Median Professional Degree Income by Country? (sales, find a job, purchasing)

[ATLien86]

Does anyone have any data on this? I can only find the US...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Househo..._United_States
(This is a long article, so do: Edit -> Find -> 103,918)

I would also be really interested in finding a comparison of how progressive a country's tax system is. I would guess they use some kind of tax coefficient, (possibly the gini coefficient applied to taxes). Thanks.

[bluebeard]

Originally Posted by ATLien86

Does anyone have any data on this? I can only find the US...
Household income in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(This is a long article, so do: Edit -> Find -> 103,918)

I would also be really interested in finding a comparison of how progressive a country's tax system is. I would guess they use some kind of tax coefficient, (possibly the gini coefficient applied to taxes). Thanks.

If you're looking at that comparison it would be more complicated than that. Many countries don't necessarily have a progressive tax system, but the worse-off are still supported in ways unmeasured by income since they get more benefits.
What do you mean professional degree income? Why this specific category of income?

[bluebeard]

Wait, are you spefically looking to move somewhere you'll make the most and pay the least? Like, that's the single most important factor in moving somewhere? I thought it was some sort of academic curiousity.

[ATLien86]

It's mostly curiosity.

There were a couple of threads where people were considering whether to move to the US or another country. The advice seemed to be that income should be taken into account, and that in the US good degrees would be more powerful as far as making money than in other countries. I wanted to see if that was really accurate.

And yeah, I realize there is more than income tax rates. But, there's information on total tax revenue by country. I was hoping that there were studies that determined what % of that revenue came from what income %. Even sales tax (or whatever) could be factored in here.

p.s. I could, hypothetically, be interested in this for personal reasons, and it would not need to be a dispositive issue, right?

[bluebeard]

Originally Posted by ATLien86

It's mostly curiosity.

There were a couple of threads where people were considering whether to move to the US or another country. The advice seemed to be that income should be taken into account, and that in the US good degrees would be more powerful as far as making money than in other countries. I wanted to see if that was really accurate.

And yeah, I realize there is more than income tax rates. But, there's information on total tax revenue by country. I was hoping that there were studies that determined what % of that revenue came from what income %. Even sales tax (or whatever) could be factored in here.

p.s. I could, hypothetically, be interested in this for personal reasons, and it would not need to be a dispositive issue, right?

There are definitely places that have tax burden by country. Google "tax burden country" and a few come up:
Overall Tax Burden and Government Spending - Forbes.com
The Tax Foundation - Federal Tax Burden by County, 2004
However, this doesn't really show is "progressiveness" of the tax system. I dunno about that.

It would be a big depressing to me if that was the #1 criteria given the number of things I would think would be more important. First of all, even within the idea of what you'd be getting at ("which country is materially the most comfortable for me"), then like I said, there would be a million other factors (purchasing power, certain things might be cheaper while others more expensive, benefits offered by the state) and looking to enlarge that specific number of take-home pay minus taxes isn't particurlarly telling.
Another is, I'd think that other factors, such as culture, food, community, etc... would be what matters just as much as material comforts. Unless of course you are currently living in poverty where you are at or something. But material comforts have been largely shown to only add to individual's happiness up to a certain level. As the US has become richer and richer there is little evidence that the population has grown happier.

[bluebeard]

Originally Posted by ATLien86

It's mostly curiosity.
in the US good degrees would be more powerful as far as making money than in other countries. I wanted to see if that was really accurate.

However, I'd guess this might be true, although it would depend what the specific degree is. It also depends where you are comparing to. If you are including places like, Somalia and Bolivia in the group, well then sure. But among developed countries, after you take benefits and such into account, they probably would be comparable. The US might be higher. Actually, the bigger factor would likely be unemployment rates: that it might be easier for one with a professional degree to find a job in the US. With the current recession, this may not hold the same truth, I don't know, but I do know that the reason its easier for educated, non-rich immigrants to get visas in the US than some other countries is that its easier to find a company or institution to sponsor their visas. Or in the case of Canada, it's easy for a PhD to get in, but not neccesarily to get a job.

[k374]

Originally Posted by ATLien86

Does anyone have any data on this? I can only find the US...
Household income in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(This is a long article, so do: Edit -> Find -> 103,918)

I would also be really interested in finding a comparison of how progressive a country's tax system is. I would guess they use some kind of tax coefficient, (possibly the gini coefficient applied to taxes). Thanks.

interesting to note in that table that 2003 figures are lower than 2001 figures!

[ATLien86]

I didn't even notice that. It's been moving up and down a lot since 1991. Almost everything dropped between 1999 and 2003, but I guess we knew that -- we had a big recession. Then we hit a boom, and then a big bust.

Anyway, again, this is primarily academic for me. But, I think it's pretty interesting to see the correlation between income and education in a country. It shows how merit-based things are, upward mobility, etc.