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Comment by VirusNewbie | Hacker News Reader

I believe you for low skill employees but as a SWE, I wouldn’t trade a job over there in a thousand years. People in Western Europe are likely to think i’m lying when I talk about the kind of lifestyle I can afford.

I’m not even at a FAANG company and I have a 3,000 sq ft newer house, I drive a tesla, I have a nanny for my children. I have plenty saved for retirement, I can vacation to Europe or Hawaii i luxury every couple years.

The average EU employee is what, in a two bedroom with half a kitchen and no yard?

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Please don't do regional or nationalistic flamewar on HN. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Damn. Sorry dang. Will phrase that better next time.

Huh?

I am a swe and my wife is a geneticist. We both get middle pay, we both could get more money if we switched but we currently enjoy having more time for our two children.

House is 150m2, we could have aimed for a bigger one but consciously choose a smaller directly on the city center were almost anything is walk or bike able.

We have no need for a nanny, both our children (2,5)are at the kindergarten, completely free of charge.

I sincerely hope you or someone in your family does not develop some serious illness or pre-existing conditions or some major medical condition. That fancy lifestyle will come apart pretty soon when someone gets laid off has a major health issue and has to get a surgery or treatment .

Are you implying that if tragedy strikes in an EU country where someone can’t work for years on end, their lifestyle doesn’t suffer or change? What a weird comment. I guess I also hope you don’t get brain cancer or die of a heart attack?

No, but at least there is a buffer. Good friends of us had their child at the same time as we. It developed polio lite two years ago. He nearly died and still has lots of issues (not as bad as the maximum polio has to offer but basically cannot us his arms).

The initial hospital stay was two months, one enterily on the ICU. Afterwards months of rehab. Now special needs kindergarten and later on in school he will need a nurse to accompany him. Most of that is paid for except some medical items the medical provider deemed not necessary. Also time was not an issue, both where able to stay away from work for months and get paid sick leave for that time.

It still wrecks me to see him in that condition and his parents are still in shit condition but that's grief and exhaustion but not existential fear due to lack of income or .medical costs.

And yes, of course there are cases that will fall through gaps. But at least most of the cases are covered, and it does not depend on having enough money.

> The average EU employee is what, in a two bedroom with half a kitchen and no yard?

the average unskilled employee maybe?

an average swe can live a decent life, while the worker, every human actually benefits from universal healthcare.

The people in Europe are getting shafted IMHO. Even in a small town in an average part of the USA you could make 70-80k managing a McDonalds. For a while my dad worked as a furniture salesman and cracked six figures on a regular 40 hour work week.

As long as you’re not in coastal California or NYC you can own a house and live a decent lifestyle with that.

you are not the average us employee; it seems you are completely isolated from the working reality of most americans; including swe

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