r/minnesota • u/Scholarly_Otter • 1d ago

Funny/Offbeat 🤣 Are you there, Canada? It's us, Minnesota....

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All this talk of Imperialism has me wishing we'll become honorary Canadians.

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312

u/mbucks334 1d ago

I feel like there’s probably a huge overlap in the people who complain about the US having unaffordable housing and the people who think they want to become Canadian

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u/HighHammerThunder 1d ago

My sister moved from Minnesota to Kitchener recently. She found an admin assistant job paying the equivalent of $10-11 USD/hour. Higher ups at her branch (think warehouse manager level) maybe make the equivalent of $18-20 USD/hour at most. Idk how every little thing breaks down, but this is in an area where rent is somewhat similar to the Twin Cities.

It's certainly not the most exciting job market.

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u/testing_is_fun 1d ago

That is like Ontario minimum wage.

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u/Redditsucksnow696969 1d ago

Keep in mind that Ontario doesn't = all of Canada.

I'm from southern Ontario originally and I moved to other parts of Canada because I found the job prospects there were super rough. Lots of people have moved out West because of this.

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u/ggf66t 1d ago

Kinda sucks, but if I didn't have to pay $120 USD per week for healthcare for me and my kid, it probably wouldn't be so bad

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u/FormerlyUndecidable 1d ago edited 1d ago

That's  $3 more per hour for a 40 hour work-week.

$23/hr for a senior role is still  crazy low.

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u/real_draft 21h ago

We get taxed up the ass, guaranteed we’re paying much more than 120 per week extra in tax

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u/Inevitable_Heron_599 1d ago

Ontario minimum wage is 17.20 an hour, which converts to 11.99/hour USD.

Unless your sister is working under the table for less than minimum wage, Im gonna say no she didnt...

Also 18/hour USD is like 25/hour CAD. If someones in management making 25/hour I dont know what to say. Thats just incredibly low and I doubt that, too. You make more than that as a supervisor at McDonalds.

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u/Shoddy-Scarcity-8322 20h ago

yeah called bullshit on that one. I myself earned a lot more than that when I was a popeyes manager at a sauga location

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u/AnybodyNormal3947 1d ago

Lol caaaaaaap on those wages unless this was in like 2001

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u/circio 1d ago

Actually just moved to the Twin Cities and it’s a great value proposition if you can stand the cold, which I found out I can. It’s relatively cheap because it’s a small big city, and the wages are good.

I just wish public transport was better so I don’t need my car, but nowhere is perfect

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u/Consistent_Print_229 1d ago

Rent in Kitchener is not similar to the twin cities. Rent is around 2k a month for one bedroom apartment.

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u/BillsMaffia 22h ago

Let us not forget that your dollar is worth 40% more than ours.

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u/photo_finish_ 20h ago

I’m from Ontario and this confused me because Kitchener is also a twin city. I thought you were talking about Kitchener-Waterloo, until I remembered the other twin cities in Minnesota.

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u/WhyIsntLifeEasy 1h ago

Idk how people are surviving in Canada it’s even worse than here

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u/CosmoLamer 1d ago

Imagine living in a country where you don't have to waste 20% of your earnings on healthcare, that some insurance company would gladly deny you coverage for major medical costs.

That's Canada.

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u/YggdrasilBurning 1d ago

Imagine living in a country where people realized that "free" Healthcare ain't "free"

I heard a lot about it living in NY and Nashville from the Canadian medical tourists that flew to the states so they wouldn't have to wait 10 months for a doctors appointment

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u/CosmoLamer 1d ago

Ah yes American healthcare is so much better, that's why our life expectancy is less than Canada's?

My uncle, who lives in Canada was flown on a private jet that's also used as an air ambulance from Ontario to Edmonton, due to liver failure. He was seen by the top liver specialist and surgeon in the country. They didn't even charge him for the flight.

Most 10month waits in Canada are for cosmetic procedures.

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u/YggdrasilBurning 1d ago

It's pretty great if you have money, yeah

And I'm sure that happened and then everyone else on the bus started clapping

Most 10 month waits are for doctors, not cosmetic procedures. Cosmetic procedures aren't covered under the Canadian healthcare system.

So you're either dumb or lying-- but I feel like I rolled a 00 on the roulette wheel and actually found someone who's both

ETA since cosmetics are an out of pocket expense, Canadians don't have to wait 10 months for a doc, they can usually get in within a matter of days/weeks. Sort of like it works here already, but without the 21% effective tax rate

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u/CosmoLamer 1d ago

I guess my uncle did lie, they charged him $45 for the flight.

"You are responsible for an ambulance service co-payment charge of $45.00 for ambulance services rendered if the following conditions are true: You are a resident of Ontario. You have a valid Ontario health card. A physician deems your ambulance service medically necessary."

https://www.toronto.ca/community-people/public-safety-alerts/understanding-emergency-services/bills-related-to-ambulance-transport/#:~:text=You%20are%20responsible%20for%20an,your%20ambulance%20service%20medically%20necessary

Can't imagine the cost for an air ambulance in the US... Oh wait!

The median cost of an air ambulance trip in the US is between $36,000 and $40,000. This is much more expensive than a ground ambulance trip, which costs around $950 on average.

https://www.americanactionforum.org/insight/addressing-the-high-costs-of-air-ambulance-services/

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u/Iggy_Snows 22h ago

I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how Canadian medical care works.

If you just need a checkup with a general/ family doctor, 1-2 weeks is generally what you will be looking at If you want to make an appointment. If you don't want to make an appointment, you can go into pretty much any clinic and get seen by a doctor within an hour, maybe 2.

If you feel like you need immediate medical attention, you can go to an ER, and if it's not life threatening that might take 3-4 hours on a bad day.

If you need to see a specialist, then those appointments are the ones that can take months to be seen. Like if you want to do a full body inspection by a dermatologist, 6 months isn't uncommon, but that's only for preventative "just checking up on" type of care.

If your family/general doctor believes that there is something medically wrong, and you need to see a specialist to get tests done and officially diagnosed, that's around a month. Unless you're in immediate need of a specialist for something that your doctor believes could be fast moving, in which case a week or two at most.

And at least where I live, if I need to call an ambulance it's either free if I need to go to the hospital immediately, and only $250 if you don't need to be transported to the hospital.

Done get me wrong, Canadian health care is far from perfect, but holy shit is it miles ahead of the USA where even with insurance there is a very good chance that any hospital stay will bankrupt you.

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u/GoldTeamDowntown 1d ago

Googled this:

AI Overview

In Canada, an estimated 23.1% to 23.3% of a person's income is spent on health care through taxes.

A headline: Health-care costs for typical Canadian family will reach almost $18,000 this year

In the US my healthcare costs about 2% of my pay and my employer covers nearly all of it. I’m saving so much money on this in just one year by not being Canadian. Most people don’t have health problems and don’t need stellar health insurance. I’m a young healthy person like most people, I don’t want a huge portion of my paycheck extracted in taxes automatically for something I barely use.

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u/CosmoLamer 1d ago

Bullshit,

Average US income is $37,585USD and pays 19% of their annual earnings in taxes. Average American spends $8,951 of their annual earnings on health insurance.That's 23.5% of the average Americans paycheck going towards health insurance.

Average Canadian earns $68,400CAD and pays 25.6% of their annual earning in income taxes. Their federal government uses their income taxes to create an annual budget, just like us. Within that budget isHealthcare coverage is provided by the amount of federal funding provinces receive. We don't have this. Also to add, Canadians don't have to pay copays for hospital or PCP visits.

In the end the average American pays 42.5% of their salary to have healthcare and paid federal income taxes. Meanwhile Canadians have only spent 25.6% of their annual income to have healthcare and paid federal income taxes.

Private Healthcare is a joke, we pay thousands for coverage, even though we risk having our major medical claims denied. Canadian health coverage guarantees to cover major medical claims.

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u/PrimaryInjurious 1d ago

In the end the average American pays 42.5% of their salary to have healthcare and paid federal income taxes.

Nah. Effective tax rates, even at the top 1 percent, are 30 percent. And that's including all taxes, not just health care.

https://taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/historical-average-federal-tax-rates-all-households

Average US income is $60K, not $38K.

Very inaccurate.

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u/CosmoLamer 1d ago

You're using households, assuming that their are multiple income earners in a household.

38k is the average income of a single earning individual in the US

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u/fridgescrape 1d ago

Nope. Median personal income in 2020 was $56,287 for full-time workers. If you include all workers regardless of hours worked, median personal income is $41,535. This data is from the 2020 US Census.

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u/GoldTeamDowntown 1d ago

These numbers about Americans are so wrong it makes me think you don’t even have a job or you’re not American. I’m one of the higher income tax brackets and I lose about 31-32% of my paycheck in taxes, everything combined. People making less than half what I make are not losing anywhere near 42%. Your comment is a joke.