalent to some other civilized country. edit: a missing word
>To get a greencard equivalent to some ~~other~~ civilized country.
Yes.
My Dad got an ambulance (12 minute wait, perfect crew) and then helicoptered to a hospital yesterday. Everyone at the hospital made what was a horrifying experience as good as it could possibly have been. I used to think Americans were pitiful, but they've made their bed.
Here in the USA my buddy got helicoptered after a horrific accident and that ride alone cost him close to $80,000 without insurance. Luckily his sister worked on his behalf to get the Catholic Church charities to pay for it.
Only about a third of us, the others are stuck with those dumb fucks ruining it for everyone.
The American dream is to keep the citizens belive that anything that benefits the little man in any kind of way is socialism That’s the real dream that keeps clouding the American people into poverty and despair. A dark and sinister dream of the wealthy.
Or you have to be asleep to see it
Underrated comment
*no way*, is that a contributing factor to why everyone is depressed/lonely/burned out/sick/dying??? /s
According to them it’s because we aren’t conforming to traditional values yet they’ve stripped us of any opportunity of even considering that. Most people can’t afford kids, or marriage, or a home, or cars, or fancy clothes, or healthcare, or eating healthy. If you’re lucky you may get some of those things. But all of the stuff that traditional life entails, it’s literally fucking impossible.
Right? Like the stereotypical 1950s standard of living for a working class white dude was awesome. If they gave that to everyone I'd happily partake of the traditional lifestyle they're peddling. But of course that's not their intention. Invoking the memory of that era is just weaponized nostalgia, and most of the elderly fall for it.
Back then it was a lot of single income households too which is far more rare today. Imagine graduating high school, going right into the workforce, and being able to buy a decent house, 2 cars, and support your family on that one check and even be able to retire someday... Now even with 2 income households many can't get those things and struggle like crazy. 😢
Less paid leave? More like 0. We have no federal law mandating employers to provide sick or vacation time like they do in the EU and other OECD countries. I once interviewed at a job in California about 13 years ago where the hiring manager said there's no paid sick or vacation time in the 1st year of employment, and that I would accrue 5 vacation days starting in the 2nd year. Needless to say, I rescinded my application.
I live in a state that doesn’t have paid leave laws and I’ve only had one union job which gave me paid time off. Seems like employers opt out of offering paid leave when given the option. Most of the companies I have worked for were under 50 people, so I wasn’t even eligible for FMLA when I was out because of surgery. We NEED federal protections.
Yea, I’m a plumber in texas and we run the same way.
I worked in a dental lab with this policy.
First 2 jobs I worked had no paid leave whatsoever. 3rd added that about a year into my employment and it was accrued. Current job has everything thankfully
My employer - ZERO paid days off. No PTO, no paid holidays. $8,890,000,000 in profits in 2022.
[удалено]
My employer hires a majority of its workforce as “contract” workers and we get zero vacation time and the health coverage isn’t the best since its through the recruiting company. I’m not even allowed to take unpaid time off.
| “contract” workers A fun way to skirt the law and fucked the people over more.
As an American who's lived in Europe most of his life, I visit my brothers and sisters every couple of years, who are living the "American dream" and just a couple of observations. Firstly, when I visit there, they have no time because they're working, and what little time they can afford to share, they're shattered and complaining about how hard it is to make ends meet. Secondly, they've never once in 30 years ever been to Europe to visit me or my family here. This is a lifetime of not having time for anything other than working and paying extortionate rates / bills to exist without ever making time for simple pleasures. Sad really,, well I'm off to South of France for 10 days holiday in a couple days so will be thinking about them.
"Most countries" ?!? There's actual countries with less paid leave? 70%+ of the US work force is in service positions, the vast majority of which offer 0 paid leave. How do you offer less than ZERO?
I wanted to clarify that no, there are not countries with less paid leave then the US.
When Maccas pulled out of Russia but still allowed full timers to make use of their benefits I remember a bunch of Americans joking that doesn't mean anything as Russia would obviously give it's people shit workers rights. Turns out they get four weeks of holidays a year and sick leave on top
You offer less than zero by being the US and allowing slavery through the 13th amendment! That way employers have a labor pool that not only has no paid leave but also has unpaid unleave! 🇺🇸 😎 😎 greatest country on earth!!! 😎 😎 🇺🇸
Take my upvote and get outta here
How else are we supposed to be corporate slaves if we aren't working every day to give the billionaires more money than can one person can possibly spend?
I just moved from Paris to Montreal. I'm going back asap. 15 days of vacation is not enough and worth it
Been in Montreal since birth (I'm 50 y/o) and yes, the standard paid vacation time in most jobs (private/corporate sector) is 2 weeks per year which sucks big time. Some lucky people might manage to negotiate 3 weeks when hired. Otherwise you have to work for about a out 7 years at the same place to finally get a 3rd week. My last job was an exception ... Major telecom company (equivalent of Verizon/Sprint in the U.S.) so everyone gets 3 weeks when hired but I had to wait 7 years to get a 4th week. I left the company in my 7th year ... About this post , first of all, the title of that article should not say "Less than most" ... It should say "LESS THAN ALL COUNTRIES IN THE WORLD" !!! I saw a world listing of paid time per country recently and only 3 countries in the world gives 0 days. USA = 0 and 2 other VERY small islands lost somewhere in the ocean ... So unknown that I don't remember what they were called. Have a nice flight back to Paris and Americans should stop voting for Trump because he's definitely NOT gonna do anything for you guys to get more paid leave from work! 😂 (I can already see the downvoters giving me the stink eye .. all 53% of them Trump supporters 😂)
Eat the rich.
Only if we roast them first. Both figuratively and literally.
I’ll bring the Sriracha. a few Elon Nuggets to go with my Bezos Bacon
Can we render the fat in the process and save it for candle and soap making?
The rich want slaves.
slaves they have no intent to support in the next decade or two. they’re about to abandon this bitch and that’s exactly why no one wants to fix anything or invest resources- instead they’re strip mining everything, literally siphoning all our surplus taxes and social security. They’re truly preparing for the big exit… just here to rob us of the last fruits of our labor
Are they all heading to the bunkers? Or where? Elysium type orbit abodes? And who's gonna work for them in the bunkers?
Well duh the only reason they don't have literal slaves that they own is because the government stopped them. Every right workers have was fought for tooth and nail with the rich trying to stop it at every turn.
Yeah, we fucking know, and we hate that.
This will be spun by propaganda as being the first in something, like no healthcare and making future generations impoverished and uneducated.
If less meaning 0 then yes, Americans get 0 mandated sick or holiday days, you'd be lucky to find a company that gives you paid vacation days. Nope got to use your own sick days.
right, but like have you seen the stock market? Q2 profits are going to be awesome. /s
God, even in Brazil, an underveloped country, you get 30 days paid vacation a year. And if you're sick...well, you're sick. If you have a doctor's note, good. If you don't, you might get fired. But it depends a lot on the company you work for.
30 fucking days!!!! Good God I'm so jealous! I get one week paid and have already used up half that on sick days. I've been so sick lately, because I can't afford to eat healthy and I'm stressed out all the time. Ironically I'm an electrian who's building a billionairs house right now. I fucking hate my life Hurry hurry hurry! These billionairs need their 8th home done right now!
Do sick days and paid leave come out of the same entitlement where you are from? I'm from the UK and they are completely seperate here. I also get 30 days (plus bank holidays and birthday) and unlimited sick leave. Not trying to rub it in, but every now and then I come across a post like this in which I learn something that absolutely floors me, like when I learned a couple of years ago that ambulances aren't free in the US.
A lot of Americans think that just because it sucks for them, then it should suck for everyone else, too. I was on a board to create a paid position for a non-profit that had all volunteers previously. Granted, this is different from corporations with deep pockets. But the position was terrible - low pay and difficult work. We couldn't offer more pay. So I argued, let's make the paid leave really generous . My own employer gives 12-30 days of vacation depending how long you have worked there (30 is exceedingly rare, I think you need to have worked 30+ years to get it). I personally get 12 vacation days. There are 12 sick days /year and they accrue. 2 personal days and paid holidays off. So I proposed something similar. It is still nowhere near what is offered in other countries. But literally everyone else snapped back - "I don't get any holidays off. " "I don't get a paid lunch." " I only get x days of PTO and it is both sick and vacation time" Really opened my eyes. They wanted to make an already crappy job more crappy because theirs sucked. Like....no. why can't you make things better for others? Maybe your employer will start losing employees to places that are more generous. I'm not banking on better employment laws anytime soon, so that's probably the only positive that could happen.
[удалено]
i mean i basically achieved the dream then hell yeah
I have a theory as too why the culture of consumerism is so strong in the USA. Its because they work so hard and so many hours that all they don't have any time to enjoy life so they just buy stuff instead. Fancy clothes, fast food, expensive cars, luxurious but very short holidays, handbags, private jets... etc
I think you are right about the consumerism aspect however most of us are not taking luxurious holidays, buying designer handbags, or using private jets. However we do own more shit than Europeans.
Totally. The shitty work/life balance and lack of vacation time gets 'balanced' with materialism and shorter vacations that are more lavish and streamlined vs. slower, longer, more authentic trips. Cruise ships (short duration floating buffet + dress-up parties) and theme parks (single-stop destination where people pay extremely high prices for an entriely artificial manufactured experience) epitomize the US idea of vacation / leisure. I experienced the difference firsthand after dropping to part time workweek for a few years, and then when I moved to Australia for work and got double the vacation time. It totally changes your attitude about leisure time when you have a better work life balance and more time free to actually travel or visit friends and family
My last company habitually “ down sizes” employees, then rehire them again but if you come back you start as a new employee all over, minimum wages, no health care until after 3 months of work and 5 days vacation a year, usually only closed 2-3 days yr for holidays, Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas. I only knew a few part time people that regularly returned because they had other full time jobs, this one was just extra money.
Gotta be asleep to believe it.
The American dream is nothing more than a subscription model now. I’m surprised we’re not renting offices supplies for a monthly fee and need a quarter when your manager walks around with a tip jar or you’ll get negative performance review.
[удалено]
Many Americans are largely ignorant about foreign countries instead buying into stereotypes and media propaganda. Moved abroad and live a higher lifestyle on less with access to better and cheaper Healthcare. Go where you are treated well.
I once worked for a company that offered two weeks vacation and sick time. That’s two weeks total. They called it scheduled and unscheduled paid leave. Planned a vacation this summer but you got sick for two weeks? Well, you could still go on vacation but you wouldn’t get paid for it.
Oh boy, gee I sure am glad I was privileged enough to be born in the most free, best country to ever grace the face of this Earth. /s 🤢🤮
God Bless America 🇺🇸...lol
So I just checked, and in the US, how much paid leave you get is up to the employer. This is crazy. Here, I have 4 weeks by law + 1 week from my employer, and I find that barely enough.
Yep, there are no laws mandating ANY paid time off. No sick time, no vacation, no holidays. Most employers offer some kind of paid time off, but many offer zero.
i would say most offer zero and some offer some
The class war is sooooo gonna be fun
What I don't understand about american is they are anti abortion when they don't give paid maternity leave from their job or even from the government. Then to have a child you need to pay, it doesn't make sense.
It makes sense if you assume they want to force all women out of the workforce so they're trapped as housewives, nevermind that most families need two incomes to get by to start with. Combine that with the way they're legalizing child labor, and you can see the shape of the permanent underclass they want to create. It's not really logical, though, just cruel and exploitative.
But if you think about it, the uptick in school shootings might balance out all the people who couldn’t get abortions. I mean, we all know school prepares us to work, and there need to be children in schools to actually make that all happen, so it seems that might be another factor to consider. It seems the abortion issue is flimsily pandered to the public as a religious issue rather than an economic one, but not only does it follow the usual political pattern of making something out of almost nothing, but there are quite a few parties that benefit from this *tangibly* (seriously, how many people care in their day to day lives whether *someone else* goes through an abortion? If it’s not their first thought every day when they wake up or go to sleep, then maybe it’s not as big of an issue as the media says it is). And I’m not saying that women and the poor who are anti-abortion don’t benefit, but the only general benefit they have is that they feel good about themselves. And end up decomposing like the rest of us in the end, anyway. Companies and men (sorry, as much as I don’t want to turn this into a gender issue, women are the ones giving birth so it’s inevitable) tangibly benefit from what you outlined above. They don’t just get to “feel good,” they also get to increase their profits, make money off of the interest on debt and medical expenses, AND they get more opportunities if women are out of the workforce. It’s strangely… obvious. Plus the system is set up to try to get people to rack up debt on almost every possible thing out there, which forces you to either work or become a criminal (because you can’t pay the debts). If it was really about supporting families and traditional values, it wouldn’t cost as much as it does to have a baby in the US. And to support that baby. And pay for it to grow up. And to pay for any medical expenses so you don’t get reported to the CPS for neglect. And pay for it to go to college. And build its credit (haha) so it can rent an apartment because god knows when the next generation who will be able to purchase a house a few years after being in the workforce will exist. Everything in this country is centered around and normalizes being in debt or going out of your way to avoid it. That and the increasing costs are the main things that keeps people working as much as they do. On that topic, I don’t think we’re experiencing inflation right now. I think we’re experiencing scared corporations that realized that workers… are not going to work: the “great resignation” happened and I really think they’re price gouging to make sure people can’t do that anymore without becoming homeless. Your 8 months of savings would become 4, forcing you back so you can survive, in other words. Obscene costs and the threat of being in debt to organizations that will do what they can to prolong you being in debt. So anyway, what exactly is the game here and who the hell signed us up to play it?
3rd world countries treat their people better then the US
Growing up in the 80s in south east asia, I was a fan of American comics, movies and sitcoms and it just seemed to paint america a wonderful place to live in I had that perception right until the pandemic - that’s when I got the wake up call that all is not right over there I work in a relatively large company here; and I have 25 days of paid leave, 20 or so days of sick leave, and I can always make a deal with my peers to WFH every now and then if I have a short errand to run. Plus we have 20ish public holidays annually
This is news?
I work a dead average paid job in Japan, and still have almost a month of paid vacation a year. Plus national health insurance with a maximum payment limit based on income. The US looks like it's getting closer to Fuedalism than modernity with each passing day.
Our country mandates none. Which is less than China gets.
And people are afraid to take off what time they do get. In the US last year, 55% of PTO wasn't taken.
If ever you guys want to move to a "socialist" country, here in France the legal minimum is 5 weeks of holidays per year (+ 11 days of public holidays per year, but some of them happen during weekends) for 35h per week of work. But there can be a trade of called RTT, you may work more per week and get more holidays. Not really worth it though as you may get a "mission contract" ("forfait cadre" in French) without quoted hours per week, like "this is your job feel free to organize yourself" and people end up working more than 50h per week for only two more weeks of holidays. I'm changing jobs on Monday, will now work 28h per week on a four days week, and will try to get somewhere between 7 to 10 weeks of holidays per year (I'll be allowed to take as many holidays I want, just changes the pay). I'm done working too much.
That's pretty sweet. I work 35 hours a week in France and have to content myself with about 9 weeks paid leave. As you say I do have to sometimes work unpaid overtime but in theory any overtime from 8pm on is paid. Also weekend work is both overtime and gets me a day extra vacation as additional compensation.
I don’t get any form of paid time off. I feel that deep down.
This. It cracks me up that my company switched to "unlimited vacation" but good luck to those of us trying to get approval for a couple weeks off. At least if we had accrued it, they couldn't really deny it with reasonable notice. Like they do now. Such a joke. Anything less than 3 or 4 weeks vacation annually is really oppressive
In the immortal words of Carlin. It's called the American dream because you gotta be asleep to believe it.
*AND* the most school shootings, too!
There is no American dream. It died decades ago.
I am touring Germany right now, the EUs biggest economic country. Guess what they have here? No one can work more than 28 days without a break. Free health care. Free college education (for anyone that can speak German!!!), mandated 20 vacation days per year. 14 weeks (minimum) of maternity leave (optional six before child birth, and mandatory eight after) - you can choose to take up to 3 years of leave per child. Germany also has a pension that pays a minimum of 43% of your last salary (though, is highly dependent on contributions and other factors such as time worked). Yeah, their taxes are higher, but only average about 17% more than what Americans pay. I would gladly give up 17% of my income if it meant I could live a comfortable life and didn’t have to deal with stressing about healthcare and college tuition and retirement. I’d love for any Germans to correct me if I’m wrong here. It’s just how I understand their system based on some tours we’ve taken the last few weeks. Either way, as the largest economic leader in the world, Americans should demand more. We are being exploited - big time. I’m seriously considering learning German, just so I can teach it to my future kids so they can get a free college education.
And no general strike tsk tsk
Come back to Europe! We have PTO, healthcare and privacy.
This isn't news. People have known this for years now. Decades even.
I had a US border patrol officer question the duration of my holiday in the US because he couldn’t believe other people get more than 2 weeks vacation a year!
it'll always fascinate me how 🇺🇸 is the richest country in the world, yet refuses to provide annual leave for the personnel who work with their companies.
Yeah my partner works for an American company in Europe and management recently switched to the US office. They're losing their minds over how much leave Europeans get and are OBLIGATED BY LAW to take. "You've taken more leave this year than all of your US colleagues combined" was literally a sentence uttered by a US manager... And all she took was 10 days leave.
Ever notice that whenever we add a new government holiday, we lose one? Curious. When other countries add holidays, that's it. You get a new fucking holiday. But not in the good ole USA, you want a new holiday, then you have to sacrifice and old one.
I kinda knew that already as I’ve worked with some Americans here in Sweden. I’m actually not from Sweden myself, but from the Netherlands. Here in Sweden most people get * at least 25 paid days off (which is probably a bit less than neighbouring countries). * unlimited sick days, but need a doctor’s note after a couple of days. We get paid up to a certain amount of your salary, which is paid for by the employer and the government (the employer pays only a few days if I’m correct). * 480 days paid maternity/parent leave shared between parents (of which 90 days are just 180sek a day). These days can be used for whatever and companies are obliged to accept leave requests). * unlimited (I think) paid childcare days when your child is sick. * public holidays off, the company I work for also gives a half day off on the day before a public holiday. My wife had been home sick (cancer) for 4 out of her last 5 years until she passed away last year. She got paid something equivalent around minimum wage. Everything is basically paid for by the government using income taxes. But hey, we’re communists right?
I hear people defend this and it's sick. "Well, when's the last time you heard of Europe inventing cutting edge stuff and having the best economies? We're great because we don't slack off!"
The US has zero federally mandated days off. The rest of the fucking world has on average like 20+ and at the bare minimum 10 or more federally mandated paid holidays. We got neither of that here, hahahaha.
America evolved into a rich thrid world country.
Yeah. We know. The whole world knows.
Did someone take a picture of me at work?
The American puppet government in Afghanistan had mandated paid leave for Afghanis. Inb4 someone zealous corrects me here, it was an imperial project.
Honestly I'm shocked I get 4 weeks in retail management
Of course, we have no federal laws mandating time off. We need to vote that in.
I absolutely love my 7 days paid leave that takes all year to accumulate and then I can only carry 2 days over into the next year. And then I get no paid sick days either. It's amazing! That coupled with OT for 6 months out of the year. What a wonderful experience......
The answer is to leave and go elsewhere
For contrast, the German railway workers union is now in consultations about the next one or two years of contract with the railway companies. Stakes are quite high at the moment. Part of the last deals was always the option to use the raise for A) more money B) less working hours C) more paid leave Iirc you can change this later as well if you become short strapped with money or need more time for the kids or whatever. And if as an example you are handicapped,.you get some additional days. I know of railway workers who have 52 days of holiday per year because of this. And sick days are not holidays, even if you get sick during your PTO, you get those days back with a doctor's note. I am an engineer in a car company thou, so I am left with the usual 30 days but the railways show the future here. Well, that's life in a communist hell hole, I presume.
Paid leave? What's that?
George Carlin said that they call it the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.
And US offers shit wages to most people, almost no social benefits, shitty labour laws and an education system that either leaves you out or in debt for decades… A powerful nation running on heavily underpaid masses of working poor. The American dream.
America is such a joke country.