While you may have 50% income tax in Netherlands. The cost of living may balance that out. For example by not needing a car, ever.
The cost of living definitely balances things out. I just wish The Netherlands would change their stance on dual citizenship.
The alternative is to do a work visa and then resident visa until we're 65 and then we can "opt" for citizenship which does allow for dual citizenship. It's a much longer route though.
UK is just easier for multiple reasons but comes with it's own bag of worms.
The fee is €55 (not a typo).
Ah yes no cars were ever seen on Dutch street.
> The cost of living may balance that out
They don't. Compare local purchasing power of any big European city with any American city. 9 out of 10 times, people in American cities would have higher purchasing power.
Even Alabama and Mississippi have higher tech average wages than countries like Germany and Netherlands. If you move out of central/western Europe, things only get worse.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/us-states-top-tech-salaries...
Alabama ~$86,720/year
Mississippi ~$71,720/year
Germany ~46K Euros/year (googled)
Netherlands ~59K Euros/year (googled)
This doesn't even talk about how much higher taxes in these countries are. You will be paying almost ~40% (tax and social security) for these salaries in Germany and Netherlands.
Doubt, especially once you factor things like paid vacations, paid parental leave, healthcare, etc.
The big difference is when you are an healthy young techbro, after that it equalize quite rapidly on average. Of course there are outliers but for the average software developer I'd say you're much better of in a European capital than in Alabama
Lifestyles are also completely different and can't be priced in
Almost everyone I have heard from who moved to US confirmed their bank balance got fatter. This is also true about people moving to Switzerland. Even with high costs in Switzerland, you make extra money and pay less taxes.
You gain some and lose some, personally I would never go back to the US even if I got a 3x salary increase. Having lived in both the lifestyle difference is a deal breaker for me. And Im not talking about buttfuck nowhere USA, I'm talking about NYC, SF and Mountain View
Your doubt is misplaced. Have been working in the valley for 15-20 years now. Between my partner and myself, we have seen close to ~10 companies. At almost all of those except for a tiny startup, we saw: good health insurance (with out-of-pocket maximums to cap your spend), 3-5 weeks of paid vacations per hear, 3-4 months of paid parental leave (for both parents), etc.
I know that the bottom quintile of the American society doesn't have it great. But if you have a tech job offer from a decent Silicon valley company (not tiny bootstrapped startups), the only thing you have to worry about would be your visa. Another tricky area would be housing and I say tricky only because personal preferences vary a lot there and your options also differ based on your family situation - partner working? kids? schools? like cars? hate cars?
It's even worse in big European cities. Lack of housing is a big issue. This means you have to move outside of the city and boom your life is car dependent now. You can try throwing money at it but at the end paying 2K for rent when you earn 3K(after taxes) isn't something you would be happy about.
None of my friends own a car, we all live in big European cities.
We all pay less than ~25% of our income for housing.
Healthcare in US: LOL
But, no, I had a non-urgent MRI within a couple weeks and I paid €0.