I wouldn't move to US for $140k from my £40k salary in the UK unless they point a gun at my face and force me to do it. So to each their own I guess.
Also, do you know how does their healthcare compare?
To be fair, we definitely have a problem with normal/non-political conversations suddenly turning political as well. It's even a problem that started in 2016, too :/.
Because it's not all about the money. People make mistake by comparing salaries on their own which is not correct, you need to compare what's left of your salary after you've afforded the same level of lifestyle.
You might look at $140k as a lot of money and £40k as very little money but you need to put that into perspective. My salary comes with tax deducted and you have to pay someone to do your taxes for you. That's the first difference and it's quite vocal.
I don't mind and honestly prefer to have 40-50% tax taken away from my salary to enjoy certain social benefits which you would need to pay extra for and there are some things that just aren't in the US, like pension. You don't have pension, you have 401k which is a voluntary savings account basically. Besides the state pension that I will get once I retire (and will continue to receive as long as I'm alive), I also get 5% of my gross salary taken away every month and my employer tops it off with another 5%. If nothing else, at least I'm set when I retire and I don't have to worry if I'll have enough money until the day I die after retirement.
Some countries in Europe, much like the one I come from, have half smaller salaries than the UK and I would still take £20k salary over $140k in US because you can't put a price on a 5min commute to work and letting your children play outside without supervision, going for a walk at 11pm without having to worry that something might happen to you, not having ghettos or "bad areas" in your city, being able to go to a hospital and have a surgery without paying anything, sending your kids to university without paying anything... like I said, to each their own. If you only look at money itself and nothing else then yes, $140k in US is much better.
> you can't put a price on a 5min commute to work and letting your children play outside
That's very achieveable in parts of the US, and unachieveable in parts of the UK.
> having ghettos or "bad areas" in your city
Not exclusive to the US by any means. Plenty of nice cities in the UK have ghetto/bad areas.
> sending your kids to university without paying anything
If you live in England, this is definitely not applicable. Based on [0] (no idea how reputable the source is, but the first I could find) The average student loan debt is just shy of £35k. Anyone who borrowed for university from 2012 or later is paying 3% + RPI interest on their loans - That's fairly substantial.
[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/376423/student-loans-eng...
Sure, the worst areas in the US are worse than the worst areas in the UK, but that doesn't mean that the worst areas in the uk don't suck. You said you couldn't put a price on not having ghettos, not that the ghettos in the UK are better than the US equivalent. Besides, being on HN, the majority of us aren't going to be living in the Missions or Paisley.
> Also student loans are paid for by the UK government, and you only have to pay it off after graduating, and even then it's basically a small percentage of your earnings.
Right, but you still have to take out a 35k loan, and pay 9% of your earnings for 25 Years, or until it's paid off. That definitely doesn't sound like having to pay nothing to me.
The student loan really isn't that big of a big deal, because it's 9% of your salary OVER £25,000. So at the moment on £27k, I pay about £15 a month. If I stop going to work or earn less than £25k then I won't have to pay anything back (unlike normal loans).
Ideally the tuition fees would be free like in Scotland, but the English loans aren't as big of a deal as you're making them out to be.
The student loans also include money for living costs (if desired), some of which is free (and doesn't have to be paid back) depending on household income. We also pay year by year, so we wouldn't have to commit to £35k straight off the bat, just £9k per year. So if you decide to drop out after first year, you'd be in £9k of debt (or slightly more if you took out extra money for living costs).
Source:
Nevertheless, since I'm commenting already might as well add two more things. One thing is I get 29 days of PAID annual holiday. I've head from my US colleagues that in US you can take about a week or two of UNPAID holiday in a year.
Not to mention that women can go on maternity leave for a whole year and then come back to work without losing any rights whatsoever and also get paid 40 weeks of their maternity leave while in the US women can take up to 3 months of UNPAID maternity leave and only if they've worked for a company at least a year.
The US is a big country and there's plenty of places that most people wouldn't like to live (every country has locations like this), but if you're a tech worker, there's no place better in the world to live than in the US. You don't have to live in the Bay Area, you can live in Seattle, New York City, Boston, Los Angeles, or Atlanta. Don't like the city? Okay, there's plenty of affordable suburbs to live in all over the country.
Plus your cost of healthcare will either be free or heavily subsidized, taxes will be lower, you'll be making more money, and the opportunities for career advancement, VC funding (if you want to go the startup route), and opportunities to network will be much greater here.
America is an amazing place to live, whether the internet wants to believe it or not.
The visa scene is US is fickle and very unfriendly even for folks in high tech companies. For instance, the Green Card process is same for a software developer (no matter what company she is in) and a taxi driver. Of course, I don't have anything against taxi drivers, but I do believe education and professional qualifications should play some role in the Green Card process.
Across the entire UK there were only 4 police shootings in to 2016 and only 2 total in all of 2012-2014.
I'm willing to bet America has 4 yesterday (even adjusting for proportion populations)