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America has some of the worst worker protection laws and regulations in the developed world: occupational health and safety; minimum wage; paid time off (vacati

America has some of the worst worker protection laws and regulations in the developed world: occupational health and safety; minimum wage; paid time off (vacation, illness, parental leave); lunch and other breaks; consecutive hours worked in a day; 'at-will' termination; and so on. It really is an extreme outlier.

mixedCase 9y ago
On the other hand, at least when it comes to software developers, americans seem to be extremely well paid compared to the rest of us and they pay far less in tax. I'd make that trade any day, but then again that's just one industry and I'm just one person.
- da02 9y ago
  Which country are you in? (The taxes vary depending on the U.S. state.)
- brazzledazzle 9y ago
  It's been some time since I ran the numbers but when you isolate federal taxes and compare them the difference is stark. But when you combine all of our income taxes and compare the percentage the difference is much, much less significant. Federal, social security, state, state disability, etc. It does depend on the state though. If you add in health insurance costs since those are covered by the government in other countries the difference shrinks even more. When you combine it all and compare the amount of benefits and safety nets provided to other countries it kind of feels like you're being screwed. I guess getting paid more is nicer but raising children here and realizing that they may not make nearly as much money while having such small or irrelevant safety nets is a sobering experience.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    Well they have to pay for all that military equipment somehow.
- exelius 9y ago
  So my total tax rate in the US is just shy of 50%. Software developers are actually in the "sweet spot" for paying a ton in taxes: they make enough money to qualify for the high tax rates, but not enough money to make it worth exploiting the loopholes that rich folks use to avoid paying taxes.
  - erikpukinskis 9y ago
    > Software developers are actually in the "sweet spot" for paying a ton in taxes That is as it should be. Is there something wrong? The only problem is that people above you are able to weasel out of their taxes, but the fact that you're in the top bracket means you're rich, you made it. Congratulations! Enjoy the high quality meats! Consider lobbying your Senator to close the loopholes.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    Well obviously the best position to be in is to be making your money primarily through capital gains.
  - jhall1468 9y ago
    What's your effective income tax rate (both state and federal)? Assuming your an average paid software engineer in SV, you have a marginal income tax rate of 28% (33% over $198k). Which means your effective tax rate is actually a lot lower than that. Assuming you are in California your marginal income tax rate is between 37% and 43%. So I call bullshit. Marginal income tax rates are always higher than effective income tax rates. The only way you are paying a 50% tax rate is if you pretend ALL of your income is taxed at the 43% I mentioned AND you count FICA as a tax.
    - lovich 9y ago
      There are certain deductions that go away as your income goes up which is effectively an increase in tax rate as well. Student loan deductions for instance are 2500 I believe, but start going down after you break 80k. Then there's things like the social security payments which stop at 127,200 in 2017 so every dollar after that has a lower tax rate. It's very complicated but the last time I did taxes I paid north of 40% effective
- coldtea 9y ago
  >I'd make that trade any day It's not a trade, it's just a temporary result of a market imbalance. When that stops to be case, programmers will get the same bad treatment like everybody else. So I'd make rather live in a country with more sane and fair laws for all, and not extrapolate too much from what a specific field or two (even if it happens to be mine) might temporarily command.
  - jhall1468 9y ago
    > It's not a trade, it's just a temporary result of a market imbalance. That temporary result has been going on for a few decades now. And it's only getting better for the engineers, because more and more tech companies need more and more employees and for the most part, CS degrees still remain difficult to get (relative to some other degrees). So I agree it's temporary, however it will probably last until after my retirement short of another .com bubble.
    - acdha 9y ago
      It depends on how old you are but I'd be careful assuming that things will last that long unless you're in your 50s now. There's a huge IT community which was employed to do commodity tasks (helpdesk, networking, PC management, etc.) or working on enterprise software which is increasingly outsourced, competing with cloud offerings, etc. anywhere companies see it as a high cost, low strategic value area – which is not an uncommon attitude even where that's not true. Software developers at the top end are better positioned than many for that but even if your job isn't directly exposed that's going to contribute to pressure against wage increases and respect, especially since senior management is going to keep seeing comparatively high labor costs.
      - jhall1468 9y ago
        I'm a frontend engineer for the one of the big 4 tech companies, so I'm not really concerned. I'm in my 30's now, and don't expect to be coding for the rest of my life, but is the field going to become so constricted that 30 years from now wages will stagnate? I doubt it, at least not in the grand scheme of things. At the end of the day, I'm not going to plan my life around my job suddenly becoming less valuable.
refurb 9y ago
Occupational health and safety? Have any examples? OSHA seems to shut stuff down in a hurry in the US. And I've worked in both the US and Canada and I'd say there isn't much difference beyond the paid time off for parental leave.
- zerkten 9y ago
  There is an overview on https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/career-advice/maternity-leave-basics-canada-vs-the-us/article4197679/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/c....

mixedCase 9y ago

On the other hand, at least when it comes to software developers, americans seem to be extremely well paid compared to the rest of us and they pay far less in tax. I'd make that trade any day, but then again that's just one industry and I'm just one person.

da02 9y ago
Which country are you in? (The taxes vary depending on the U.S. state.)
brazzledazzle 9y ago
It's been some time since I ran the numbers but when you isolate federal taxes and compare them the difference is stark. But when you combine all of our income taxes and compare the percentage the difference is much, much less significant. Federal, social security, state, state disability, etc. It does depend on the state though. If you add in health insurance costs since those are covered by the government in other countries the difference shrinks even more. When you combine it all and compare the amount of benefits and safety nets provided to other countries it kind of feels like you're being screwed. I guess getting paid more is nicer but raising children here and realizing that they may not make nearly as much money while having such small or irrelevant safety nets is a sobering experience.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  Well they have to pay for all that military equipment somehow.
exelius 9y ago
So my total tax rate in the US is just shy of 50%. Software developers are actually in the "sweet spot" for paying a ton in taxes: they make enough money to qualify for the high tax rates, but not enough money to make it worth exploiting the loopholes that rich folks use to avoid paying taxes.
- erikpukinskis 9y ago
  > Software developers are actually in the "sweet spot" for paying a ton in taxes That is as it should be. Is there something wrong? The only problem is that people above you are able to weasel out of their taxes, but the fact that you're in the top bracket means you're rich, you made it. Congratulations! Enjoy the high quality meats! Consider lobbying your Senator to close the loopholes.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  Well obviously the best position to be in is to be making your money primarily through capital gains.
- jhall1468 9y ago
  What's your effective income tax rate (both state and federal)? Assuming your an average paid software engineer in SV, you have a marginal income tax rate of 28% (33% over $198k). Which means your effective tax rate is actually a lot lower than that. Assuming you are in California your marginal income tax rate is between 37% and 43%. So I call bullshit. Marginal income tax rates are always higher than effective income tax rates. The only way you are paying a 50% tax rate is if you pretend ALL of your income is taxed at the 43% I mentioned AND you count FICA as a tax.
  - lovich 9y ago
    There are certain deductions that go away as your income goes up which is effectively an increase in tax rate as well. Student loan deductions for instance are 2500 I believe, but start going down after you break 80k. Then there's things like the social security payments which stop at 127,200 in 2017 so every dollar after that has a lower tax rate. It's very complicated but the last time I did taxes I paid north of 40% effective
coldtea 9y ago
>I'd make that trade any day It's not a trade, it's just a temporary result of a market imbalance. When that stops to be case, programmers will get the same bad treatment like everybody else. So I'd make rather live in a country with more sane and fair laws for all, and not extrapolate too much from what a specific field or two (even if it happens to be mine) might temporarily command.
- jhall1468 9y ago
  > It's not a trade, it's just a temporary result of a market imbalance. That temporary result has been going on for a few decades now. And it's only getting better for the engineers, because more and more tech companies need more and more employees and for the most part, CS degrees still remain difficult to get (relative to some other degrees). So I agree it's temporary, however it will probably last until after my retirement short of another .com bubble.
  - acdha 9y ago
    It depends on how old you are but I'd be careful assuming that things will last that long unless you're in your 50s now. There's a huge IT community which was employed to do commodity tasks (helpdesk, networking, PC management, etc.) or working on enterprise software which is increasingly outsourced, competing with cloud offerings, etc. anywhere companies see it as a high cost, low strategic value area – which is not an uncommon attitude even where that's not true. Software developers at the top end are better positioned than many for that but even if your job isn't directly exposed that's going to contribute to pressure against wage increases and respect, especially since senior management is going to keep seeing comparatively high labor costs.
    - jhall1468 9y ago
      I'm a frontend engineer for the one of the big 4 tech companies, so I'm not really concerned. I'm in my 30's now, and don't expect to be coding for the rest of my life, but is the field going to become so constricted that 30 years from now wages will stagnate? I doubt it, at least not in the grand scheme of things. At the end of the day, I'm not going to plan my life around my job suddenly becoming less valuable.

refurb 9y ago

Occupational health and safety? Have any examples? OSHA seems to shut stuff down in a hurry in the US. And I've worked in both the US and Canada and I'd say there isn't much difference beyond the paid time off for parental leave.

zerkten 9y ago
There is an overview on https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/career-advice/maternity-leave-basics-canada-vs-the-us/article4197679/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/c....