Anyway, for this to not just be a rant, I'll give you a break-down of what is considered a very good salary for developers in Croatia, an EU country (I took a nice round number of 15000 croatian KN for take-home monthly pay). Junior developer salaries can be half of that (even less in some companies). Take note that Croatia is doing pretty bad economically. For reference, average take-home monthly salary is around 970 USD (median is around 800 USD). All numbers are for monthly salary, in US dollars.
Take home pay - 2351,10 USD
Pension contributon for current retirees - 570,88 USD
Personal pension - 190,29 USD
Country tax - 587,77 USD
Local tax - 105,80 USD
Health insurance - 570,88 USD
Employment insurance - 64,70 USD
Work injury insurance - 19,03 USD
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Total cost for employer - 4460,44 USD
Out of these, take home pay, personal pension and health insurance could be considered you own pay and not some form of tax (total monthly - 3112,26 USD). That being said, health care is pretty bad (some stuff is decent) and no young person expects their personal pension fund to survive until retirement (government controls the pension investment funds). Also, education is mostly free but also not that great.
Yearly numbers:
Take home pay - 28213,17 USD
Take home pay with personal pension and health insurance - 37347,18 USD
Total cost for employer - 53525,32 USD
As a side note, first five items from the above list are considered your "gross salary" by law, while the last three (health, employment and work injury insurance) are considered to be "paid by employer".
I wonder how this compares to other countries.