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Comment by PopeDotNinja | Hacker News Reader

> No severance?!

I agree that no severance sucks. Although keep in mind that in theory, higher salaries should equal hire savings. The average developer in SF makes more than the average developer in Berlin (how much more... maybe 2X)? If you could make 100% more & forego a severance package, would you?

It's not a real world choice, I'm just trying to offer context that one way to look at higher salaries is that you are getting cash more cash upfront instead in lieu of having a stronger social safety net. And people who work crap jobs just don't have a safety net, which is another conversation.

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That's true because in Europe (at least in France) there is the concept of direct salary and indirect (or redistributed) salary.

In France if you earn 50k/month, your boss actually pays you ~100k. 50k is going in your pocket, and the other 50k goes to a centralized fund which pays for healthcare, pensions, and unemployment compensations ; things you would have paid for yourself otherwise.

People in France complains a LOT about those 50k that are "lost" but in fact there are "forced savings", or "indirect salary", what they don't realize is that not having a centralized compulsory saving system end would up costing them so, so much more.

I don’t think you can use raw salary in that comparison, it ignores cost of living differences

It doesn't matter, the difference is not enough, and the developer in SF is still much better off.

The developer in SF might be financially better off, but the developer in Berlin is better off in general.

Yeah I mean of course I’d like to make 250k and have huge stock options I’m just not that caliber of developer yet. But for devs that are and live in Germany (this has come up with my former German colleagues— whom I still consider friends) they are cognizant of the salaries of their American counterparts but the benefits of healthcare and the transit system and the access to all the good food and other European countries I think is a big win for them. I might be projecting but they could move their families to the states and take jobs with any of the big tech companies, my former teammates could, but they won’t. There’s such a thing as good enough income, and given that a lot is provided for here I understand that now, too.

The developer in SF will be financially better off thanks to policies that have worsened inequalities more than in any other developed countries.

Sure but if devs were paid half but then the other half went to healthcare or more lucrative unemployment insurance etc perhaps the cost of living in SF and the surrounding areas wouldn’t be so great... as a free market economist by training I can’t believe I’m saying this I just know that for the vast majority of us not in the 1% of their fields when we get let go having these safety nets is really nice.

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