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Comment by WhrRTheBaboons | Hacker News Reader

what about US costs of living?

West Europe is far from cheap. Housing, childcare etc is unaffordable for many in the middle class (and as dev, you are in most cases in Europe not a very high earner). Universal healthcare is the main (last) advantage Europe has over the U.S (and its a big one.)

If you can afford housing and child care in the US you don’t care about healthcare because you are probably on a good employee plan.

Jee sounds like a swell arrangement for 20% of the population ...

More like 80%. Americans are simply richer than Europeans.

80% of Americans are definitely not on what I'd consider a "good healthcare plan".

What is considered a "good healthcare plan"? Can you compare American insurance plans with Europe's ones?

92% of American had health insurance in 2023. Some people may have more than one insurance plans, thus the total number below is greater than 100%.

Of the subtypes of health insurance coverage, employment-based insurance was the most common, covering 53.7 percent of the population for some or all of the calendar year, followed by Medicaid (18.9 percent), Medicare (18.9 percent), direct-purchase coverage (10.2 percent), TRICARE (2.6 percent), and VA and CHAMPVA coverage (1.0 percent).

https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2024/demo/p60-28...

Dental coverage, for starters. It's surprising how many plans are extremely skimpy on this.

Does anyone actually have good dental insurance? I think mine just does a small copay when i clean but even before I had dental out of pocket for that is only like $70 every 6 months if you bother listening to dentist (most don’t after mom stops taking them up to having a bad tooth issue later in life). Any actual work done on my teeth even with insurance has been out of pocket because in the eyes of the insurance company, having functional teeth is a cosmetic matter. Extraction? Hope you have $2500 to pay an american dentist for that. Or you can get the exact same procedure done from someone with the same training and experience for about $700 if you drive or fly to Tijuana for it.

US Big Tech healthcare plans do. I don't recall last time I had to pay anything out of pocket for dental cleaning, for example, and it's covered 4 times / year. I had root canal and wisdom teeth extraction too, and while those had some copay, it was nowhere near the numbers you quote.

Other countries don't do that either. IIRC the main reason for this is that dentistry was invented very recently and dentists are frequently just scammers who love unnecessary procedures.

Many European cities aren't exactly low cost of living, and those that are have even lower salaries.

In the end someone who was working at Google in the Bay Area for 15-20 years can retire if they didn't have life style creep (which is different than cost of living). Not the case in Europe.

'Someone who worked at one of the best paying companies in the world can retire after 15-20 years'.

This has nothing to do with Europe. This is particular a tech thing

It's a particular tech thing in not Europe, specifically.

Europe has tech companies. They just pay less.

What about European taxes? I', paying 48% + there is 21% VAT on almost everything. Plus taxes for water (taxes, not pay-per-used-m3, and this payment is here too), energy (atop of market energy prices), roads, gasoline, etc.

Slightly tangential question for you- does 48% taxes include healthcare? How about pension? It’s tax week in the US, I think my rate was 22% overall. But another 10% of compensation is health insurance. Another 15% is retirement savings. My municipal water bill last quarter mostly was not for actual water usage (about 40% was for water) rest is system charge and storm water fees. Regarding the VAT thing… we may be effectively getting the equivalent with tariffs on goods and materials supposedly taking effect!

German here. Me and my employer pay 12 (together) for healthcare. I have no clue where the idea of „free“ healthcare came from, but it’s far from free. 20% of your wages is the general rule for healthcare here.

On paper, my employer pays me 72k per year. I net 36k of this after taxes and social insurances are paid.

Laughs in 150 EUR per month of basis zorgverzekering from the bottom of the sea

> How about pension?

Fun fact I learned the last time this topic came up, social security in the US pays more than German government pensions.

There is more than one pension -- one for old age (which the government is paying) and another from the company plan. The usual trick is to also pay out mortgage by this time, sell the house to buy something smaller and enjoy your life somewhere in a sunny place.

48% doesn't include healthcare (it is another about 170 euro/month per person, and, really, you don't have choice for better or worse conditions, formally there is "market" for this but it is very regulated) or pension. Some industries (but not software/IT one) have industry-wide pension funds, but it is additional payments and if you are in industry without this fund you can go to one of the "open" pension funds and put your money in them.

You can use numbeo to compare. https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...

Basically, almost all places, particularly in the UK, have worse salary to cost of living ratios.

Ams is same or even worse than some US areas when it comes to costs of living.

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