Luckily there's still many other important things such as food safety, workplace safety, consumer protection... um...
Add disaster management and informing people about disease outbreaks ans product recalls! America is so great about... um.
Paid sick leave exists in some US states, for example vermont. It’s not a lot but it’s better than nothing.
Free college is no longer a thing here in the UK. But our student loan terms are bloody generous.
We used to have free college, but college students protested things which pissed off Reagan so he campaigned against it
This is new to me
Would you look at that, Brazil has all of those! The problem with UHC is that right wing politicians have been doing everything in their power to dismantle it ever since its inception.
The previous govt (fucking bozo) was also keen on "isn't it better to have some work and no rights, rather than having rights and no work?"
Public universities, while being free, often can only be attended by the well off, since class times might be all over the week (Monday morning, Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday morning AND night), fucking anyone that needs to work to sustain themselves.
The world isn't this black and white, so you can't just compare things at a basic level like this
For example the Netherlands has intuition fee's for universities. It's about 2500 euro per student per year. I'd much rather have it free, but it's still nothing compared to the 50K or 100K some people pay for an American University
Similar in Canada. It may not be free, but it's ridiculously cheap compared to what the US deals with and we still have great financial assistance for those who can't afford that.
And the UK for that matter. You only get free education up to A Levels (18 years old).
If you want a degree then you pay for it.
Hey, leave Scotland out of this. We get tuition fees paid plus a student loan which you can just sort of never pay back 👌
Exactly. Germany also has free Universities but there are mandatory charges you have to pay in order to study. Its just not a university fee but a fee for a mandatory university service (still mutch lower than other countries with university fees).
Same in Austria (27,50€ per year)
Republicans: Don't care, owned the libs.
What was that quote? "A Republican would eat shit if they thought a Democrat would have to smell it"?
Indeed, but nothing is for free and we pay for the so-called "free" services through taxes. Yes, the 1st Class EU members are way ahead of the piss poor US labor laws and public services. Thanks to the MAGAts, working conditions will become 3rd World.
One matter, the blue-collar apprenticeship system in Germany is outstanding and the only organization that comes close are the trade unions in the USA, but it depends on which local you are in. Some are superb and some are WTF.
I love the way Germany has trade unions that are trade wide rather than smaller unions. I wish we could import that to America.
Yes healthcare is paid for via taxes so it isn't strictly speaking isn't free, but it also isn't the same as paying for health insurance. For one thing you don't pay more money just because you've got a Pre-Existing medical condition. In a way everyone pays less because all of the people that would otherwise pay for private healthcare, still pay the taxes, so everyone else is being subsidized by the rich, who in the US wouldn't contribute to anyone else's healthcare.
I don't think anyone ends up paying more in taxes than they would if we operated under the US private health care system.
So while your point is strictly speaking true, it's also a bit pedantic.
No disrespect to the guy individually but "it's not free, it's paid for by taxes" is mentioned every single time when this conversation comes up.
Everybody knows. Nobody actually thinks these these things appear out of thin air. We all know how taxes pay for public services and employment rights.
Well, there's one country I'm not moving to. It amuzes me that a first world country, hell, a global superpower, doesn't have any of that stuff, it would benefit everyone, especially free healthcare because you wouldn't have to worry about going bankrupt just to get that surgery you know you need. It doesn't even have to be free, just making it affordable for everyone is already a huge step.
We’re a first world country for the top 10% of the population and a third world country for the bottom 90%.
America isn't a first world country. It favors the rich in the same way as most African and Central Asian nations.
It amuzes me that a first world country, hell, a global superpower, doesn't have any of that stuff
They imported workers from countries that have free education.
FYI, many Americans do have many of these things, they just aren't mandated or evenly distributed to all citizens.
It's still fucked, though.
Do you really have it if your employer can take it away?
Right, which is worse in many ways.
Weird.
Countries with labour laws and free education: "Learn and work, work and learn!"
Australia could have been included here, the only missing one is free 'college' which is known as University here.
The UK has both colleges and universities. Colleges are usually seen as "lesser", usually with vocational style courses rather than purely academic learning.
In England, college is free but university is not. In Scotland it's all free up to a certain age. I'm not sure about Wales and Northern Ireland.
Fair enough, in Australia we generally call those lesser institutions 'TAFE'.
Though as a peculiarity the Australian Capital Territory calls year 11 and 12 education college, in a break from the rest of the country.
Well, at least for white working families. Middle easterners are under constant attack in those countries.
I get free healthcare, Free College, paid time off, paid sick leave, paid paternity leave....... Lives in USA. But I'm employed, so I get those things.
Plenty of states offer free community and state college admission for residents; not saying the chart isn't right (and sad) but I hate the stigma that the only good colleges are for-profit private ones.
Trash country. Trash electorate.
It's not strictly true collage or university as it's know in the rest of the world, in the UK it's only Scotland that gets free tuition, not the rest of us, higher education which is 16-18 is free
In France, college is free only if you're from a underpriviledged social class, and only for a limited time.
I didn't qualify as "boursier", my tuition was around 400€/year through out bachlore and master degrees (école d'ingénieurs). It's not so expensive. I still was able to claim 90€/month of help for housing (CAF). My friends who qualified paid 0€ for tuition, and they also got more for housing but I don't remember how much. This was from 2011~2016.
In south Germany today, a foreigner, who can't claim any financial help, has to pay
3000~4000€/semester1500€/semester.Still far far away from what education costs in USA from what I've heard.
Edit: Corrected the price of tuition in Germany.
Not perfect but that's sooooo much better than throwing them in jail for cheap labor.
Came to say this. Most people in the UK have to pay tuition for university. There is a govt loan but you're still paying it, plus interest
Should be interest free. No reason for anyone to profit off higher education, other than the actual educators. Admin can suck a dick.
The USA also has states that have free college, which is done with lottery funds.
Higher education is 16-18? That’s still included in our compulsory education in the US. Can children choose to drop out at 16 there?
How it works in the UK:
- School: 5 - 16 years old
- College or Sixth Form: 16-18 years old
- University: 18years+
College is actually akin to high-school in the UK, and is tuition free but university is not. The person who made this graphic probably googled 'free college UK' and didn't understand the word means something different there
Yeah probably better to say we have a state run loans system, with fair repayment terms, that any resident is entitled to. So better than some countries but still not free.
Asterisk on Canada’s not free post secondary
The majority of the cost is paid for citizens so it’s still better than the US
Same with the UK on this. Anyone attending university gets a graduate tax. Works quite well but it's not free
*England, Wales and Northern Ireland. University education is free in Scotland.
It's not a graduate tax. If it was a graduate tax, all graduates, especially the ones that graduated before the turn of the century, who have the greatest salary uplift compared to their peers, would pay it.
No, uni education is very not free in the UK, and you pay for it with a student loan, and yes, you pay according to a salary threshold like it was a tax, and yes, outstanding debt is cancelled aver 30 years, but the interest rate got hiked by the Conservatives to prevent most ex students from paying it off early. Much better than the USA, but still very not free at all.
Maybe a bronze. I went to a technical college in Canada (as a permanent resident), so by no means very expensive, but it's taken me over decade to pay off.
I don’t think it medals but we aren’t tied with them
Also I have paid sick days.
Oligarchies gonna ollygark.
We need to stop calling it “free” college. It’s not free. It’s a worthwhile investment we all pay for and reap the benefits of.
We don’t call it a “free military.”
Define "worthwhile investment "
the health of your people is absolutely a worthwhile investment by all definitions. It’s the right thing to do/ethical, it makes them happy/support their government if you’re thinking politically, and a healthy populace does more for society/the country/economy/whatever you care about.
What’s with the bait nonsense say what you want to say.
An educated electorate.
Having a bunch of uneducated dumbasses fucks up your country.
It also isn't free for people here, it's paid. They pay you (not a very large amount but still) to go to any education above the mandatory education.
Yes that’s what I’m saying.
College is free, uni isn't
Not our fault just one country uses the word incorrectly
You're missing the point. They're saying it's not free, it's funded by the government/tax dollars.
Also languages develop regionally and sometimes use different words. It's so 2010 to assert regional differences are "wrong." Gag me with a spoon.
I think I understand your concern, but how do you very briefly describe what's happening a better way?
Schools in the US are "free", although they are generally funded by taxes. I think if you said to most people that society benefits from a good basic education for everyone, they would agree.
If you said that should apply to higher education, it doesn't sound like too much of a stretch.
If you then said "we should have the same standard of education and funding for the entire nation", many people would say "No way", because America, and that would mean centralized funding and standards and stuff. It's always that last part.
I've never worked a single job in the US that didn't have sick and vacation hours. Granted it was like 5 seconds allowed every 7 years but still.
Neither of them are actually a legal requirement. What is offered is basically part of the "compensation package" (it's considered part of your pay) in the US. Also there are A LOT of jobs in the US that don't give paid sick time or vacation time, they are usually pretty far down the hierarchy though, and the jobs that do give paid time off typically don't give it to you until you have been employed there for at least a year.
I don't think this graphic is stating you cannot get any of these things in the US, but none of these things are guaranteed by the government.
i dont even have sick hours anymore its all pto. so if i get sick i just lose my vacation
Then you don't have pto either.
I used to work at a company that did this. White collar, but we would often work stat days, and we were salary. So our PTO was x days vacation time, y days stat days, and z days sick days. Vacation time was the legally mandated or higher, stat days were the legally mandated, and then sick days were on top of that (no legally mandated paid sick days where I live). If you got sick a lot (and actually didn't work anyway) you had less vacation time. If you didn't get sick a lot, you had more vacation time. If you worked some stat days, you had even more vacation time. It worked for everybody and meant there was no reason to worry if people were actually sick when they took a sick day - it was just unplanned PTO.
If you get additional PTO to allow for sick days, I'm not sure why you're complaining. That's a perspective issue. If you don't, I definitely get it.
And many jobs also pay you health insurance. But the point is that in other countries, social security is not attached to your employment. If you get fired, you receive unemployment and health care until you get your next job (details and quality of social system vary per country though).
Even if you have a job that pays for health insurance, it's still not as good as a universal health system with a single payer. There's deductibles to pay. In Canada, if I need to go to the ER, my biggest financial concern is paying for parking.
And even if you eliminate the deductibles, it's still not as good as a public health system because you also need to worry about whether a provider is in network and then your insurance company can just deny coverage because their whole point is to profit and not doing what their stated purpose is is an easy way to make more profit.
Me neither, but in the US a business is not required to offer paid sick or vacation time, so it stands to reason that some don't. Actually I take part of that back - as a software developer I have done contracts for agencies that did not offer either. Of course the pay rate for contracting is so high it didn't matter to me, but the fact is they didn't.
Yeah, those bottom two are flat-out wrong. Now, if it said something like "generous paid sick leave/vacation," it remains correct.
No they aren't.
I've worked many jobs, mostly retail and food service that has no option for any pto, sick or otherwise.
If you wanted time off outside of your scheduled hours, you could try to switch shifts with someone, or get someone to cover your shift, or, depending on the company, ask them for unpaid time, some would sometimes allow that, some wouldn't.
But renaming mountains and bodies of water are going to solve all of that, our orange god king told us so.
/s if it’s not obvious
Canada actually has paid sick leave for a few years now. If I remember correctly, it’s federally mandated 10 paid sick days and 3 paid personal days.
Unfortunately, that’s at the federal level. Private companies are beholden to the provincial employment laws. A good example is Ontario, which had paid sick days but was repealed in 2018.
And Ontarians haven't learned their lesson over the last 8 years of Dough boy Ford at the helm. He will likely be re-elected and continue to damage the province. The Canadian Conservatives are a fucking disgrace and I wish more people would recognize how shitty they actually are.
I often forget how bad my country folk have it in some places. I'm going to doxx myself a bit here.
I'm a service member in Canada. In my first 5 years of service I received 20 payed annual leave days. After 5 years of service I received 25. At a later date I will receive thirty.
I get every single federal holiday as well as provincial holiday for the province I'm posted to.
At any given time I can request up to 2 days of sick leave/mental health days without a doctor's note. After that I can be given any number of days off signed by a doctor.
If I have a death in the immediate family I can receive 7 days or more of grievance and compassionate leave authorised by a chaplain or my commanding officer.
Further to this, I get 100% dental coverage,my family gets 85%. I get $80k to go to university, $10k for professional development or college courses as well as a whole plethora of other benefits like free eye exams and subsidised glasses.
I want this for all of my countrymen. My (often conservative) countrymen do not want this for themselves. Why? The fact I get all this shows that the Canadian Government is willing to give these benefits to any Canadian. But they don't. Why?
I get these benefits because I was too young and dumb to do anything with my life but join the army?
Good point. I’m in private industry as well but it is federally regulated.
As someone else mentioned, that doesn't cover everyone. It benefits "federally regulated employees"; but it's a good start.
BC NDP premiere John Horgan (RIP) gave all workers five paid sick days after Covid. Every province should.
Edit: fixed my mistake.
This is misinformation.
Care to elaborate?
Probably because several of these things are legal rights throughout the US for many people. In California you get 24 hours paid sick leave minimum per year. Usually more based on hours worked.
PTO or vacation is pretty ubiquitous. I had 4 weeks of PTO a year working at a non-union grocery store. It's not a legal requirement though, so it fair critique.
The first 2 years of college is free in some states and heavily subsidized through grants/financial aid depending on your income. It's not free, but it's not completely free in most of the EU either.
US Healthcare is an obvious travesty. It's more annoying that Medicare you gain access to in retirement is actually pretty good, so we could be better but just choose not to.
Also, I got 4 weeks paid family leave from the government and from my job with the birth of my child. It's not alot but its not nothing.
There are lots of things wrong in the US but the graph doesn't give a single measurement, it's basically checkboxes that aren't accurate for most Americans, as our largest population centers tend to have socialist protections/benefits codified. It's fairly accurate on a federal level though.
Yeah but what's the price of eggs in those countries?
Checkmate, libs 😎
Ours are probably more, but our chickens aren't kept in quite such horrific conditions
Check back in a couple of months. Eggs might not even be in stores. Some old lady will take 3 eggs up to a cashier and ask the price. When she hears how much they are, she will sadly take 2 eggs back to the refrigerator case.
I believe only France is more expensive when adjusted.
🏅❌️🏅🏅🏅❌️
Wait usa doesn't have any of that? Lefties, let them have the country, it was never worth a damn anyway.
UK has free college? Is that a joke?
It's misleading. If you ask someone in the UK if college is free, they say "of course", because they're talking about 16-18 pre-university education. If you ask them if university is free, they say "only in Scotland".
Depending on your age, it is free. Need to slap some asterisks on the image with some sub notes.
Usually yanks seem to think that UK=England. For this narrative it would seem that the UK=Scotland
Incorrect. They see the Union Jack and think London.
This is kinda misleading 'cause it portraits the UK as a Paradise and, well... Is the UK.
(Although, compared to USA, The UK is indeed a Paradise)
College is almost free in Québec, CA. You just pay administration fees, I believe around 200-300$ CAD for a semester.
When they write "college" in the image I think they mean university, not CEGEP. University is still a good ways from free, being $4k-$5k/yr. And that's just for in province students, it's more for non-Quebec but still Canadian students.
In Germany (and maybe the other listed countries but I'm less informed on them), university is free as well. I think it also doesn't depend which state you're from.
University is absolutely not free in Germany. I pay over 400€ per semester. And this doesn't depend on the state. Every university has a different fee, but none of them are free (although still way cheaper than in the US)
Indeed University is way more expensive. 5k/yr is nothing like US but definitely not free. It actually took me 10+ years to pay back my student loan...
Why is the British flag the pre-1801 one?
Because they're regressing.
While we're being meta: Why is it sorted randomly?
Because Ireland is an independent nation and representing a former colony that you committed genocide against on your flag, coat of arms, and list of noble titles in 2025 is ghoulish.
(It's definitely not that but wouldn't that be nice)
Yeah but freedom. Americans are free from the burden of all these social constructs /s
in defense of canada we are their closest competition so its natural for them to get a bit lazy.
From the point of view of the Owners, the US is leading and the rest of the world has a lot of catching up to do.
This is actually true, sadly.
Canada, at least ontario, doesn't have paid vacation for reg hourly workers. 4% comes of our cheque's into our own vacation fund. If you dont use it, you get it back at the end of the year. (6% if over 5 years as you get a 3rd week)
It's likely we need a general strike to fight for these rights. May 1st 2028 would be good based on the UAW initiative to coordinate contacts to expire at the same time
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/organized-labor-may-day-2028_n_662aaa84e4b01a688b3e423f
The bottom 3 are all a thing in the US lol. I have a coworker getting 6 months paid maternity leave.
This meme is looking at the worst employment situations and represents the entire country as that. Cuz every day we just gotta be like "America bad".
It's bad enough without overdramatizing things.
...you realize it's law in other countries, right? That's the point of the meme.
Yes, billionaires get free healthcare and education for their children, I guess since that's true America has free healthcare and education. /S
Idk, your argument sounds similar to me to saying "look at the success of these 6 billionaires! Why are you judging our country by our bottom 40%!?"
Every working person in BC under the Employment Standards Act gets at least 5 days paid sick leave and 2 weeks paid vacation. If you have to get lucky with the right job to get benefits I don't think you can lay claim to them as a country.
So it's not that certain jobs get paid maternity leave, it's that some states do. In new york, I get 2 of the bottom 3 things. It's not ideal that these things aren't nationwide, but in some cases, states will take it upon themselves to make things better. We also pay more taxes in new york which people complain about, but i like what I get for it.
I'm not well versesd in the laws of the other countries listed in this post, but i think the inplication is that the governments mandate all the paid time off. You're coworker has maternity leave because the company you work for offers it.
If the worst employment situations don't include paid time off, then that proves it's not mandatory for workers in the US to have.
