> people work far less than they ever did before
Sure, if you look at the last 150 years, but the data you linked is basically flat since 1980: over the last 30 years in the United States, working hours are down 2%.
Sure, if you look at the last 150 years, but the data you linked is basically flat since 1980: over the last 30 years in the United States, working hours are down 2%.
Meanwhile software engineers in the U.S. make more than twice their German counterparts' salary: https://www.google.com/amp/s/codesubmit.io/blog/software-eng...
Of course, not everyone is a software engineer. But it doesn't seem surprising there would be a correlation between fewer hours worked and lower salaries, likely because employers who are able to pick countries to hire from will avoid those where individual workers do the least amount of work.
$400/month of my take home pay for over a decade was just in student loan payments, and I got off easy compared to a lot of Americans there. My wife, for example, is still paying about $1000/month, and that's after knocking it down by about $30k recently thanks to a couple windfalls. And she's been paying hers for almost 10 years at this point as well.
They also pay about 80% of your prior salary in unemployment, whereas here it's a hard cap at a really small amount (I think last time I was on it I was getting about a third of my previous salary, and my salary was a lot lower then).
Personally Canada appeals to me more and I might move there at some point (or at least closer to the Canadian border), but I can still acknowledge there being good things about Germany while having reasons not to move there myself. I do think I should probably move somewhere with universal healthcare before I get too old as I will probably have enough health problems that would either bankrupt me or wipe out my retirement if I stayed in the US, like has happened to several of my family and friends.