Poll: living standard

[the_reda]

What do you think makes up a First World living standard? I am not talking about movie stars but what would you consider an average person to have access to/ own?

Feel free to add things in the comments, I only get 30 options per poll. There is no real order to the tickies.

By 'free' I mean paid for by taxes, not charity.

Feel free to repost/link

Comments

[the_reda]

Having a car as a necessity and not a luxury is imho a step back.

The way I would define 'First World' living standards (FWLS) is: the maximum of services and amenities a person, even with limited means, has access to.

Having to have a car does bind resources that could, if there were such a thing as reliable public transport, used for other things like building up savings or other luxuries. If having a car as a luxury it is a choice, but if it is necessary that screws those who cannot afford one if there is no other option available. Not screwing those i.e. having public transport in this case, I would consider to be more FWLS than having to rely on a car.

I personally (and this may be an EU thing) do not consider a dryer a necessity. Most people do not own one. My parents have a really really old one (mom used cloth diapers on me, that's why they bought one) but it does not get used more than once a year after that.

I agree with internet/computer. It has gotten to the point where one is expected to have one and people will ask for your email address without even considering that you may not have one.

/Free primary & secondary education is important (although here, that's paid for with tax dollars). /

By free I meant taxes. Money's gotta come from somewhere :P
Free as in I do not have to pay a monthly fee because it has all been taking care of by the taxes I pay and the weight is equally and fairly distributed by income.

[shaysdays]

I personally (and this may be an EU thing) do not consider a dryer a necessity.

Alright, how do you dry large loads during the wintertime? Because once it warms up, we are all about the clothesline, but we'd have to run something across the living room to accommodate bedsheets/blankets/whenever my teenage daughter notices her hamper is stuffed three feet above the rim.

[the_reda]

Right now? In the bathroom.

My parents have a basement, so that is where the laundry goes. Most apartment blocks in Germany use the attic for communal drying. If not people put it in the living room or the bedroom on one of those standing racks.

[the_reda]

http://home.schottelius.org/~nico/photos/bilder_gossau_2006_11_24/07_wohnzimmer_waeschestaender.jpeg

This is what most people will do.

[shaysdays]

Even for bedsheets? Because we usually wash all the bedsheets at once, because they all use the same setting and detergent. Do they dry on those racks?

(I am asking because I don't like depending on the dryer, not OMG CRAZY EU, just to be clear, I'm honestly baffled because I've tried drying bedsheets on the 'indoors' clothesline and it never worked well because I had to fold them.)

[the_reda]

Yep, bedsheets too. Never had any issues with getting them dry, but you'd need to 'turn them over' after say half a day.

Right now I do have a glassed in balcony that we use in summer, but nothing will dry there right now. Not at -25F out. The bathroom does work quite well, since it is the warmest room in the apartment and meant for doing this. They all have special poles across the room that can support the weight of wet clothes.