* hard to get fired and you get generous unemployment benefits if you do.
* ambulance rides and medical treatment is free, medication is heavily subsidized.
* cancer treatment and twice yearly MRIs afterwards are free (I know this from personal experience unfortunately)
* 25 days vacation per year (I think legal minimum is a bit less but never had a job that offered below that)
* never owned a car or even a driver's license, been living in Europe since 2005 and have 2 little kids.
Not to mention:
* 14 months parental leave
* >200€ per month per kid, up to age 26(!) unless they start working & earning earlier than that
* free education
* free childcare from 1 year of age
* loads of tenant's protections - from rent control to almost unbreakable rental contracts with no expiry date by default (landlords need a very good reason to throw you out & can't increase rent beyond the rate of inflation)
Furthermore we got more or less the same benefits when we lived in Vienna as well & I'm pretty sure this is not unusual for continental western europe. It's true though that in the eastern states you get a lot less. So instead of Europe maybe we should say "wealthy continental western european countries" - if you live in e.g. Bulgaria or Ukraine you don't get many of these benefits and these countries are still in Europe (and Bulgaria is in the EU).
* My wife was laid off in 2019, pre-COVID. She got almost 9 months worth of full US salary paid. Likely equivalent to 2-3 years salary in Europe. She found a new job within 3 months and pocketed the rest. Obviously, stronger employment protection is nice, but the generous cash payout is a nice consolation prize.
* Health insurance for both of us is excellent. The cost compared to salary is negligible (fortunately, the worst we've had to deal with is serious dental surgery, which was handled very professionally and cost effectively).
* Unlimited vacation for both of us. We have spent the past month in Florida.
* We live in NYC, public transit is excellent for US standards (though it's garbage compared to Asia). We do have a car entirely voluntarily, it's not necessary. My wife doesn't drive at all.
* Parental leave ~6 months for each of us.
Like I said, we're at non-FAANG no name companies that you've probably never heard of. FAANG would be much more generous. On top of all this, we're paid extremely generously, likely 2-3x what you would expect in Berlin/Amsterdam plus generous equity compensation. If you're responsible with saving your money, there's basically no place better to be a software engineer on the planet.
The point is that I want to live in a more egalitarian society even if that means I personally have to pay higher taxes (relative to what I get back in social services).
But also I think you may overestimate how secure your position is - people get sick in a way that means they can't work for a while (or at all), or are limited in how much they can work. I also never thought it would happen to me but when I was in my mid 30s with no history of serious illness or any health issues I was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. I had to get operated to remove it pretty much instantly and was not able to work for months afterwards. For as long as 6 months after the operation I was only working very part time, and this is for a more or less best case scenario with cancer - it was caught early & I didn't need chemotherapy or radiation therapy. If I was less fortunate I may have been unable to work for a year+ afterwards and may have never 100% fully recovered.
And this is not the only way your fortunes can change, you can get hit by a bus, get injured in a burglary, get drunk one night and slip and fall. All of these can more or less random events can result in you continuing to live but without the ability to command as high a wage afterwards. I personally know people (software engineers even) that experienced stuff like that, or even seemingly less severe issues (burn out, depression) that still meant they were no longer at the top of society economically like they were used to.
I want to reiterate that I'm not trying to convince you you are "wrong" - maybe your personal risk/reward tolerance is such that where you are makes more sense for you. I'm an immigrant here and could have immigrated to the US instead of to Europe if I wanted to (I'm Israeli so had no particular advantage that would have made it easier to go to Europe than to America).
But I do also feel on a personal level that for an American born in America, running off to Europe in search of a more perfect society is basically no different just running off to a gated community somewhere in a rich state where I don’t have to see the poor people anymore. They’re still there though, just out of sight. Since I do see problems and do have the resources to help, I’m obligated to do what I can. But again that’s a personal decision, and I would never truly knock on someone who was genuinely trying to improve their lot in life.
But yes, I can imagine a big part of the puzzle of why Americans put up with the way things are is that above a certain level of wealth (top ~30%?) you don't have to suffer for lack of stuff you'd otherwise get from public services in Europe (or in Canada, Australia, etc).
It is also pitifully easy to be denied unemployment. 8 years ago I was laid off from a failing startup with the option of 1 week’s severance or 2 weeks if we signed non-disparage / non-entice.
Everyone who choose 1 week was “fired for cause” and had their unemployment contested. Mine was contested after 4 months and I was forced to pay it back with a 50% “fraud” fee.
In America money talks and bullshit walks.
The irony is that this is why we hop startups every year or two. The only reliable way to get a significant income increase is to level up on popular new technologies at employer A and get employernB ton pay more.
I met a lot of brilliant people from all over the world during my undergrad at TU Munich; many of them stayed. Google, Apple, Microsoft have expanded rather aggressively over the past years, and the startup scene is growing. Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt seem to follow suit.
Granted, it's much less likely (and also less politically incentivized) to become a "millionaire employee", but I guess ultimately, the correlation between wealth and wellbeing is simply weaker in (northern) European economies? As long as immigration policies don't change (and why would they? the current model aligns well with lobby incentives), I don't see much reason for this to change.
Also, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Spain, and Greece have a different political and economic history than Germany, France, Denmark, Sweden, etc.
I don't know how what the retirement scheme is implemented over there, but if it is generational (young gens pays for older gens) they willy have a BIG problem in 15/20 years ...
[1] https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/nieuws/2020/24/zorguitgaven-stegen-...
This contribution is in line with public health insurance in Poland, which in practice doesn't cover any services and is completely disfunctional. German one which actually delivers is twice as much.
Not to digress too much, but it’s worth pointing out that it is you who is paying for both parts, even if only half of it gets listed on your salary slip.
I'm sure many countries do the same. See https://entreprise.pole-emploi.fr/cout-salarie/ for the true costs in France...
They apply financial pressures on different spots. Unsurprisingly, they have different effects on increasing o decreasing inequality.
But compare to the US: I pay over $2200/month in health insurance (and company pays more on top of that). And of course there's a lot of stuff the insurance won't cover so it's typically an additional 4K-8K out of pocket on an average year.
When I was studying in Austria there were still tuitions for universities (it was later made free) but they were just 350€ per semester and people were complaining about having to pay for their education - I had to laugh/facepalm because that was such an insignificant amount of money compared to what students pay in places where the government doesn't automatically pay the lionshare of their tuition for them.
I'm sorry if you have been wronged by public healthcare at some point, but you're just talking nonsense for the sake of it I feel.
Perhaps your father is a politician, or high ranking person in public administration or public services? I cannot imagine how otherwise one could be satisfied from the healthcare services.
Lol, what? I mean, I guess you're trying to imply he got some special treatment, but I assure you he didn't, and neither did I when I needed help. He was a truck driver and then ran a car workshop, then when he got cancer he was under constant care of the oncological hospital in Warsaw. Not only his level of care was very good, the drugs he was getting from NFZ for free are incredibly expensive(look up the cost of Glivec treatment), he was even getting reimbursed for travel to the hospital every time he needed to go - that's all standard NFZ procedure, no VIP treatment.
I mean, perhaps you were just unlucky? I have no other explanation.
Not even talking about the building renovations that are near impossible, the medical devices that will never be next-gen and the idea of counting beds rather than patients.
Yes it works. it is not efficient. And it is putting immense pressure on doctors that are underpaid, underappreciated by management.
I can see where it is going and I think we will be very sad. They want all the bad sides of the american model + the bad sides of the french model. None of the good ones. And then on their business model and powerpoint the picture will look amazing. Just like any BS company tweaking their financials to look great.