Hi Cap, Well we certainly live in the lucky country. I am not...

Hi Cap,

Well we certainly live in the lucky country.

I am not convinced that Reece will automatically win in the USA... though they might and actually I hope they do.

However not sure you can support your assertion that the relevant tradespeople in the USA are "much lower paid". For example the average plumber in the USA (According to the USA Bureau of Labor Statistics for calendar 2016) earns $52k USD. Doesn't sound like much, however taxes are low there and he would only pay $1.7k in tax leaving him 50.3k USD (or $66.7k AUD.)

According to Payscale in OZ, the average plumber earns (2016) $60k AUD. Taxes on the 60k would be about $11k leaving him $49k AUD to spend. (Even if Payscale is wrong by a whopping 33%, and they earn $80k, after tax they would have $62.4k AUD to spend.

Then consider the average house in the USA costs $200k USD (National Assn of Realtors) this is approx. $266k AUD. The average house in Oz costs $656k (Business Insider reference). So much more realistic for the average person/family/tradie to buy a home there.

According to Credit Suisse, in their 2018 Global Wealth Report the wealth of the average adult in the USA was $389k USD. The report showed the average Aussie adult with $402k USD. So pretty close and they pointed out that the USA data was from 2011 (last census data from USA) so perhaps even closer now.

The worry in that data was that Median worth per adult in USA was $56K and Median worth per adult here was $195k. So an imperfect, yet greatly superior distribution (or at least retention) of that income in Oz.

I lived for a time in the USA and find it interesting that people in each country seem to think they make more $ and have it better... maybe just human nature...

Link below to what kind of house $600k buys you in Austin Texas...

https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sa...,-97.416459,30.175405,-98.154603_rect/10_zm/?

Tried to find a house below $1M in Sydney and still looking...