Hacker News Reader

At 50 dollars your actual earnings will probably be 1/2 to 1/3 of that. So yes I guess you can make a living in the third world at 25/hr or 16/hr.

View on HN

Assuming the workers are employed full-time, $25/h is about $4000/month. That's a pretty good salary for an average programmer in Portugal (Europe!), even before taxes.

Yeah, that was my first guess, that the creators aren't in the US, and $50/hr is a good rate for a lot of developers that live in areas with a lower cost of living, etc.

What about payroll taxes? In most places, your employer pays additional tax on top of your pre-tax salary.

Apart from the withholding of income tax (which I was already counting), I think they only pay social security (23.75%).

Considering that many professional programmers with a college degree in Software Engineering make ~$1300/m (net), the remaining $2700 is plenty to cover all taxes and expenses for both parties.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com