Also I'm not sure why you say someone with $2M can achieve something that someone with $6000 pension a month can't...you can definitely borrow against your pension and grab a large lump sump...
Also I'm not sure why you say someone with $2M can achieve something that someone with $6000 pension a month can't...you can definitely borrow against your pension and grab a large lump sump...
The elephant in the room is that say you have $2MM in the bank and are living off that interest, or are a retired union/public service worker and then you look at how long it took at how long it took to achieve your financial success.
If you save 1/2 of salary in VTI (say 100k-150k range) coming out of a bachelors degree and work for 10-15 years at one of the large tech companies you will have 1.5-2MM USD, which is easily enough to retire on. And you'll be like 32-37years old and still be able to climb Mt. Everest, hike the PCT or AT and probably still have your health.
However if you are a teacher starting out in California, that would be a 44-50k year range https://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/fr/sa/cefavgsalaries.asp which yes is really low. Then you work for 40 years and hopefully are able to make enough pension contributions to be able to retire at age 62 and have a decent pension of that 5-6k/mo. By this time lots of people are starting to have health issues and will not be able to go on the adventures that a 32-37y/o would be able to. Also you kinda have to work an extra 30 years.
TL;DR: Incentive structure for being a teacher is not really there, also benefits are not really there. Maybe Scandinavian countries have a better compensation and work life balance?
Incentive to work in tech industry or similar high-paying jobs is there, as financial independence is readily obtainable within 10-15 years.
I can't speak for San Fran, but I'm on a pretty good (by UK standards) tech salary in London. The cost of living (rents mostly) still make putting a high % of salary away every month a challenge. If you have kids as well, it's almost a non-starter.
The marginal tax rate means the only mechanism to do this efficiently are via pension contributions (similar to a US 401k), and these are locked until age 55 (60 by the time i get there).
Financial independence in your 30s is an enormous privilege.
Also salary’s are much higher and taxes are a bit lower than uk/eu. Housing is not too expensive if you rent a room for a couple years, but this is different between a 22/yo and 35/yo.