Denmark surely is a great example of how very ordinary people in very ordinary jobs still have a very good quality of life - decent salary, good living accommodation. And no snootiness about the actual job they do. Compares very favourably to the UK.
I know we all moan about the NHS but having it must make us one of the best places to live as a commoner although I have to admit Canada really impressed me when I was there but it would be hard to leave Yorkshire …I’m sure if Judd and Lionqueen were here today they would be saying the same.
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I’m a fan of the NHS but it does not stand out as the best provider of free health care for ordinary people - other countries do the same and in some cases a bit better. Obviously there are nutcase countries like the US which is determined to punish unwell people on low incomes but most other first world countries have health care systems that support ordinary people. So I’m unconvinced that this is a reason that the UK is best for common people compared to other places.
I think the U.K. is the best place to be anyone but I am biased 
But I also think it’s a difficult place to be a commoner if you have ideas above your station, and have aspirations for your children
I think our education system is very poor and while we have private education running along side it, it won’t get better.
Same with the NHS, if you can’t pay for private and don’t have the confidence, education and knowledge to push for what you need, you sink to the bottom
Housing opportunity is also poor. Since the council house sell off there’s very little reasonably priced accommodation that people on a minimum wage can afford, and they get exploited by rogue landlords
There will always be people on low incomes who can’t afford to buy and they’re simply not catered for
There’s also a strong class system that encourages staying in your place. There’s no encouragement for ‘commoners’ to get educated, go to Uni and get professional jobs, all the emphasis is on apprentices etc
We do at least have minimum wage, although that may change if the Tories have their way now we’re not in the EU and not covered by their regulations. Same with sick pay, maternity/paternity leave, annual leave etc
The age limit for the state pension is going up and up, so if your a commoner and that is going to be your only retirement income, you’ll be in harness for a lot more years, compared to France, where it’s going to be 64
And the government are planning on taking away workers rights to strike and protest about other things, so it will be harder for ‘commoners’ to fight back
The U.K. is a fantastic country and we’re extremely lucky but I do think there is quite a rigid class system, maintained by the chumocracy in Parliament that it’s quite hard to break through and that commoners are exploited to keep it going and maintain the privileged
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As Boot notes, there are lists that show which countries are best in certain things. If you’re looking to be convinced, that’s a better source than a random comment made in another context.
“difficult place to be a commoner if you have ideas above your station, education system is very poor; Housing opportunity is also poor; strong class system; no encouragement for ‘commoners’ to get educated, get professional jobs; now we’re not in the EU and not covered by their regulations; age limit for the state pension is going up and up; government are planning on taking away workers rights”
Thanks for that summary of why the UK is not likely to be the best place to live if you are common, ordinary folk. I’d add:
air pollution, water pollution, free market profiteering where shared ownership should exist, preference & privilege given to the wealthy, broken/expensive care system.
Shame because otherwise the UK can be a great place.
Well, that lets me out of the reckoning…
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I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. My ancestors go back to at least the 1400s, I’ve managed to trace them during my genealogical research, so they must have felt the same as me because I don’t have any family living in other countries.
I left school at 15 and went straight into factory work - living in a working class family that was expected of me. I wanted a better life for myself and my sons after I was divorced so went back into education and gained several O’ and A’ levels followed by a BA hons. and then a PGCE. I had a fulfilling career teaching in secondary education. I climbed the ladder and when I retired was Head of English. Life was very hard when I was studying - very little money because I was a one-parent family. (No food banks in those days but even if there were I wouldn’t have used them - I was brought up to stand on my own two feet and that has always stood me in good stead). So, my point is that there are opportunities in this country if you are prepared to look for them and work hard - my life is a case in point and I am sure there are many others on here who could say the same.
It irritates me when folks criticise my country from afar - I know it isn’t perfect but there again where is?
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I can say the some thing but from Scotland. I don’t live there now - I’ve travelled the world - but it will always be home for me.
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I did not start this thread with the idea that people need to up sticks and move. It was simply to wonder if there are places where ordinary people are well served and not crushed by cost of living. I wondered what experiences or insights others have had from around the world.
Nor was this meant as a slagging off for the UK - although these days that does seem very easy to do. It was more me being interested in what happens in other places where ordinary folk seem to be happier and seem to have a better quality of life. Because for sure, the quality of life for many in the UK is pretty poor. And not getting better. So perhaps there are things we can learn from other places and not see criticism of the state of affairs in the UK as positive and not just annoying?
I really didn’t see it that way. When I got by degree the Chief Engineer suggested I could move to another company that could be beneficial for me. I accepted.
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That’s not how the OP is set up. It’s one thing to ask which country is best for “commoners”. It’s another thing to specifically say that the UK is not the best for commoners and expect everyone to prove that it is while you contradict them.
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Fair, I re-read my opening post and you are right. It was clear I was seeking contributions about places other than the UK. And it was clear that my view was the UK is pretty dismal for people on low and modest incomes. Still is my view. You can’t have 13 years of austerity and wage constraint and not have problems.
What problems, most of the neighborhoods I visit have at least one BMW of less the five years old, see, the commoners were quite clever, and became middle class, that’s Blighty for you.
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And leeched off the real commoners.
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Gosh, does that mean that there is in fact no cost of living crisis in the UK? All is well? Upper-ward mobility is the norm? The wealth divide is narrowing?
I’ve clearly been out of the country too much.
It was narrowing, more by accident than strategy, but, it probably peaked pre Brexit, Brexit becoming the scapegoat, there is always a national scapegoat when the tomtit is about to hit the fan. 
Cough, splutter, gasp. That’s not the data I’ve seen - let me go digging and see if I can validate this claim.
I’ve got to express a bit of surprise here because a number of sources confirm:
“over the past 14 years wealth inequality measured by the Gini coefficient has remained by and large stable, according to the ONS” - this statement or similar was found in multiple places such the FT, ONS itself and others.
However I also noted two things:
“The median income was rising by 2.2% on average for the last five years before the pandemic. However, in 2022, incomes for the poorest 14 million people fell by 7.5%, whilst incomes for the richest fifth saw a 7.8% increase” - although this is talking about income not wealth.
The other interesting thing is how the UK compares to other countries. On the Gini index (look it up, but essentially an index of how unequal wealth is across a country’s population) the UK ranks 6th worst with the US, China & India being worse but pretty much every European country being much better.
So I found nothing to confirm that the wealth gap was widening or closing. And it is still too large.
These surveys are a bit suspect, they would have had some credibility in say 1960, one has to assume in 2023, a lot of the wealth held by the perceived lower echelons is invisible to the compilers, we won’t go into what the possible reasons for that may be.
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