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Comment by Galanwe | Hacker News Reader

> in Europe devs are slaving away through SCRUM powered meat grinders burning themselves out for a 3% salary increase on a pitiful 40-80k/year

There is so much wrong in this sentence.

First, there is no more “meat grinders” in the US than in Europe. I worked at Microsoft and Criteo in Europe, and the slacking there seems to be on par with what OP describes.

You mention 40/80k per year being pitiful? This kind of remuneration puts you in the top 10%/5% of France population easily. If your partner manages the same level of salary, you should be even better in the top.

> no stock options, without any hope of early retirement

You are dreaming. The kind of stock options you get in big tech companies is not what you think. You can expect some hundreds/thousands dollars per year, that need 3/5 year to vest until you can have them in full. European companies would traditionally prefer to give a bit of extra money rather than stock options.

> early retirement

....

> owning a decent home without a 30 year loan

What are you talking about... you earn 40/80k per year. The mortgage rates in France at the moment are amongst the best in the world. You should be able to get a loan at 1% for ~500k for 15 or 30 years without any problem.

Also, please, bear in mind that you cannot directly compare US and EU salaries. Your 80k€ gross in e.g. France should be the equivalent of $150k for a US worker; if you account for the same level of medical care and retirement savings. Not much of a difference after you realise this.

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> Also, please, bear in mind that you cannot directly compare US and EU salaries. Your 80k€ gross in e.g. France should be the equivalent of $150k for a US worker; if you account for the same level of medical care and retirement savings. Not much of a difference after you realise this.

What makes you think that? As to retirement savings, American retirement payments replace 70% of working income on average, versus 60% in France: https://www.etk.fi/wp-content/uploads/PaG2017EN.jpg. The US retirement system is one of the better ones in the OECD. Like the U.K., Germany, Netherlands, and Sweden, the U.S. has a two-pillar system, with a public pillar and a defined contribution (i.e. 401k) pillar. The public system alone pays out about as much in absolute terms as in France. (60% of French pre-retirement income ~= 40% of US per-retirement income.) Adding in the tax-advantaged defined-contribution component (but excluding other private investment income) makes the total income replacement one of the highest in the OECD.

Of course, at the end of the day, a programmer is going to be a “net contributor” to the retirement system in both countries. The French person will pay (percentage wise) much higher social insurance tax to get a bigger (percentage wise) public pension check, while the American person will make a 401k contribution plus a lower social insurance tax. At the end of the day, that doesn’t have any effect on the comparison of 80k euros being less than $150k, because retirement savings will come out of both numbers.

As to healthcare, programmers are going to be among the 65% of American workers who get healthcare through their employer. That means that, on top of their salary, they get additional compensation in the form of employer-paid healthcare premiums. Meanwhile, the French person will pay for healthcare in the form of higher taxes out of that 80k euros. Although Americans spend twice as much on healthcare as French, that isn’t relevant to this comparison, because for the American the additional part is paid by the employer on top of the $150k. It’s not something you subtract out. (Put differently, the 80k euros versus 150k comparison understates the difference, because the American salary includes $10-15k in additional health benefits.)

Finally, cost of living is about the same in France as in the US.

I totally agree. Having lived through both systems and countries with similar salaries than the one you mention. France is a scam. Europe is a scam. Companie are not entitled to anything they make you either enter some traditional companies with very little benefits (definitly no 401k, discounted movie tickets at best) or they make you enter startup world giving you shitting fictional "stocks" that definitely won't make you a millionaire even if the company hits a multi-billion dollar valuation. You know what else? people managing, doing PM, all the soft skills jobs are better paid in france than dev jobs and better viewed overall. unlike in USA where people pay for the technical skills, engineers compensations in europe are low. somehow we still an old country dominated by old money and the rule that only the elites can get chunks of the companies even tho they are not the one slaving. There are a few exceptions to this but those companies moved their HQ and their core in USA to get away from all this BS. such as Datadog or even Docker. oh and regarding price of accomodation paris is much more expensive than NYC. new york not being only manhattan and brooklyn for people who like to compare even modern apartments in LIC sell for half of what a 200year old apartment would sell in paris.

It's curious that you say that, I searched for comparisons between New York and Paris[0],[1] and NY comes on top. Are this inaccurate? I'm genuinely curious

[0]:https://www.expatica.com/fr/housing/buying/buying-property-i... [1]:https://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living/comparison/paris/n...

Have a look I picked similar sized appartments 44sqm: LIC (10min ride from midtown) for 600k$ a : https://streeteasy.com/building/5th-street-lofts-5sl/6d

PARIS 15 (family neighboorhood - the furthest one from the city center - 20min) for 600k$: https://www.seloger.com/annonces/achat/appartement/paris-15e...

and I can find much much cheaper in Queens if I move 10min further in something older.

You are completely missing the point here. Not only are you trying to argue against things that I did not say, but you are also comparing things that cannot. What Europeans call "gross" salary is NOT what Americans call "gross" salary. And you are mixing them together, which is exactly what my comment was trying to prevent.

> the comparison of 80k euros being less than $150k, because retirement savings will come out of both numbers.

No, the 80k remuneration is AFTER half the retirement contribution.

> the French person will pay for healthcare in the form of higher taxes out of that 80k euros

No, most of the healthcare is actually in the employer part, which is already removed from these 80k.

In Europe, what people call "gross" is the employee part of the income. This part already had the employer part removed, which contains a part of medical care and retirement. In US, especially with 401k, the employer part is pretty much non existent until the employee triggers a contribution.

What it means is that on the 80k that a European will call his "gross" salary, he will in fact have been paid around 140k, with 60k going to his mandatory retirement/medical care for the employer contribution. The taxes left on the 80k are only the employee part.

People in Europe usually don't add up the employer contribution part into account in what they call their "gross" salary because it's a mandatory part and often not displayed on the payslips.

This is not how it works in the US. The $150k that employees refer to as their "gross" income did not had the employer contribution deducted yet.

I am not _at all_ trying to compare the retirement system of US versus EU, or saying that one is better or not or whatever. All I'm saying is EU gross is not comparable to US gross, as these numbers do NOT contain the same deductions.

In your post, you are _consistently_ mixing the two gross numbers together, which is very wrong.

Hmm, this is certainly interesting, but if I do the calculation for Germany for example, 80,000€ "gross" income comes out to a cost of about 96,600€.

https://www.nettolohn.de/rechner/gehaltsrechner-fuer-arbeitg...

Certainly relevant, but there's still a decent gap between 96,600€ ($108,165) and $150,000.

I admit I did the computation 80kE ~= $150k from the top of my head, it’s not super accurate and will depend on countries and the status of the employee (different status imply different employer deductions).

In France for instance, people will insist on having the “cadre” status, which require more employer contribution and also has implications on how their liabilities toward the company are judged. This should raise the bar to $150k.

Edit:

I did the computation for France and end up with 130k EUR super gross for a 80k EUR gross. So that would be an equivalent of $145k. Not far from my guess.

I used the french government calculator to compute the exact values: https://www.economie.gouv.fr/entreprises/simulateur-cout-emb...

I don't know anyone who calls take-home (net) pay gross salary in Europe. I have lived and worked in multiple countries.

And the actual gross is definitely displayed on the payslips.

> I don't know anyone who calls take-home (net) pay gross salary in Europe. I have lived and worked in multiple countries.

That is not what I am saying...

There are basically 3 stages of income in Europe: employer gross -> employee gross -> employee net.

Most Europeans refer to employee gross as simply “gross”. There are still the employee contribution part to be deducted before the net, but the whole employer contribution has completely been removed already.

Payslips as well as employment contracts usually display the employee gross. That is why the real total compensation including the employer contribution is rarely displayed anywhere in Europe and people forget about it, thus creating the incompréhension of this whole comment thread, where people compare incomparable incomes.

Yeah fair enough then, that's true - misunderstood your comment.

Let me try to reformulate OP's comment. In many European countries, there are three deduction levels: (1) the net salary, after all taxes and health and social care deductions, (2) the gross salary, after all mandatory employer contributions to the health and social care systems (3) the total cost of an employee to the employer (the English equivalent of the term used in Czechia would be "super-gross" salary). OP's point was that first, in the EU, there is often a big difference between (2) and (3), whereas they are very close or equal in the US, and second, gross salary usually refers to (2) in the EU and to (3) in the US.

That said, I don't think that the difference between (2) and (3) is as big as suggested by the OP even in the EU, at least in the countries that I'm familiar with.

Gross salary usually refers to #2 in the US, to, and, contrary to the upthread suggestion, just as in Europe, there is an “employer portion” (which in the US includes some of retirement and retirement healthcare, but not current healthcare—that is, specifically, federally half of the tax for Social Security and Medicare,—plus, a portion of the cost of federal and state unemployment insurance) which is not included in gross salary because it is paid out of employer taxes rather than employee taxes. There are also sometimes employer-provided benefits that while part of total compensation are not part of gross salary , and may or may not be part of taxable income; some portion of employer-provided healthcare cost is frequently part of this, and, though this is almost entirely a public-sector concern now, some portion of employer pension costs also frequently would be part of this, where a pension exists at all (adding these employer taxes and benefits to gross salary isn't the total cost to the employer of the employee either, as there is overhead and other employer costs for employment that that still excludes.)

It is true that the spread between #2 and #3 (when limited only to the required taxes and any benefits not part of salary, which seems to be the intention) is typically greater in Europe than the US, as the supported social services are greater.

In both countries, there is an employer contribution and an employee contribution. In both countries, “gross” income excludes the employer contribution. In the US, it also excludes employer-paid health insurance premiums. In France, it excludes the employer-paid health insurance tax.

As to the precise mix, I don’t think it’s accurate to say that more will be paid by the employer in Europe. In both countries, medical is paid mostly by the employer, and deducted before the $150k/80k euro number. Both countries have a similar employee-paid social security rate (6-7%). As explained above, the base Social Security payment will return as much in absolute terms as the French retirement system. Any 401k you contribute to will return a lot more in retirement than what you would receive in France.

You are mistaken, because you do not take into account the whole contributions that are deducted between gross and super-gross. Medical care is just one of them and it adds up to WAY more than 8%.

Here is a break down of what that would look like for a French employee:

(1) Starting with a super gross of 130k EUR / year ($145k):

- Deduct retirement contribution

- Deduct health care contribution

- Deduct family contribution

- Deduct public housing contribution

- Deduct unemployment contribution

- Deduct professional disease contribution

- Deduct employee formation contribution

- Deduct elderly contribution

- Some other contributions

(2) You end up with a gross salary of ~80k EUR / year ($90k):

- Deduct employee contribution to all the above

(3) You end up with a net salary of ~50k / year ($55k).

You can do the computation yourself from the calculator on the french government website:

https://www.economie.gouv.fr/entreprises/simulateur-cout-emb...

The same thing is true of the United States as well. The $150k salary is going to be after:

1) Retirement contribution 2) Medicare/health insurance contribution 3) Unemployment insurance contribution

At the $150k salary level, the following will also be provided as benefits before the $150k:

4) Short and long term disability insurance 5) Family leave

A gross salary of $150k is going to be more like $175k including those taxes and costs.

In California, on a salary of $150k, the net paycheck will be like $90-95k, or $80-85k if you max out your 401k contribution. (If you do that, your retirement benefits will be much more than you would receive in France.)

> A gross salary of $150k is going to be more like $175k including those taxes and costs.

So, I checked and indeed there is a small fraction of gross/super-gross difference in US salaries. But that should just be 6% total medical/medicare. Far from the 45% you often find in Europe.

> if you max out your 401k contribution

I don't think accounting for employee/employer triggered retirement contributions should enter the comparison here... Because it exists in pretty much every country, and it depends on what the employee wants to spend.

> If you do that, your retirement benefits will be much more than you would receive in France.

France has exactly the same as US 401k, since 1970, it's called a PEE. It's tax free and company contribution can go up to 3:1, it's limited to 25% of your total income though. There's also the more recent PERCO which is pretty much the same thing but can be cumulated, so you can go over 25% if you want.

I'd like to point out that employer side taxes (all the things between "gross" and "super-gross" in your terminology) are very bad whether they are happening in France, the US or anywhere else.

The only purpose of levying them that way instead of as traditional taxes on the employee is to deceive employees as to their true effective tax rates. To the extent that these taxes are higher in France than they are in the US, it's only a demonstration that France's tax system is being more deceptive.

About France's tax system being deceptive, I would highlight that France makes it even more deceptive by having different regimes for different categories:

for instance, nurses or lawyers in France feel that the state levies from them a disproportionate amount of the super-gross (about 70%), and that these categories (I took 2, but in fact this is true for all "independents" in France) pay more than the rest of the population... which is not true, it is simply that the fraction of income that is levied as taxes is more obvious to those categories.

A regular employee does not even see most of these levies on their pay stub (it's called the "charges patronales", i.e. employers' contribution, but it really is a portion of wages that is socialized: this is money that belongs to the employee as wages, it's not something that belongs to the employer that pays it for the privilege of employing a person), and in reality what nurses/lawyers/independent perceive as outrageous taxation is just them paying "self-employment" taxes (as it's called in the US).

These taxes are there for good reason, but they are indeed masked from mere mortals. It would do a world of good for these things to appear (by law) on pay slips, for it would make people realize that the many public services that seem to be free are in fact very much not free at all. Indeed these public services (which are pretty good in France, IMHO) cost an arm and a leg, yet the system is rigged to make them appear free. If that's not deception, I don't know what is :)

> A gross salary of $150k is going to be more like $175k including those taxes and costs. So, I checked and indeed there is a small fraction of gross/super-gross difference in US salaries. But that should just be 6% total medical/medicare. Far from the 45% you often find in Europe.

It’s 7.65% social security + Medicare, plus health insurance, plus parental leave. On average, employers contribute $14,000 for health insurance for a family: https://www.kff.org/health-costs/press-release/benchmark-emp.... For someone making $150k thats 9.3%. For the average worker with employer provided health insurance, that might be close to 20%.

> I don't think accounting for employee/employer triggered retirement contributions should enter the comparison here... Because it exists in pretty much every country, and it depends on what the employee wants to spend.

Defined contribution accounts are one of the pillars of the UN model for pensions. Many European countries (U.K., Germany, Sweden, Netherlands, Norway) rely on them as an essential part of the overall retirement system. (Basically, they impose a lower retirement insurance tax and let you invest the money yourself.) So it should definitely be included.

> France has exactly the same as US 401k, since 1970, it's called a PEE. It's tax free and company contribution can go up to 3:1, it's limited to 25% of your total income though. There's also the more recent PERCO which is pretty much the same thing but can be cumulated, so you can go over 25% if you want.

My point is that the base Social Security payment, which is mandatory, will already provide you the same pension as you would receive in France. So you don’t have to decrease the 150k for 401k contributions to make the comparison even. But if you do account for 401k contributions, you’re going to get more retirement money than in France.

> The kind of stock options you get in big tech companies is not what you think. You can expect some hundreds/thousands dollars per year, that need 3/5 year to vest until you can have them in full.

Did you mean tens/hundreds of thousands per year? Vesting monthly or quarterly? Because that's what "big tech companies" pay just in stocks in the Bay Area.

https://www.levels.fyi/

> Your 80k€ gross in e.g. France should be the equivalent of $150k for a US worker

I hear this a lot, but if you're earning $150K in the US, you almost certainly have 100% medical coverage. At least, I do, and everyone I know does. The US medical system is broken, but it's OK for high-income earners. It's the low-to-middle income folks who are really hurt by it.

> retirement savings

Again, if you're earning $150K in the US, you probably have a nice 401K and stock options. If you're smart with your money, you can probably retire in 10 years. Again, anecdotal, but I know many who've done just that.

Just to be clear, I don't want to enter any kind of comparison between EU and US pension/medical systems here!

All I'm saying, is that contribution to e.g. a 401k will be done after the $150k (even though the employer will contribute with e.g. 1:1 ratio).

Whereas in EU the retirement contribution is already done before the 80k euro. Actually, MANY other contributions will happen before that 80k EUR.

Thus, you cannot compare _directly_ EU and US salaries, you need to adjust for a rough estimate of everything that was already deducted from the EU 80k!

This is why I mention that it is more _fair_ to compare EU super-gross against US gross, because both are expressed before the heavy medical/unemployment/retirement contributions.

Whereas in EU the retirement contribution is already done before the 80k euro. Actually, MANY other contributions will happen before that 80k EUR.

Exactly same thing is true in the US. 401k is on top of Social Security retirement benefits. Employees pay 6.2% of their salary (up to $127,000 cap) into Social Security, and the employers pay matching 6.2% on top of the gross salary. The 401k is in addition to Social Security benefits, and the Social Security benefits are already higher than the French retirement benefits.

> I hear this a lot, but if you're earning $150K in the US, you almost certainly have 100% medical coverage.

I'm not sure how true this is anymore. I made a bit more than this at Microsoft, and my medical benefits were "100% covered" by Microsoft. But that still amounts to thousands of dollars in deductibles and copays per year out of pocket.

I worked at Microsoft, and didn't have that experience. Maybe it changed? When were you there?

I was there from 2013 to 2019. I remember right after I joined in 2013 they stopped offering their PPO plan and moved everyone into an HDHP.

Ah. Yeah. I left right around then. :) That explains it. Still, everywhere I've worked since MS has given me 100% coverage, albeit sometimes indirectly (e.g. via a company funded HSA plan, etc).

>there is no more “meat grinders” in the US than in Europe. I worked at Microsoft and Criteo in Europe, and the slacking there seems to be on par with what OP describes.

That's very specifically anecdotal. Not everyone in Europe works or has the opportunity to work at big wealthy corps like the ones you mentioned. Europe is not as clustered as SV so the quality and pay of jobs varies immensely on your location. I can assure that outside such monopolies like Microsoft where the money comes in regardless if people work or not, the meat grinders are real.

Oh come on, there are good companies and bad companies in every industry.

If you've managed to end up at a bad one you've only yourself to blame.

> Not everyone in Europe works or has the opportunity to work at big wealthy corps like the ones you mentioned.

Because you think 90% of people in the US works in 'big wealthy corps'?

You probably have a skewed opinion based on what you see on hacker news. For the overwhelming majority, the condition are pretty similar to what you describe: A SCRUM point driven job, where you just implement whatever boring BS you are asked for a product you most likely don't care about, with a mediocre pay, and no job security.

> You can expect some hundreds/thousands dollars per year

This is not correct. A senior (meaning L5-L6+, nothing crazy) engineer at a big public tech co will get 6 figures yearly in stock compensation in addition to their salary.

Sorry, but this is urban legend to me. No saying it does not happen, but that is definitely a very special case.

I manage a team of quantitative developers in a Hedge Fund and do between 50 and 100 interviews per year, at senior level. I have head hunter compensation report on the candidates. I see regularly candidates from Google, Amazon, and finance industry. I very rarely see 6 digit bonus for big techs. My experience is that they have a high fixed salary and low 5 digit bonus.

The parent post was referring to stock-based compensation (ie. RSUs), not bonus. This site might be interesting: https://levels.fyi/

Yes, I can confirm that stock-based compensation at brand-name Bay Area tech companies is significant. Those numbers definitely match what I see anecdotally.

You're probably not from the bay, check levels.fyi

I didn’t say anything about a bonus. These are stock packages.

> head hunter compensation report

You should ask for a refund. Senior engineers at FANG in the Bay Area will typically make over $100k/year in stock. Total compensation of $300k-$400k is pretty normal, and includes salary, stock, and bonus. Netflix is an exception; compensation is mostly or all in cash.

The flip side is that, even with $350k/year income, you probably still can't comfortably afford a nice 3-bedroom house in a good neighborhood to raise a family (unless you've already been working in the Bay for a while and saved up a big nest egg, or your spouse makes a similar amount and continues to work full time while you raise a family).

Since I moved to the Bay Area, I've realized the high salaries aren't worth it to me. If I were still in my twenties, I could make it work, but as it is, I'd end up paying a truly absurd amount of money for a small, over-priced house, and my entire paycheck would go towards paying the mortgage for the foreseeable future. So I'm looking to transfer to a non-Bay Area office ASAP, even if it means a pay cut.

;_;

You know what sucks? I have to pay ridiculous rent for a house in an LA suburb and I make only a fraction of that lol.

Dang!

If it's any consolation, most engineers here are not senior/staff engineers and they make less. Rent here is very steep (~$3500/month is the median price for an old 1-bedroom in San Francisco), but the home prices are really insane.

Also, there are many companies and start-ups up here that pay much less. Lots of people scrape by, and lots of people move away.

I personally really like LA (which is not something I can openly admit up here) and hope to transfer there or to San Diego.

I grew up in the Bay Area, and while I miss the culture, I do not miss its homogeneity. Los Angeles is truly a world-class cosmopolis, but it can be grinding because of the entertainment buggers. San Diego to me is a better alternative, and where I would go to raise a family. In the meantime, I enjoy the abundance of world-class cultural opportunities in a late 80’s 2br with garaged parking for $2350/mo in West LA!

We don't get six digit bonuses. I'm in the high end of the range the parent posted, and I've never seen a six digit bonus. However, I do get a high five digit (cash) bonus, and around 250k of stock comp on top of my 250k base salary. I don't think of the stock as a bonus. It's just part of my compensation.

Honestly even the bonuses are not bonuses the way bank people normally think of them. I have family that worked in corporate finance and they described not uncommon situations where a bonus would be more than all the rest of the compensation for a year. And it was highly variable. Meanwhile both my bonus and stock comp have been steadily increasing, but not in a variable way. It's a pretty consistent 5-15% per year.

> You mention 40/80k per year being pitiful? This kind of remuneration puts you in the top 10%/5% of France population easily.

These numbers are surely off. Must be more like 40%/10%. And I'd bet that a double-digit percentage of devs earn less than 40k and only very few earn 80k. Factor in that this is a job that is concentrated in big cities with a high cost of living, and these numbers don't look that great.

Average net salary in France hovers at 2300€/month, median net salary is ~1800€/month. At ~3200€/month you're straight in the high 10% from official statistics.

Anything I found suggested slightly higher values, but maybe official stats can only be found by googling in French?

Either way, I think all the GPs were talking about gross values. So if 1800 net is, say, 2800 gross, that is 35k/yr. In that case 40k is fairly close to the median and probably not in the top 25%.

Indeed. :)

This guy (parent) took two data-points and extrapolated like he had just figured out how two continents work.

>> You mention 40/80k per year being pitiful? This kind of remuneration puts you in the top 10%/5% of France population easily.

That just means the rest of the population is poor, not that you should accept less. This is called a fallacy of relative privation. So what if you have to subsist on ramen and can't afford a place to live with less than an hour and a half of commute. Think of all those starving children in Uganda instead. That's how the ruling class shits in your head with propaganda.

As a professional you should be able to accomplish the minimum of: raising a couple of kids, buying a residence, putting quality food on the table, and sock away enough to not be poor when it's time to retire. You should aim to make more than enough money to do all of the above while maintaining a first world lifestyle.

If you're not able to do that in your profession, that fancy college degree is materially worse than a plumbing or electrical trade school certification.

While I agree with you on some points, the cost of life in European countries is not the same as USA.

The taxes are also much higher in Europe, especially on those compliant "upper middle class" techies we're talking about here. For anyone with basic understanding of arithmetics it's not even a question that EU techies are woefully underpaid, which is why all the good ones work in the US or for EU subsidiaries of US companies which actually respect the engineers.

I don't believe this is the case. In central Europe (Poland, Czech, Slovakia, Hungary) you can have < 20 - 25% effective taxes even including basic health insurance. In german speaking countries (Austria, Germany) you get twice the salary but that goes with higher taxes. AFAIK in US just the health insurance is very expensive.

EDIT: (using the most tax-effective form of employment, which most of the time is working as a contractor. Being a full-time employee comes with so much higher taxes in EU)

> AFAIK in US just the health insurance is very expensive.

Health care, housing, education, retirement are incredibly expensive in the US. Day-to-day life in the US is also quite expensive for most Americans. Most people in the US are in massive amounts of debt with little to no savings.

> Poland, Czech, Slovakia, Hungary

The salaries that are considered "acceptable" in those countries would result in a _negative_ effective tax rate in the US. Tax rate alone is not everything. It's a combination of pretax pay and the effective tax rate that you need to be considering.

For washing dishes, yes. But senior developers make around $60k in major cities. Throw 19% all-inclusive tax rate on top of that.

Those same people would be making $250-300K in the US, with about 25-30% effective tax rate (depending on the state), and healthcare mostly paid for by the employer. Assuming they're actually senior and get paid that much in Eastern Europe.

I'm not sure they would. $60k is just typical salary for someone with 5-10 years of experience in ex. corporate Java. They are not stars by any strech of imagination, just solid performers.

Outstanding people make $120-160k - and here I agree, they would probably make twice that much if not more at FAANG in SV. But, their taxes would be at 35-40%, and housing would also be more expensive. I've often considered moving to SV (I'm making $160k in Poland). According to my calculations, I would be saving up to 50% more money there, but for me that's not enough to move to the other end of the world - not to mention the gruesome immigration process.

> AFAIK in US just the health insurance is very expensive.

In the US, someone like a programmer would get their health insurance paid for by their employer as additional compensation on top of their already much higher salary. The vast majority of Americans either get health insurance through their employer or are retired and are eligible for Medicare. Employers on average pay 82% of premiums for a single person, leaving on average $1,200 paid by the worker. For someone like a programmer, it’s common for employees to pay the whole premium. When you look at US salaries, that additional compensation is on top of the reported salary. So although health insurance is very expensive, you’re mostly not paying it out of the reported salary.

I believe the deductibles on that insurance will also be much, much higher, though, than most systems in Europe.

So out of pocket expenses for the Amercian are going to be much, much higher.

> So out of pocket expenses for the Amercian are going to be much, much higher.

Not in comparison to the salary difference: https://www.oecd.org/health/health-systems/OECD-Focus-on-Out.... About $500/year difference between USA and France.

In the UK, someone on £80k ($105k) will pay £25k ($33k) in tax. That includes healthcare

In the US, someone on that amount in Denver will pay $29k in tax.

That's not an extraordinary difference, even before you factor in health care costs.

It's an extraordinary difference when you look at what proportion of engineers (outside of London/Finance) earn £80k in the UK vs $105k in Denver.

That isn't a tax thing though - payroll/income taxes are roughly the same.

> arithmetics

true, but you should calculate everything- highly subsidized education, public transportation and medical, generous grants for students, more vacation days, long parental leave etc.

Except plumbing or electrical trade school certification doesn't help you achieve that either

At least you don't need to spend 4+ years on a degree that's not worth anything.

Don't know how accurate this list is, but I'm pretty sure an electrician in my area wouldn't even want to get out of bed in the morning for 40K euro per year.

https://www.buildingtalk.com/tradesmen-around-the-world-whic...

I make $42K in Sweden (not in IT), and it's comfortably high middle class. My wife doesn't even work full time and it's still enough for us to live comfortably within our means (own a house, two cars, one kid, etc.)

If I'd been making $60K my wife could stop working. At $80K she wouldn't have to work and we'd still be moving into "new BMW every three years" kind of money.

$80K goes a lot further in Europe than it does in the US.

$80k a year in the US (assuming you live outside of a few of very high cost of living locations) will easily net you a new BMW every three years, esp. given that they're much cheaper than in Sweden.

What’s your source on BMW prices? Afaik, cars are about the same price in Sweden and the US.

https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...

Check the VW Golf comparison. I also did a quick search for a BMW i8, the price in Sweden was ~10x in SEK than the price in USD (1 USD = 9.41 SEK), and I don’t know whether taxes were included in the US price, probably not.

In the US, the MSRP for new VW Golf is around $22k, so you can probably get one for $20k or less if you shop around the dealerships. On top of that $20k, you'll pay sales tax, which is 10% in most expensive places, and usually something like 6-8%.

When comparing BMW prices, don't look at some weird cars that nobody buys like i8, look at popular BMWs. For example, 2020 BMW X5 here costs something around $70k, depending on the features.

Are you able to buy real estate in a decent location? Because if you can't, you're not "high middle class". Housing is not a luxury.

Yes, we are able to buy real estate in a decent location. We live not far outside Stockholm where prices are really high compared to the rest of the country, and we had no problems buying our house.

My salary is ~twice the median income for this area, and by any measure we're at the upper end of middle class by Swedish standards.

Not far outside is a very lax definition. A 500K Mortgage (affordable with aforementioned salaries) gets you a 2 bedroom in good neighborhoods in Paris, 3 in lesser ones. Sure, if you're ready to go 20 km away you can get a rather nice house at that price (say 100-150m2 with a garden of variable size), but at the cost of commuting 30min-1hr everyday.

Anyways, I wouldn't consider someone establishing outside of an european city (esp when working there) "high middle class". If you can't afford central housing of your choice, you dont qualify.

A 2 room apartment in central Stockholm, 40m2 starts at $303000 right now (that's a current listing).

https://maps.app.goo.gl/PnrNuo2k3LsgaeG89

That apartment is 44km as the crow flies from my house, 55km by car (45-50min of driving).

Is your definition of "high middle class" really if we're able to afford central Stockholm housing?

Don't forget public transportation which is non existent or bad in many places in the US, a 30-45 minutes on a Stockholm Metro or train takes down the prices significantly. Those 300,000$ can buy you a nice semi detached and you won't need a car on a daily basis.

On 42K/yr pre (crazy) tax? Tell me more about how that works.

American who has spent 16 years in Europe (Ireland, Netherlands, Switzerland).

> $80K goes a lot further in Europe than it does in the US.

I would like to see evidence supporting this assertion. Luxury meats are about the only thing I can think of that are more expensive stateside.

We pay $100 per month for daycare which is open 6:30 to 18:30 if we need it for that long.

School costs us nothing out of pocket.

Our grand total out of pocket medical costs for our kid thus far (turns 4 in March) is around $500. Including any medication we've ever bought for him. Half of that $500 went to spending Monday through Friday at the hospital when he was born, in a hotel style room with three meals a day included for the both of us.

We didn't need private health insurance for that, nor have it provided by either employer.

We also received 480 paid parental leave days to be split between us (90 reserved for her, 90 for me, the remaining 300 at our discretion).

That's some evidence right there. I have no numbers from the countries you mentioned though. The difference there could be smaller.

yeah surely your family has good dental for paying only 500$ medical costs.

I didn't say dental, or "family". I said we paid $500 for our son's medical costs, not for the whole family.

His dental is completely free until he turns 23. Same as for anyone living in Sweden.

Depends where in Europe you are.

$80k in London as a single 20-something is great and you might be able to save a little while living central, while for a family of 4 it'd be much tighter and you'd live further out of the city.

$80k in Manchester and you'll have a comfortable life as a family of 4.

$80k in Poland and you'll be laughing in a luxury flat somewhere with no financial worries.

Europe is a large place and for the majority of countries and cities that is enough money to live extremely comfortably.

As for evidence, the average median salary in Europe is 16943€ or $18,947. The average salary in the US is three times this amount so sure - it goes 'a lot further in Europe'.

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