UK and America are two countries separated by a common language, UK and US Q&A

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Continuation of the previous thread where posters from the UK ask questions like 'what the hell is going on with the gaps in US toilet doors'; and posters fro the US ask things like 'what is with wearing stripes'

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/a2149133-to-think-there-is-something-wrong-with-Americans?msgid=48969042#48969042

We have never once got it right. We usually overpay federal and underpay state. Or is it the other way around? I'm sure Guam is to blame.

One year when I was a student I had to file 5 tax returns: federal, 3 different state returns (don't ask) and a city return. I did not earn enough to pay any tax that year and got it all back.

We don't have state income tax in Florida; we rely instead on sales tax, paid by all the folk from the UK who come to Disney, so thanks for that.

We get around $3000 back every year. We don't have child benefit but we do get a reduction in tax for each child.

Obamacare has made our insurance payments go up but I'm okay with it as I know it's providing others with the care they need.

Daycare costs vary a lot. I am going to child mind 2 DC starting next month and will get $25/a day per child. I won't have the mother pay me when they're not here.

When DS went to day care it was $70/wk part time, $105/wk full time. When I worked at a center it was $211/wk for a full time infant. That was quite awhile ago, I'm sure it's more now.

Is sales tax expensive in Florida then.

Ugh, we NEVER get our tax calculations right. We either end up owing, or we end up getting money back. It's stressful. :(

At our previous daycare center, we paid $205 per week for our daughter for fulltime. She is at a home provider now, we pay her $25 per day, four days per week, so $100.

Sales tax in Ohio varies by county - in my county, it's 6.5%, but in an adjacent county, it's 6.75%. We don't have sales tax on most food.

It's 6.00-7.50 percent, depending on location. We residents pay it, too, of course. Every year we have a sales tax holiday on clothing, right before school starts.

In Florida, food and drugs are exempt from sales tax, except food in restaurants is taxed.

Like all states, we also have property taxes.

Notness, $6 for butter in Canada? Where were you??

(In Ontario and only pay $3) Yikes!

Also re-meat in Texas-isn't that, like, water there? Ever present and a dietary staple?

And yes, we get 12 months mat leave. And some companies allow you to extend it up to 6 months after your year.

I really am always shocked at the unfairness of the maternity leave in the US.

Obamacare has made our insurance payments go up but I'm okay with it as I know it's providing others with the care they need.

Nods - same here.

DH says it isn't though, that it's just going to the insurance companies. :( Honestly I don't know what to believe and don't get how it all works. I know things did need to change though.

12 weeks is the bare minimum through FMLA. Some companies do offer more. It's a way to get top employees in some places.

So, how does ordering groceries online work? Do regular stores do it, or is it through a service?

No school buses for anyone here except special ed students. There are yellow buses to take teams to their games and meets after school however, so parents are not haring all over far flung suburbs three or four nights a week during a season. I don't know why there are no buses because many students have a really long hike or take a city bus or two to get to school. It's possible it got out of hand when the HS had about 6000 students.

The HS here serves two neighbouring suburbs and it's not really centrally located. A lot of students carpool and drive erratically to school. Many bike or walk and lots of kids go on skateboards. It's all very flat here so that's not a huge challenge. The difficulty arises when temperatures drop to below freezing and stay there for a few weeks in winter, or it snows and people don't shovel it off their sidewalks so students end up navigating sheets of ice. Walking takes a lot longer in the cold. You would never see students here braving the elements as you do in Britain and Ireland. There used to be a state refund available to help offset transport costs if you lived more than a mile from school but it fell victim to belt tightening.

Bus routes are few and far between here. There are many more in the local large city but we are sort of the end of the line for city bus routes and the suburban routes are spotty.

The private RC high schools (one in my suburb and the other in the neighbouring one, a girls' HS) each has a small fleet of minibuses to pick up students at bus terminii and train stations and ferry them to school and then back to catch their bus or train home. Some students commute an hour or more to get to those schools. Both of them will set you back approx $11,000 per student per year. Private parochial elementaries tend to be a good deal cheaper as parishes often subsidise tuition, and I believe the local Montessori and Steiner schools here are about as expensive as the high schools.

No yellow bus for non-public students of any stripe here. DD1 was crushed when I told her at age four that she would be walking to school with me and not going in a schoolbus. She had watched too much TV

No uniform for public schools, Jewish, Montessori or Steiner, uniform for Catholic and Lutheran elementary and high schools here. The idea that the DCs' RC elementary would be considered in any way posh is funny despite costing about $5K per student per year. The student body had more representation of minority students, especially Hispanics and Poles, who tend to be Catholic, than any of the surrounding public elementaries and the intake wasn't limited geographically so many students came from areas where the local public elementaries were not great and no local RC school was available. I think the local RC high schools definitely catered for a more monied set but they offered scholarships and also had a high minority enrollment, again especially among traditionally RC minority groups.

If you are RC and send your children to a nonRC school you are asked to send them to religious ed classes on evenings or weekends during the school year, for which you have to pay a registration fee. I don't know what the Lutherans do. I know both local Temples have Hebrew classes and prepare students for Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, and this would have to happen in students' free time as the Jewish schools only go to first grade.

Harvard, Yale, etc are very prestigious places to go. They say if you get in they will make it affordable to attend. A very prosperous colleague of exH's has a DD who got into Harvard and when he was chatting with other parents the day he dropped her off he realised that he was the only one in the room who was paying the full whack. Some were paying virtually nothing. At first he was a bit miffed, but actually he could afford it, and he reminded himself that the prestige comes from the perception of superior quality of the student body, and that he didn't want to effectively send his DD to a finishing school for girls who come from money.

Many state schools are very prestigious too, and compare well with the Ivies. There is normally one flagship among the state universities in any given state that has more prestige, a better reputation, etc. than the others in that state.

For burgers, chicken, fries and shakes, you can't beat Steak 'n Shake imo. There are some terrific local independently owned places around here too - they are third or fourth generation Greek family businesses for the most part. One is close to the HS and does a roaring after school trade. There is a local (Italian family) chain that ships all over the US that is really good too (Portillos), plus several great Italian sausage places where you can get a pepper and egg sandwich in Lent.

I thought American 'maternity leave' was barbaric when I first became a mother, and I haven't changed my mind. I opted to become a sahm after doing the math and realising I would have been basically working to keep DD1 in daycare, which she would have had to go to at 6 weeks after my unpaid leave expired. I am constantly aware of what a privilege it was to be able to be a sahm even though it meant constant economising and frugality. I can't imagine handing over your baby to strangers just at the point where he or she is starting to smile and interact and get to know you. Even 12 weeks is dreadful imo.

There is social housing. It was allowed to run down during the Reagan Bush era and most public housing and surrounding neighbourhoods became hellish places from which there was no escape. High rise public housing has been demolished in many cities and replaced by mixed income developments, but in the process criminal elements were weeded out and displaced all over the rock bottom-priced private accommodation in many cases. This has led to increasing levels of violence in some cities as gang territories were disturbed and newcomers established themselves in neighbourhoods that already had well-stablished hierarchies. The aim of recent urban planning policy wrt social housing has been to separate the deserving from the undeserving poor and salvage at least some lives, but the fallout for other poor communities has been horrible.

For burgers, chicken, fries and shakes, you can't beat Steak 'n Shake imo.

AMEN. Our favorite local place, The Jug, is actually celebrating 80 years in operation today. They make their own rootbeer. Their burgers are the best.

Have you been to Culver's? I like their burgers, too.

Steak 'n Shake is the best, no question. Best burgers, best fries, best shakes.

I love their weird tiny fries! Sonic has good burgers, too, but I don't know if they are all over the country.

Sonic has great hot dogs, too. It's hard to find good hot dogs at most fast food places.

I have two local stores (old Greek family businesses - Greeks cornered the grocery and independent fast food businesses here) that deliver locally. It's a nice, personal service. Otherwise I would have to use Peapod, which afaik is separate from any local chain stores. Grocery delivery didn't take off at all here imo.

Scone -- I do the DCs' taxes while they are students and have income from various sources (summer job, work study, weekend job) and have been tempted to encourage them to apply to instate universities just on the basis that the state tax return is really simple. I did a NY state return one year and it was a Beast.

There is anew Culvers not too far away but I haven't been. Are they the home of the butter burger?

I was under the impression that some peoples insurance has gone up due to obamacare because it stipulates that everyone's insurance must provide a minimum level of cover. So before there were plans you could buy that were cheap but covered almost nothing so basically people thought they were covered but weren't. Now obamacare means everyone has a decent level of cover and the insurance companies can't trick you with useless plans. So some people plans will go up in price but it is better for everyone.

I was so shocked how racist people in the south were when I was there in 2001. Just as if it was normal. Surely that is not normal and I just came across some odd people?

Our plan is the same as before Box. :)

I hope so Cold!

Why do you call college school?

Why do you need to go to college for 4 years and then another college to be a Dr, lawyer etc? And how does anyone afford 8 years college?

Re final years of secondary - it's not simple, and this is England and Wales - Scotland has a different system.

High school is 11 - 16 (can also be a grammar, secondary modern, or another name) and you used to go in to 1st year age 11 and 2nd year the year after. Some but not all schools also had a VI Form providing 2 years additional education (sixth form divided into lower VIth and upper VIth)

Years 1-5 are now known as year 7-11 but the name VI Form remains although te years are now year 12 and 13.

Normal progression is that you would sit GCSE (General Certificate of Education) exams in year 11. There are different boards who write and issue the papers but if two schools are using the same board it means all students sitting say GCSE French will take the same exam regardless of which school you go to. Most students take 7 - 10 subjects and the grades are A, A, B, C, D, E, F, G - grades A-C are regarded as a pass by employers and almost everyone else.

Now this is where it gets complicated. No one is ever held down a year so not everyone is ready for GCSE at age 16 and not everyone is good at exams so might take a course work based subject.

So qualifications are

level 1 - equivalent to GCSE grades D-G
Level 2 - equivalent to GCSE grades A*-C
Level 3 - equivalent to A Levels - which I will come back to later.

So you can take a range of level 1 and level 2 courses either GCSE or BTEC (coursework course) or others such as city and guilds.

The 'school leaving age' has just been raised from 16 to 17 and will be going up to 18 but this doesn't mean you have to stay at school.

OK A Levels.

At 16 you have to stay in education or be on an apprenticeship. You can stay on at school and go in to the VI Form, go to the VI form at another school or go to a further education college.

VI Forms are small and mostly offer A Levels. A Levels are 2 year courses that will get you in to uni. They consist of AS - the first year and A2-the second year.

Further Education (FE) colleges are lager and offer a greater range of subjects. They teach A Levels but also Level 1, Level 2, Level 3 and in some cases Level 4 and Level 5 courses (equivalent to years 1 and 2 at uni).

To do a level 3 course you need to have a 'full' level 2 course ie 5 GCSEs A*-C usually including English and Maths. If you leave school without this you can do Level 1 and Level 2 at college. If you want to go to uni in the US this is classed as equivalent to a HS diploma, but any good college wants A Levels which are roughly equivalent to AP classes.

FE Colleges also provide courses in practical things such as hairdressing and motor mechanics.

Anyone from age 14 up can attend college. Many schools work with colleges so students may spend 1 or 2 days a week at college doing a course not available at school.

Adults can also attend FE colleges but may have to pay fees. The rules about fees change every year or two set by government.

So a couple of years ago I did an AS Level for fun.

If you are taking A Levels you normally take 3 or 4 subjects for AS and then continue 2 to A Level, but some people do more.

Other Level 3 courses are equivalent to 3 A Levels and are also taken over 2 years.

I'm sure I have left loads out but that is the basics

I like reading these kinds of threads but I find it very annoying when posters are saying 'the UK system is xyz' when what they actually mean is the English system is xyz. Scotland is 10% of the population of they' UK and we have a totally different education system. The American use of the phrase 'high school' actually comes from Scotland.

Here pupils start primary 1 in mid august between 4 1/2 and 5 1/2. The cut off is February/march but there is flexibility for jan/feb borns. Then we do 7 years of primary and go to high school at 11/12. 4 years are compulsory and pupils now do national 4 or 5s. Then in 5th year they can do 4/5 Highers to get into Uni or nat 5s if they did nat 4s in 4th year. Pupils with high enough grades can go to Uni after 5th year at 16/17. Lots do 6th year where they can mix nat 5s, Highers and advanced Highers. Scottish Uni is free and lasts 4 years.

I will have to read that again when it's not 2 in the morning :o

I am jealous that you get gas and air!