[Swenrekcah]

I live in a European country with a public health care system. The lowest tax bracket is ~34% and the highest ~44%.

However due to a minimum below which no taxes are paid and other features, the effective rax rate for a $35k salary is ~15%. For a $90k salary it’s about 32%. A median salary is about $70k.

This is excluding pension (the employer pays that on top to a pension fund).

Public services are pretty good and not expensive for me, they are even cheaper for people in lower income levels. (Putting a kid in kindergarten is about $100-200/month for example)

If you take everything into account, I suspect it’s the US system is a much worse deal for everyone except the top 5-10%.