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Comment by nackerhewz | Hacker News Reader

It's because most people in Europe don't really make enough to do so.

Also if you somehow manage to increase your income, over half of it disappears in taxes and social security contributions.

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Denmark and the Netherlands have the highest income tax bracket at 52/53%. Germany is 43%. However they are stacked taxes.

In Germany (where I reside), the first €9744 (2021) is untaxed, then 14% until a certain amount (can't find it atm) and max 43%. However, if you do your tax returns your effective tax rate will drop significantly. I'd wager that most pay around 25% in total income taxes, excluding things like the health insurance and other taxes.

However, we indeed do not worry about saving up money to put our kids through school.

Earning 65k which what most companies in the tech scene now offer to lure them in as a SWE in Germany is a great salary realistically, considering for example an architect with a masters degree will earn around 55k and no real improvement in sight.

Also don't forget to factor in that the concept of being fired for PROPER reason is nearly impossible in most European countries. Even if an employer hits hard times they cannot just lay off an entire department to quickly green out the numbers in the books, there needs to be proper grounds. I currently need to give my employer 3 months notice before I can even leave, same goes for them to me.

Except for financially dubious start-ups, getting laid off at a tech company comes with a fairly nice severance package. Dropbox, for example, is giving 3 months salary, Q1 equity, and 100% of 2020 bonuses.

I was laid off recently due to the pandemic. Because I work in tech, it took me two weeks to find a new job and it ended up being a promotion and a 20% raise. I would make 40% less in Europe, even in a big city, and unless I lived in a small European town my cost of living would be quite a lot higher. Even factoring healthcare (contrary to what Europeans perceive, the healthcare system works very well for the upper middle class) and student loan debt, I’m far better off financially than I would be in Europe.

Of course, this isn’t true for Americans in general. I want us to adopt European social policies; however, for SWEs, the financials are just better in the US.

> the healthcare system works very well for the upper middle class

See, that's the point. In Europe it works well for everyone, no matter how much you earn. It's a mentality-thing in the end (where the US position is hard to grasp for Europeans).

I agree. I was responding to the narrower context of the post: affordability for SWEs.

> contrary to what Europeans perceive, the healthcare system works very well for the upper middle class)

... until you get a really expensive chronic disease. And then it fails miserably.

I know upper middle class parents whose kids got a disease which need ~$5000/month meds for a few years (and nontrivial infusion center costs on top).

It worked ok for some, many had been informed that the insurance company decided not to pay - requiring lawsuits (some settled, some ongoing).

No European, Canadian or Israeli parent that I know of kid with the same disease ever had to fight or pay out of pocket - it was all covered by the single payer with no hassles.

Not defending the US healthcare system, but I’ve never heard of an insurance plan without an out of pocket maximum. For example, my plan has a 2k maximum for individuals and 4K for married couples. Combined with a health savings account (allowed to be funded pre-tax from both the employer and employee), I’ve generally put $1-2k a year in that during my 20s when I rarely needed medical expenses. I still haven’t had a year where I’ve spent more than I’ve saved to the point I could cover multiple years of out of pocket maximums just from that account.

And since it’s a “savings account” I can invest the tax-free savings into the stock market with index funds. I’ve actually had a decent amount of growth in that account just from stock market gains.

2k max out of pocket expense to me sounds absolutely ludicrous.

In Germany you can have private health insurance (if you make more then 63k a year you can opt-out of public health insurance) and there the out of pocket is usually around €350. In the Netherlands the out of pocket is also something like €300, which most already consider too high.

The option to get it to zero is of course possible but usually doesn't offset the savings.

However the notion of having to need savings to be sick is... to me extremely foreign and strange.

Just out of curiosity. What would happen if, for any reason, you lose the capacity to work for a couple of years? Let's say that you have a bad accident that affects your hands, or you get a depression.

Are you asking me or ABeeSea?

I agree that American healthcare needs reform (and I want single prayer in particular), but I’ve never heard of an insurance company refusing to cover a necessary drug, at least not any health insurance plan that an upper middle class family might have.

Just have to point out that the pandemic was not a tech crisis. If you want a point of reference, think of the dotcom bust. That was a tech crisis.

White collar workers, especially STEM ones have largely coasted through this pandemic.

I’m not following your point; we might even agree. My point was: despite less legal protection, American SWEs still enjoy a lot of security even during a pandemic (which isn’t a tech crisis but still dramatically impacted many tech companies). Because I make like 80% more than what I would make in Europe, I also am able to save and invest (6 months expenses saved up in a savings account). I also give a good portion to charities and political causes (so hopefully one day America can work well for people who aren’t SWEs).

My point was that we haven't had a job crisis in the software field, for a while. That would be a true test. I have no idea when it will happen but it's reasonable to assume that nothing keeps going up forever.

Fair enough, but it only tells you how each system performs under anomalously bad events (I don't think this is a "true test"). And to my earlier point, when you're making 80% more than you would in Europe, you can save a lot of money to float you through hard times. Notably, I still don't think you'd be particularly well-off in Europe--European worker protection rights don't help if your company goes under, and you won't have a cushy savings account. I'm guessing unemployment is a bit better than in the US, and obviously healthcare will be better, but on balance I don't think your average SWE would be any better off. Of course, this doesn't extrapolate beyond the upper-middle-class and above; poorer Americans are almost certainly worse-off than their European counterparts (and I want to see that remedied).

Interestingly enough, I wrote above about this as well but with the opposite sentiment. The Spitzensteuersatz of 42% is applicable for income from 57k€ onwards. That's hardly rich and hardly deserving of so much tax. Meanwhile I could earn millions through investments and dividends and would only pay 25% capital gains tax. Also, 25% sounds ridiculously low when you add up the income tax, social contributions, sales tax, capital gains tax etc. Not to forget yes the 7%/14% you pay for health insurance. Or you have cherry-picked a family of 4 with one person earning 45k€ a year and drawing the most Kindergeld possible.

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