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Comment by apercu | Hacker News Reader

Hold on there, cowboy.

100k was maybe "sky high" 20 years ago. 100k in most large cities is not. When your modest house costs $800k USD, a car costs 30k, auto insurance is $1600 a year, groceries are 10k a year (looking at you, Toronto), just how in the hell is 100k "sky high"?

$80k was a decent salary in a mid-size city 15 years ago.

Just because six figures seems like a lot of money to you doesn't mean it's a lot of money.

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It's more than twice the median salary. It is quite high.

Upper class income only seem lackluster compared to the perverse 0.1% incomes and the housing bubble.

There isn't a housing bubble when the government does everything possible to prevent the bubble from bursting. The median salary in the USA is a joke for people that are without any relatives supporting them financially for a mortgage, that will never afford a decent home that's actually located somewhere desirable and until in they reach their 40s.

Half of people live with less than that joke by definition, and most don't have the privilege to be supported by wealthy relatives, either.

Exactly it's a giant joke and when homes were affordable 30 years ago. So it's ridiculous when people act like wages are too high while ignoring inflation without the ability to afford a home unless the wages match what's needed.

It's bullshit. Call it what it is. When people say that wages are fine they are being disingenuous or they are willfully ignorant.

That salary is enough to sustain a comfortable middle class life and is not sky high. The problem is the ever-increasing wealth gap that has decimated the middle class since the 70s and that everyone else's salaries are gutter-low.

You are so right. If you live in rural Iowa that's a lot of money. Guess what? Hundreds of millions of people live in cities where housing, transportation and food costs are prohibitively expensive.

You know how many people live in Iowa?

I live in a "large city" (suburbs in a top 10 metro in the US) and $800k gets you a mansion here still. My 3400 sq ft house is worth ~$350k for a "almost new build" (I had it built in 2015) 6 bed / 4 bath, gigabit fiber, swimming pool / soccer field in the community, great schools, shopping, etc..

I'm also a Principal SWE and my salary is well below $200k, though there are years with bonuses, etc.. that I reach $200k

So you live in in an area that have massive urban sprawl and no bounding area driving up the costs (like say San Francisco or Toronto or London). Good for you and your urban sprawl McMansion existence (nothing wrong with it). But just because you can buy a mansion where you live for 800k doesn't mean that for millions of us 1 million dollars will get us a shitty house in a shitty area.

These people could work from anywhere.. especially today that working remote has become the norm, but even if working remote wasn't an option there's no reason they have to live in an expensive city. They could commute, just like most of the rest of us who can't afford to live in rich cities.

Wikimedia is a global foundation, so they don't have to live in the US even.

They could have easily hired someone from a country with a much lower cost of living.

Brilliant idea: cut those costs 10x by moving the staff to Belarus. What can possibly go wrong?

I have ~17 years experience (maybe more) with outsourcing to cheaper countries to "save money". It's never been effective on anything valuable I have worked on. No money was ever saved. Just took more time from those near near the client.

It's still sky-high to most of the world outside the US

It seems that the wealthiest countries also have higher cost of living (for the same level of life). I guess it kinda makes sense in a way.

Not true at all, most Western Europe 100k$ (80k EUR) is barely above average, you'd still be firmly middle class even on two such incomes, sky high would be at least twice that much.

Median income in the UK is just over £30k (about 35k EUR)

And London ?

WTF does that have to do with anything? Isn't this whole discussion about how the WMF shouldn't be based in the fricking most overpriced city they can find?

Yeah you're going to get amazing executive candidates in Wales for eg., background in sheep herding and farm management will translate to running Wikipedia quite nicely I think.

We're on hacker news. What is the median for people in UK that that do what we do?

Honestly, not that much higher...i think? I'm a data science person so not dev, but feel like salaries above 65k or so not hugely common?

£44k according to the April 2020 release of the Annual Survey for Hours and Earnings by the Office for National Statistics.

That is the figure for "programmers and software development professionals", anyway.

What? In Germany an income of 80k EUR will put you into the top 10% of all earners, so you will be upper class. Especially on two such incomes.

You just prove my point - top 10% is not sky high ? It's what you would expect for a professional in demand. And unless you have savings that income puts you in upper middle class, you can afford a nice lifestyle, but you won't be buying any luxury cars or high end homes.

Sky high is at least top 1%. Maybe top 5% in high income areas.

In Eastern Europe you begin to approach this at 80k.

> In Germany an income of 80k EUR will put you into the top 10% of all earners, so you will be upper class.

Upper middle class maybe. People in the upper class don't need to work.

No, upper class if you go by the definition of the German Economic Institute [0].

[0] https://www.iwkoeln.de/en.html

At 11 years of engineering experience I am getting `66K` annual salary in Berlin.

But rent is getting crazy here, a 60 sqm apartment will cost you 1300+ utility.

You have no idea what you’re talking about. Average salaries in WE are 25-40k.

For what casheers and janitors ? I'm talking about highly skilled professionals. If your making 80k you're making an average in that group, it's certainly not sky high

A junior engineer (with a Masters) in most of western Europe makes 30-40k€/year before taxes. After 10 years, he'll make 50-70k€/year.

If you have a masters, >3 years of experience and aren't making 50-70k in Wester Europe, you either don't put emphasis on your career, or you need to switch jobs and work on your negotiation skills.

In Germany and Scandinavia maybe. In France, Spain, Italy, etc, this is normal.

For example here [1] you can see some reliable statistics for France, see page 2 (it's in French but the plots are easy to understand). The median salary (annual before taxes) when starting is 35k€, and roughly increases by 1800€/year. So it only reaches 40k€ after 3 years. It reaches 50k€ after 8 years only.

Also all engineers have Masters in continental Europe. You can't be an engineer without one. It's nothing special.

[1] https://www.iesf.fr/offres/doc_inline_src/752/IESF_Synthese_...

Sorry I assumed we're talking about Software Engineering here, I accept your point.

But Italy and Spain aren't really what I would consider Western Europe, they are the less developed parts and I admit I have no experience with France and know nobody who works there.

> But Italy and Spain aren't really what I would consider Western Europe

Yeah, well, you're American, right?

You really are living up to it in many ways.

No I'm Croatian, lived across EU, back home remoting now. Italy and Spain are not considered developed western Europe (neither is Portugal for that matter) it's not geographic, for example you often include Scandinavian countries in that bunch even if it's not geographically correct, so is Switzerland, their standard of living (Italy/Spain) is a tier below. Eastern Europe is a tier below that. Maybe it's a Croatian colloquialism since they are all west of us but I heard it used many times in other countries as well.

I’m in the area you consider “Western Europe” and can reaffirm that a €40k salary is the norm. The only people making €80k+ are working for startups or big tech and that’s a tiny slice of the job market. The average director at a successful company here earns €100-120k.

So... The UK is not part of EU, and you're not counting Italy and Spain, and don't know anybody in France so can't speak for that country... Yet you're arguing for western EU salaries...? I can only sense you having some knowledge of Germany from your comments.

I would consider UK part of the developed Western Europe for sure and salaries in London are low for standard of living in that city. Zurich is even more insanely expensive.

80k annually works out to 6700 EUR/m

If Wikipedia(1) is semi-accurate, no (ZERO) major European county surpasses this. Not even Switzerland which clocks in at 70k EUR. And that's average, the mean is even lower due to skew by those making top money.

(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_...

Mean and average are the same thing. You might be referring to the median instead.

Yes, thanks.

In Europe that nets you about 50-60% after mandatory pension, health insurance and income tax. You listed net incomes. 6.7 gross will be >4k net

And slap 20-25% VAT on top.

That money is really not that much, a generalist MD would make that for eg.

I specifically linked to gross income, it's 5882 EUR/m in Switzerland according to Wikipedia, or 70.5K EUR annually. Germany is 48k EUR gross, around 30k net.

Sorry it scrolled up for me.

To be considered sky high in my book you need to be actually rich - able to afford luxuries such as own a luxury home, driving a premium car, be able to rent a yacht for a vacation - you need to be making >150k for your income to be noteworthy, otherwise you're just doing well off - higher middle class.

Sorry but there's nothing sky high about earning 80k EUR per year and living in London, Zurich, Oslo, Amsterdam, Munich, etc. you barely stand out, especially if you socialise with other college educated workers, you're probably the norm or below it for career people.

This is absolute bogus. Here's [1] data from 2019. With about 3500 Euros net income (works out to about 75k before tax if you're single) You're in the top 10% _of all households_. With two times that (so two e.g. a household of two people earning 80k) you'd be in the top 1%.

[1]: https://www.iwkoeln.de/fileadmin/user_upload/HTML/2019/einko...

PS: Data is for Germany.

I'm sure 100k is a lot in rural Alabama as well. How about giving numbers for say Munich[1] ?

> Also from the diagram, 75% of the population are earning less than 10,400 EUR while 25% are earning more than 10,400 EUR.

If 25% of the city is making more money than you you are not rich by any definition.

I have friends living in Munich, friend is a SW engineer, makes 75k, his wife has her own business so I'm not sure how much she makes, they are very much middle class lifestyle and can't afford to live in the wealthy areas.

Sorry to burst your bubble but you're not rich if you make 80k/year, you're just (maybe upper) middle class, even in EU.

[1] http://www.salaryexplorer.com/salary-survey.php?loc=982&loct....

I personally live in Hamburg, one of the most expensive cities in Germany, and I've yet to see a developer salary above 90k. Juniors enter around 40k, seniors get around 60-90k depending on experience. That's not to say that salaries beyond 100k don't exist, but they're extremely rare.

Edit: Also it's completely unclear to me how this point relates to your initial gross misrepresentation of compensation in western Europe.

What's my gross misrepresentation ? I said making 80k is not noteworthy at all (we are discussing CEO/exec compensation here not casheer salaries), you just agreed with me.

OP suggested that 100k$/year not being noteworthy is a uniquely SV/US thing - it is not. Any place worth living in Europe will take that much to live comfortably (note. 100k USD = 80k EUR)

I like how y'all are arguing over what a vague term actually means. "Sky high" isn't actually anything specific and it's rather relative. Reading through the thread, almost everyone has their own definition for 'sky high'.

Yep. This is why I don't leave tips at US restaurants, because the servers' base $3/hour salary is still "sky high" compared to a comparable job in Sri Lanka.

At a US restaurant it's sort-of relevant that the server is in the US. In contrast, when using a website you get 0 benefit from the people building it being in San Francisco.

> When your modest house costs $800k USD, a car costs 30k, auto insurance is $1600 a year, groceries are 10k a year (looking at you, Toronto)

How did you get these costs? You can get a French Chateau with that much money. https://www.prestigeproperty.co.uk/french-chateau-for-sale-2...

In Toronto (and I mean Toronto proper, not an hour's commute away), a modest house is easily over 1,000,000, and prices are only climbing.

An hour from Toronto houses are close to a million dollars. I am 30 km from the financial district. I live in a modest house in a modest neighbourhood. My house would list for around 900k and there would be a bidding war.

I paid $340k for this house 13 years ago. I thought that was far too expensive but I didn't have a choice.

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