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No, that's not what disposable income means. Disposable income means income after taxes. It does not include any expenses, housing, health care, or otherwise. from the OECD website: > Income includes wages and salaries, mixed income (income from self-employment and unincorporated enterprises), income from pensions and other social benefits, and income from financial investments. It is less taxes on income, wealth, social security contributions paid by employees, the self-employed and the unemployed, interest on financial liabilities, and the change in net equity of households in pension funds. A bit of a clearer explanation here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c... The reason why the US has such high disposable income is because Americans have to pay for so much more out of pocket than other OECD countries do. Once you factor in health care, education and other social services that are cheap or free elsewhere, Americans are generally worse off than many OECD countries. |
The Oxford dictionary states "income remaining after deduction of taxes and other mandatory charges, available to be spent or saved as one wishes."
Mandatory charges, to most people outside of this HN thread, are their bills and other common expenses. Mortgages, utilities, school and incomes taxes, etc are considered mandatory charges.
I'm not saying this to argue with you. Ya'll are welcome to interpret it how you like. But if you don't consider this perspective, you are going to misunderstand what other people intend to express when they use the term disposable income.