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Comment by fooker | Hacker News Reader

The math is more like: top 10% of tech jobs in the US would make ~3-4x of top 10% of Europe. And there are so many tech jobs in the US that this top 10% is much larger in number than anywhere else. There's a reason people emigrate to the US from everywhere despite pretty harsh work environment and social security nets.

For example, a Google IC5/6 in Paris would make between 150k-200k vs ~500-700k in the bay area.

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That’s 150-200k on the earning side. In most European countries this has a bunch of social security pay-in, pension pay-in, employer-side employee tax etc. already paid for via the employer. The “real” wage is often close to double, so 300k-400k vs 500k-700k, which doesn’t sound nearly as grim once you factor in the much better quality of life.

Yes, you can make the math work for you by factoring in subjective criteria like quality of life.

> on the earning side

I'm not sure if you are aware but some of the things you mention are also provided by good employers in the US, but they are not obligated to.

Very much this. Folks tend to compare absolute numbers at the top of their payslip while forgetting all the rest. You don’t get good roads and healthcare out of nothing.

A pension is not worth 150k-200k a year in compensation. Also taxes are higher in most of Europe, even taking payroll taxes into account (I assume that's what you mean by social security pay in).

And the bay area apartment would cost $8k/MO for a 3br/2 bath to raise a single kid in.

Yes, it does.

You are likely not going to be renting an apartment with that kind of money, you are just making your landlord rich.

Instead, you put a 200k deposit, pay the same 8k per month as mortgage (approx 1/3rd of your salary is the rule of thumb), and sell the house or apartment after a while. That way, you are not losing any money.

Check https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/mortgage-calculator for confirming these numbers.

… unless the price of properties goes … down

If it goes to zero, it is almost equivalent to have payed rent for 30 years! ;)

If it becomes half, you still have a home to live in rent free.

More likely it doubles every 10-15 years.

The bay area is expensive, but not that expensive. 4-6k/mo in rent will get you a 3-4br in all but the most expensive neighborhoods. You could also rent a house for that much in many nice bay area suburbs.

> For example, a Google IC5/6 in Paris would make between 150k-200k vs ~500-700k in the bay area.

Having worked for Big Tech(TM) in Ireland, I'm a _little_ sceptical of those numbers. There's a big gap, but, at least in the mid levels, it is not _that_ big.

Levels.fyi seems to have paywalled most of their data, so I can't find what Google pay in Paris, but the lowest they show for total compensation for an L6 is $390k, highest $720k. Both of those are serious outliers; median is $550k. While I'm always a bit suspicious of levels.fyi data, I think you're seriously exaggerating how big the gap is, at least in big tech (it can be a lot bigger in small startups).

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