[TMWNN]

Come now. Why would whether income is median or mean affect expenses?

My larger point is that, contrary to your and others' claims, income rankings that show the US at or near the top do not suddenly greatly change the US's position once healthcare expense is included. See mdorazio's comment elsewhere regarding median disposable income.

[chmod775]

> My larger point is that, contrary to your and others' claims, income rankings that show the US at or near the top do not suddenly greatly change the US's position once healthcare expense is included.

Disposable income (except confusingly on some US tax forms) does not account for private healthcare expenses (the figure that is post other necessary expenses like health insurance is called discretionary income).

In countries where a huge chunk of insurance is private or people are paying out-of-pocket, subtracting such healthcare expenses from disposable income can drastically change the picture:

Your average American spent about $5000 of their disposable income on just private health insurance and out-of-pocket expenses in 2018[1]!

It's hard to reconcile averages with a median (I still refuse to use numbers that can be easily skewed by a handful of billionaires), but since healthcare costs should be more or less constant regardless of your income bracket, it would likely be a huge chunk of the median disposable income figure. Which was the point of the person you originally replied to.

[1]: https://www.cms.gov/files/zip/national-health-expenditures-t...

[TMWNN]

>Disposable income (except confusingly on some US tax forms) does not account for private healthcare expenses (the figure that is post other necessary expenses like health insurance is called discretionary income).

As I already stated, the OECD definition of disposable income (https://stats.oecd.org/glossary/detail.asp?ID=46) explicitly accounts for "social transfers in kind", in both directions.

You've already been called out for claiming that the US "doesn't have unemployment benefits"; when challenged your response was more or less "feelz over realz". No matter how often you try to claim that using median income would invalidate OP's point, as I and others keep telling you, it does not. "since healthcare costs should be more or less constant regardless of your income bracket, it would likely be a huge chunk of the median disposable income figure" doesn't even attempt to be coherent. Please stop.

[chmod775]

> As I already stated, the OECD definition of disposable income (https://stats.oecd.org/glossary/detail.asp?ID=46) explicitly accounts for "social transfers in kind", in both directions.

Again. This does not include private health insurance and out of pocket expenses as stated on the very site you posted: https://stats.oecd.org/glossary/detail.asp?ID=2498 (if you're now wondering what NPISHs are: https://stats.oecd.org/glossary/detail.asp?ID=1827 )

Private health insurance and out of pocket expenses are the two numbers I used to come up with the $5000 a person.

There's an old publication that more or less contains the same math, but it's from 2010 and healthcare costs have more than doubled since then: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/203035/1/1040711413....

Go to Appendix B and have a look at the table if you're in a hurry.

I'll give you a chance to re-phrase the thoughts in the latter half of your post in a more polite manner, since I have been patient and am prepared to be so a while longer. I'm not looking forward to this conversation degrading in that way.