Don't those European engineers have guaranteed health care, more than a few weeks of vacation per year, and more than 0 months of paid parental leave? Are those engineers also in tens of thousands of dollars in debt on average from university too?
European fast food workers, garbage collectors and store clerks are mostly living more comfortably than their American counterparts. American engineers, doctors and other professionals are mostly living more comfortably than their European counterparts.
Depends where you are. I live in the UK which if I remember right has one of the stingiest holiday policies in europe. We have 28 days and our employer can also dictate when we take some of it e.g bank holidays and my last dev job it was mandatory to take a holiday day for Christmas Eve.
Paternity leave:
In the Uk we’re entitled to two weeks. Other countries have more.
Student Debt:
The average student loan debt in the UK is actually higher than the USA. The only difference is that ours is more of a graduate tax you start paying when you earn a certain amount rather than something you need to start paying off after six months regardless of income level. The amount of loan you can get is also limited to four years e.g if you drop out after two years of university you’re shit out of luck if you ever want to go back. Similar to the US, it is never wiped out even if you are made bankrupt. Unlike the US, there has never been any student loan forgiveness thus far in the UK. Link at the bottom if you’re interested.
Edit: Student loans DO get forgiven, but only after 30 years. I forgot about this.
Health Care:
In the UK we do have universal health care yes. However there are currently close to 7 million people on various waitlists, vast swathes of the country cannot access a dentist, and waiting times at A & E are at record highs. Nurses are about to go on strike as they have had a pay cut of 8% over the last decade and the government is trying to fob them off with a pay rise of 5% despite inflation being in the double digits and rising. Many people are now turning to private health care as the NHS is on the verge of collapse. Mental health care is pretty much nonexistent: you can get six hours of CBT therapy and that’s it. Unless you have a serious mental breakdown you’re on your own. Want to try a drug that’s routinely prescribed in the US? Absolutely not a chance unless it’s on some official NHS list. Oh and I even had to explain what Heart Rate Variability was when I went to speak to my doctor the other day because he kept assuming I was talking about heart rate. The NHS is so behind the times it’s embarrassing. Links at the bottom.
As a 31 year old with no children and who has had the good fortune to never have had a serious illness but who has been trapped working on the minimum wage and taught himself how to code to escape, who built a feature that added hundreds of thousands if not millions of pounds to a billion dollar company only to get offered a 30k salary in return, who is still living with a parent because I still can’t afford to buy (although now close) yes despite the problems in your country, I would swap it all to go live in America if I had the opportunity.
https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2022/nov/10/record-71m-p...
https://news.sky.com/story/amp/average-waiting-times-for-amb...
https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2022/may/01/dental-deser...
https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2022/nov/09/real-terms-f...
https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/24/student-debt...