<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>HDThoreaun</author><text>California&amp;#x27;s tax rate is much higher than the rest of the country. The bay area&amp;#x27;s brocoli prices are much higher than anywhere except times square. The vast majority of the country is not facing prices like these.</text><parent_chain><item><author>EddieEngineers</author><text>Five Guys has always been that price, but I agree with your point. As a Brit, the US is pretty crazy too though. I just saw a single broccoli for $7 at a grocery store in Palo Alto.&lt;p&gt;On my $172k salary I pay $59k in taxes which is roughly $1k more than I&amp;#x27;d pay in the UK &lt;i&gt;but&lt;/i&gt; in the UK that includes national insurance while in the US I pay health insurance on top. So while taxes sound crazy in the UK it&amp;#x27;s not actually different to the US - it&amp;#x27;s all marginal. VAT is only 7.25% in California &lt;i&gt;but&lt;/i&gt; then you have to add 15-20% in tips when you&amp;#x27;re out.</text></item><item><author>jameshush</author><text>Visiting family in the UK for the first time in about five years. Costs here are _way_ higher than I remember. I bought three hamburgers, three drinks, and two large pops at a burger shop here, the total was 48 GBP (about $60 USD). This was at Five Guys. I couldn&amp;#x27;t believe it.&lt;p&gt;I visited my co-worker in the UK, and over some beers, he mentioned he&amp;#x27;s getting taxed at 48-50% on top of this. Also 20% VAT on regular shopping. I couldn&amp;#x27;t believe it, so he pulled up his pay stub on his phone and showed me.&lt;p&gt;Family members out here who are working non-tech regular jobs are telling me they had to cut back on turning on their heating at night during the winter. I grew up in Canada, and lived seven years in Los Angeles, but now live in Asia. I don&amp;#x27;t know how the UK is going to get back to where it was 10ish years ago.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>One million cancel broadband as living costs rise</title><url>https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-65622403</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>adventured</author><text>If you&amp;#x27;re capable of earning $172,000 in salary in the US, you can trivially get an employer that covers essentially all the cost of your health insurance (if that&amp;#x27;s an important arrangement wherever you&amp;#x27;re at in life; ie if you want that packaged into your total compensation vs taxes calculation). That&amp;#x27;s the typical situation for someone with a salary that high in the US. Your scenario is pretending that people earning so much are commonly having to cover the cost of their health insurance, which is not the case.&lt;p&gt;Which is simultaneously in no way defending the mess that is US healthcare.</text><parent_chain><item><author>EddieEngineers</author><text>Five Guys has always been that price, but I agree with your point. As a Brit, the US is pretty crazy too though. I just saw a single broccoli for $7 at a grocery store in Palo Alto.&lt;p&gt;On my $172k salary I pay $59k in taxes which is roughly $1k more than I&amp;#x27;d pay in the UK &lt;i&gt;but&lt;/i&gt; in the UK that includes national insurance while in the US I pay health insurance on top. So while taxes sound crazy in the UK it&amp;#x27;s not actually different to the US - it&amp;#x27;s all marginal. VAT is only 7.25% in California &lt;i&gt;but&lt;/i&gt; then you have to add 15-20% in tips when you&amp;#x27;re out.</text></item><item><author>jameshush</author><text>Visiting family in the UK for the first time in about five years. Costs here are _way_ higher than I remember. I bought three hamburgers, three drinks, and two large pops at a burger shop here, the total was 48 GBP (about $60 USD). This was at Five Guys. I couldn&amp;#x27;t believe it.&lt;p&gt;I visited my co-worker in the UK, and over some beers, he mentioned he&amp;#x27;s getting taxed at 48-50% on top of this. Also 20% VAT on regular shopping. I couldn&amp;#x27;t believe it, so he pulled up his pay stub on his phone and showed me.&lt;p&gt;Family members out here who are working non-tech regular jobs are telling me they had to cut back on turning on their heating at night during the winter. I grew up in Canada, and lived seven years in Los Angeles, but now live in Asia. I don&amp;#x27;t know how the UK is going to get back to where it was 10ish years ago.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>One million cancel broadband as living costs rise</title><url>https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-65622403</url></story>