you didn’t use the correct number for UK. most sources state it ~2.5% of gdp. us is 3.5. that does not make 134% increase. your claims are just completely out of thin air, or rather blind rage at whoever is governing.
as a percentage of GDP is used because it’s more meaningful for whole industries. healthcare vs defense.
here’s everyone’s favorite economist basically telling to stop blaming everything on defense.
https://archive.ph/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/31/opinion/ukraine-military-spending.html
Of all the pedantic trolly points you’ve ever made… nunn even for you ‘the US doesn’t really spend that much on the military’ is pretty silly.
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In some ways I kinda feel weird even calling social security a tax or government spending in the same way as other things.
Like obviously they have to fund it correctly and it could (will) come up short but I don’t think it’s really useful to compare to other government taxing/spending given the specificity of the tax and expected benefit. Like hypothetically if they switched it to a defined contribution 401k type program instead of defined benefit pension then people wouldn’t consider it a tax at all.
But there is that whole component of covering folks that didn’t pay in or pay in “enough”. So yeah it’s a tax (a good one supporting a public good).
Using your own source, the UK is spending $68.5B on defense.
US GDP is 7.45x the UK’s. 7.45 * 68.5B = $510B. US is spending $877B on your chart, which is 72% more than the proportional $510B. So that’s the lowest possible number to put on the gap.
My numbers were one year older, the UK jump for Ukraine was bigger proportionally than ours, I guess. Which is kind of misleading in the context of overall fiscal policy.
There’s also this.
I don’t know what the difference between the ~$1.5T and ~$877B numbers is, and where that money goes, but if it’s part of the budget of the Department of Defense then it sure seems like it should be considered defense spending. My guess is the UK makes a more honest accounting of their defense spending, and we’re actually spending more like three times what they are proportionally, but I dunno.
Looks like at some point we started manipulating the data, and based on your chart from the NYT, I’m betting it was under Reagan. In fact, I bet it dovetails with out debt exploding and it has to do with not counting the servicing of the military debt as military spending. Here’s a link that dives into it a bit.
So, I was getting into this issue with someone I know irl. Anyone have a good link or other source that estimates how much exactly we’re leaving on the table by not taxing billionaires at least as much a wage earner in the highest bracket?
How much does an au pair cost with everything included? I assume the salary is pretty low but when you add the food/housing expenses then it goes way up.
However the ensuing divorce is big dollars….
About $21K base cost, with about half of that going to the au pair agency, which gets sued every few years and loses, but keeps doing the same shitty stuff because it’s cheaper to pay the lawsuits every few years than to fix their process. Then add up to $500 towards education, and the cost of room and board. And if you’re not a dick, a cell phone and access to a car. I’m not sure if that $11K fee gets paid every year or just the first, if it’s just the first, it might drop down after that.
who’s suing them? the au pairs? The parents?
The au pairs, for violating labor laws. Violating minimum wage, limits on hours worked, etc.
I thought the whole point of an au pair (well maybe not the whole point) was to exploit some loophole in the minimum wage laws.
They’re allowed to pay them $4.35 an hour. That’s what they’re violating in some cases.
Ahh, ok, that makes sense.
The fee for year 2 is usually like half of the fee for the first year, because half goes to immigration and travel fees. But you can only keep the same Au Pair for two years and then you’d have to move on to a different one in which case you’d pay the full free up front again.
There are some states where they are implementing a real minimum wage for APs (Massachusetts) and legal cases pending in some others (New Jersey… ?)
My wife was also an au pair when we met, and we employed an au pair for one year as a host family. We have a lot of friends who are ex au pair and a lot of families near us who host au pairs, so I have a pretty good understanding of the programs.
Bare minimum a host family could offer by law would include the agency fee 10-15k, stipend (around $200 per week), educational credit (minimum 500), cost of a bedroom in your house. Additional groceries + utilities.
What is more standard is host families offering a package that includes
- SIM card / call service (say $50 per month)
- being added to host family car insurance (state and plan dependent but lets guess average around $125 per month)
- Christmas gifts around $250-1000 (this varies widely some girls are getting like new Macbook and new iPhone and others are getting close to nothing)
- dedicated car for the AP to use (cost varies widely)
- gym membership
- going with the family on vacation (while working)
- 2 weeks off per year at their choosing (their vacation)
The au pair stipend of around $200 is set by department of state as is the maximum working hours of 45. That’s where $4.35 comes from, in my experience most girls are working less than that any some can negotiate higher stipends. Girls who are good drivers, good swimmers, infant certified or have some background in nursing or education can ask for a premium and get it, as can most girls who negotiate a second a year in the program.
What I have seen is there are some small number of families that really abuse their au pair and try to get the most labor while offering the least compensation, but most families treat the au pair like a family member
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I don’t have much experience with folks hiring au pairs but the one family who did in my extended family it seemed like this. I remember they would get to go on the fun vacations, even extended family would get them gifts for birthday/christmas and they were really close with the kids they were caring for. Also seemed lot of au pairs in that area would socialize together so wasn’t like they were living in isolation.
That’s how it’s supposed to work, but it seems like some families try to keep them by sponsoring them for a green card, letting them keep living there, and paying them more than the $4 an hour but way less than fair market for nannying.
From my wife’s group of friends it seems like maybe 2 in 3 treat them well overall - nice gifts, good amount of time off, reasonable hours - but even then some of the ones treating them well are also trying to maintain leverage to get them to stay with them past the program for like half the going rate for nannying. There’s still free room/board so I guess one could argue that’s not the worst deal for the girls, but it’s still quite a bargain for the family.
The au pairs do seem to all be very close to the kids (going back to visit even after moving on) and they definitely socialize with each other.
I know one girl who left at the end of her two years, crossed the border illegally and went back to work for the same lady under the table (she worked with my wife when they were both Au Pairs for the same host mom). She ended up finding a US Citizen to marry but there was still the issue that she’s in the country illegally and you cannot do a fiancé visa that way. I am not sure how they resolved that.
How good of a deal it is for the family depends a lot on how good of a roomate the AP is and how many kids the family has. 2 kids in day care at full price near me is somewhere around 36-42k per year which is pretty close the the out of pocket impact for the Au Pair when you factor in everything but having an extra person living in your house.
In some ways it’s way better, like my wife badly cut her hand one evening washing dishes and the AP was able to watch the kids for an hour on an ad hoc basis so I could take my wife to Urgent Care. But you also are giving your kids less peer interactions, and a less structured environment than day care, and there’s the risk that you get someone who interviews well but is just disinterested in doing the job and ignores the kids. Some Au Pairs start out great until they find an American boyfriend and then spend the rest of their time basically trying to get by with the bare minimum to avoid getting kicked out of the program.