Whereas in Europe we're lucky to get $80k in the same jobs, and then the state steals half of that :/
None of this prevents you from 6-figure debt for something like a difficult, but largely by-the-book, birthing experience or a car accident.
Not since the Affordable Care Act of 2010. It got rid of benefit maximums and implemented out of pocket maximum. An out of pocket maximum up to a limit is a contradiction. The situation works exactly opposite, you first pay 100% up to deductible, then you pay a proportion according to your copay, then you pay 0% after the out of pocket maximum.
Annual out of pocket maximums are typically $5k to $10k for individual/family at any half decent employer.
Legally, the maximums are $9.1k/$18.2k.
https://www.healthcare.gov/glossary/out-of-pocket-maximum-li...
It is next to unheard of to have an extremely large bill if you have good health insurance. Even if you do, at tech levels of salary, if you were to effectively save the extra money, you should have no problems covering it.
Dental plans rarely cover anything more than basic maintenance costs. One procedure and you can end up pretty deep into pocket.
If you require regular medication, that can run pretty deep over a year too, since pharmacare plans have copays.
Germany has a situation similar to the US where basic care is fully covered, but more complicated care is not fully covered.
That said, if my employer is going to subsidize it, I'm going to take the free money.
All that adds up to 7204 out of our pocket per year before any sort of catastrophic or even regular event like childbirth.
And we're the lucky ones
I would rather have the higher salary with student loans, my own health insurance, and no subsidized childcare than make 25K GBP (at a higher tax rate!)
I'm not against a social safety net, but I don't think the benefits one gets in Europe equals out to the higher income + lower tax rate in the states
A marketplace equivalent plan that's not subsidized would probably cost ~$1500+/month or more for a family of 4, with a decent level of coverage.
Choose where you live, who you have for healthcare, who you use for childcare/schooling.
We have the opportunity to make that choice instead of having a bureaucracy making those choices for us.
(If you are rich by most definitions) ...you get the choice
There is a cross over point for salary in US where below that, it becomes advantageous to live in EU, but tech salaries are well above this point.
After that, it depends on your living situation and family situation. Of course 200k in California with 3 kids and a house is likely going to be less than what you could make in EU.
In Germany you can get 6 months of unemployment insurance when starting a startup out of unemployment. Or get 6 months paid when starting a startup out of Uni. Then you could get various public funding opportunities like a startup bonus (for example 50K public funding for 50K private investment in an innovative company in Berlin).
[1] https://www.bafoeg-rechner.de/Hintergrund/art-2416-bafoeg-st... [2] https://www.iwd.de/artikel/wohnungsnot-der-studenten-verscha...
You can get a part of what you would receive as unemployment benefits as capital to invest when creating/taking over a company: https://entreprendre.service-public.fr/vosdroits/F15252
And you can also just continue receiving unemployment benefits while creating a company, as long as revenues are below a certain threshold: https://www.legalstart.fr/fiches-pratiques/autoentrepreneur/...
Then why does France have such a low rate of new business formation (5.3/1000 people) - https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IC.BUS.NDNS.ZS?most_rec...
Or as another indicator, number of tech startups per Million is 234 for the US, while only 24 for France - https://www.startupranking.com/countries
- the culture is not the same as the US. French people tend to be very financially risk-averse
- the VC eco-system in France exists but it is trash
- people who have the skills to create startups in France tend to do it outside of France because they will have access to better capital/labor markets (for example, DataDog and Docker both have french founders)
Interesting, given the number of people who claim that better social benefits in the US would encourage more startups and other business formation.
The problem in Germany and France is the VC and business culture, but thats not primarily a result of income taxes.
There are a lot of French people here in the bay area.
From what they told me, it's actually easier to come to the bay area, navigate through the US immigration system and get funded than get funded at home. Not only that, some startups got funding from VC funds with LPs... from France!
How many people went to jail for Wirecard?
"There are dozens of us!" that are aware of how lucky we are!
Where's the European phone, the European OS. European Cloud? ChatGPT?
American engineers and companies provide the bulk of tech's value added.
> Whereas in Europe we're lucky to get $80k in the same jobs, and then the state steals half of that :/
Are those really the same jobs?
But if you like living without a net in exchange for high pay, by all means, come over here.
At least in Europe you get something for your taxes (okay, except maybe Germany).
On an income of $200k in California, for example, your tax rate is something like 8% (marginal). If you total it up with federal taxes, it's something like a 27% tax rate.
You do get something for that, but it is surprising (to me anyway) for example how similar the percentages of GDP spent on social welfare are between the blue U.S. states and Australia, and how much more the Australians seem to get for the money.
Most social welfare programs that people can get in NY are niche. You generally have to meet certain demographic requirements. It also takes years of paperwork and waiting to get into anything if you aren't a single/battered mother.
I paid well over 40% of my income in taxes and had no hope of ever accumulating any assets or meaningful retirement and zero safety net if anything went south for me. My friends in Denmark and Sweden only paid a little bit more for what is effectively a cradle-to-grave nanny state. And they all manage to own their apartments.
That said, income tax is not the only kind of tax. In the US, federated government entities mean a mesh of taxes accumulate. Income tax + Payroll Tax + Social Security + Medicare + Property Tax + Sales Tax aggregate. CA and NY are a little higher than other competing states, but not by much.
So, after $185k, while you've probably already paid 7% ($14k prop) on your home, and probably another 1% (2k sales), leading to what could be considered 50.75% tax.