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Comment by chaosbolt | Hacker News Reader

100% about everything you said.

My cousin studied at Ecole Polytechnique, then did a phd at another top french school and become a professor there.

He has 6 articles publishes in the top 3 Math/CS/AI conferences.

He was literally paid 45k€ a year, before taxes and other things, that's 2300€ a month after taxes, his rent was 1100€ because it's Paris, now Polytechnique has one of the hardest math/physics entrance exams in the world, and he published more papers and in more prestigious conferences than most of his colleagues.

He took a couple months to leetcode then got the fuck out to the US, his salary now is legit an order of magnitude higher than what it was, doesn'r have to think about food, transportation, still gets to do research, etc.

I mean you can be as patriotic as you want but when it's that different who's gonna stay here...

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Did he “fuck out to the US” to work in privately owned businesses, or comparable university job? What prevented your friend to “fuck out” to a private business in the EU?

What difference would it make? Salaried position in EU would pay max 2x that and will end up in higher tax bracket, so net income will increase maybe 1.5x. This is leagues behind US. Europe is only for those high-skilled workers who don’t value money too much.

The trouble with comparing income between the US and the EU is that we don't really take into account everything, particularly social or public services. Of which the US has very, very little.

In your typical US setup you're going to be paying a lot more of your salary. Suppose no public transit, there goes ~15% of your salary for an automobile. Maybe an extra 5% to healthcare and health insurance, if you're healthy. If you're chronically ill or spontaneously get cancer go ahead and bump that up to 20%. Retirement, another 5% at least. And there's probably a bunch of other stuff I'm forgetting.

Point is: it's apples and oranges. It's nice if you're someone who is young, healthy, has no problem commuting two hours a day, etc. As soon as this is no longer true, it becomes a little bit tricky.

We’re talking about about 3-4x difference in net income here. No amount of accounting for public transport, heathcare, clean air, smiling faces, lqbtq rights and nice architecture will offset this difference unless we assume that those things are almost all that matters and money is for greedy capitalists. Yes, on the fringes you are probably better off in Europe on average, but this discussion is about highly qualified relatively young people, not about first generation refugees from Eritrea.

> We’re talking about about 3-4x difference in net income here.

Well first off, I don't think we are.

Sure if you compare FAANG to a European company. I'm in Texas, and your typical software engineer is making 80k-120k at almost all companies. The higher paying ones are a very small percentage.

And, it's not like taxes are low in the US. Income tax alone for 100k is ~25k, which, bear in mind, Texas doesn't collect state income tax. But then we also have a sales tax, and Texas has really high property taxes. The tax burden, I'm estimating, is closer to 40%. We just have a convoluted system that makes it hard to see that.

And then, on top of this, our cost of living can be very high. You might be shocked to learn that the last time I went to Europe (London, Paris), food was half the price of food in Texas. I was quite shocked, I thought for sure food would be more expensive.

And then, when we DO consider those very lucky software engineers making 250k - 400k at FAANG, you also have to consider that they're living in some of the highest cost of living places in the world. It's a trade-off. Yes, you're making more than rinky-dink DFW engineer making 80k, but then instead of your apartment being 1200 dollars a month it's 3200. And your Erewhon Japanese strawberry is 19 dollars.

I can understand him.

Now, there are the French who come back home to profit from the social safety net once there is a serious problem where they are. Somehow they do not chose to be homeless but rather be where a human life counts more.

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