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This. I was lucky enough to fall for a German woman who was studying in the states. We married and moved to Berlin when we realized having a family in the US wo

by rio517 8y ago

This. I was lucky enough to fall for a German woman who was studying in the states. We married and moved to Berlin when we realized having a family in the US would be a struggle. We could have moved to the suburbs, but we really hate car culture and wanted to live in a biking city. I worked in tech - didn't have to learn German or jump through hoops to get a job. Now, on a single high 5 figure salary, I'm 15 minutes biking to work and live in one of the nicest parts of the city. We have two kids in free day care. My wife works part time, and she is finishing a year off of 60% paid maternity leave. She really doesn't earn much after taxes, but we save all her income - more than 15k per year. Salaries are lower here and things are getting more expensive for sure. But for 400k+ EUR, we should be able to buy a place for a family of four and bet set for a long time.

sneak 8y ago
Having lived in Berlin for ten years, I can say with certainty that wages there are less than half equivalents in our industry in the US, and income taxes are much higher. Cost of living in some places, like Berlin, is lower (for now), but that only matters if you intend to be a low income earner over your career. I would rather have 50% higher expenses and 100-300% higher income, myself. There’s more to lifelong financial planning than “can I afford house payments?”.
- liotier 8y ago
  Nice - until you have kids and health problems... Then you appreciate how much Europe makes these a non-problem - at least financially.
  - sophistication 8y ago
    Is that really a problem for engineers earning >~60K a year?
    - jventura 8y ago
      If your health problems do not prevent you from working, it’s not a problem.. But keep in mind that even non-engineers and poor people have those benefits.
      - tunap 8y ago
        Until they experience a major medical event, survive and find shortly thereafter that they have been furloughed for "other reasons" because their insurance becomes too costly for the employer to afford.
        hackerman12345 8y ago
        Sounds like you need long-term disability insurance.
        liotier 8y ago
        ... unless you have a "pre-existing condition"
        tunap 8y ago
        And that is what Uni Health Care addresses, supposedly. The caveat is, while insurance providers must cover PECs, it says nothing about how much they will charge. The systemic problems with for-profit/quasi-social healthcare were not fixed nor addressed(outside more welfare options), it just mandated more participants paying into the coffers.
        tunap 8y ago
        And a new job to afford yet another payment? Where do I sign???? PS: not me... family, friends & acquaintances who had spent decade(s) with employers and after returning to work able bodied only to be subsequently let go for reasons other than their abilities to perform their duties.
    - lotsofpulp 8y ago
      $60k USD minus taxes, rent, insurance, and other fixed costs is not going to buy you much healthcare. The cheaper places to live in the US might not even have decent healthcare options. Not to mention significant time off will result in termination.
    - Spooky23 8y ago
      Absolutely. Most companies cut off the oxygen after a few months. Expensive diagnoses like cancer or pregnancy are not good for the career.
      - germinalphrase 8y ago
        It’s incredible that pregnancy is considered an “expensive diagnosis”.
        alkonaut 8y ago
        It's increadible that cancer is considered an "expensive diagnosis".
        sneak 8y ago
        Pregnancy is optional, like a luxury car.
        germinalphrase 8y ago
        Raising a child certainly costs a lot. Of course, it being optional doesn’t stop people from hyperventilating about our reduced fertility rate.
        magduf 8y ago
        People lament the falling fertility rate (esp. among a particular ethnic group), but they never want to do anything about the government policies and living costs and other social factors that are driving this reduced rate.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
- coryrc 8y ago
  Your children might not all be high income earners. You live somewhere like that and you're essentially condemning your (future) extended family apart and forcing yourself to stay on that same career track for a long time. I'm jealous of one branch of my extended family that lives in one medium-cost city with a diverse set of career options and can keep their family bonds strong.
  - WalterSear 8y ago
    And if you don't live somewhere like that, you significantly limit your kids' opportunities to be high earners, and all the other valuable things that come with an in demand career.
- patd 8y ago
  I think the main difference is kids. Daycare, healthcare and education is much cheaper in most of Europe (due to high taxes). You can earn more in the US as a top earner, but you can have a more relaxed and care-free life in Europe while still making a good living and retire early if you're one of those top earners.
- ItsMe000001 8y ago
  I lived in the Bay Area for almost a decade until around 2005, the Presidio in San Francisco was my last address. I had a choice to stay - but I decided to go back to Germany. Wonderful city (for the most part), wonderful landscape, great climate, and I'll forever miss it - but different people have different priorities. I (still) don't really care where I live, but Europe (most of it) is hard to beat as an overall package deal. When you are young you don't care about much that you do care about in your forties or later. About high incomes: What's the point of high income when you have to use it to buy things you otherwise get as part of the package anyway - or, more frequently, that no money can buy because the society as a whole has to provide it (includes the soft stuff like political climate and how much some arts of the population think they have to protect themselves from other parts)? I understand and accept when different people choose differently, but if there is only a single argument, a single data point "my income" then I see a lack of vision (almost literally).
  - leetcrew 8y ago
    > What's the point of high income when you have to use it to buy things you otherwise get as part of the package anyway it doesn't just cancel out though. software devs in the states make much more money, to the point where you can easily afford the things that the government would provide you in europe. plus you obviously have to pay for those things through taxes anyway, and guess who pays the lions share of that. if you are in a high income bracket, you are always going to pay more in than you get back in direct services.
    - heavenlyhash 8y ago
      > where you can easily afford the things that the government would provide you in europe Call me when the SF metro holds a candle to Berlin. Or really, any functioning city. Gauntlet thrown. Transit in SF is a trainwreck. And you're not gonna fix it with your big big paycheck.
      - WalterSear 8y ago
        I don't need to, because it isn't the >complete< trainweck everyone claims it to be.
- raverbashing 8y ago
  > There’s more to lifelong financial planning than “can I afford house payments?”. Being that the most expensive purchase one is going to make over their lifetime, while yes, there is more to that, it is an important factor. Especially as not affording them can have a significant impact in quality of life.
- arwhatever 8y ago
  I just moved away from Seattle after 6 years, where some argue the tech income-to-cost of living ratio might be the best in the world, due to the even higher cost of living in SF. (If I'm wrong, no matter, just substitute SF in your mind.) Anyway upon moving away to a much lower cost of living area I've discovered one issue with the SF/Seattle-type areas is that you can't afford to be out of a job for very long, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, without the cost of living bleeding you dry. If you don't want to live stressed out about losing your job due to bristling against some boss/company, or you might want to take a few months off from time to time to work on a personal project or just to relax, what I might do from now on is consider the pay-to-cost of living ratio of an area under the assumption that I work, say, 9 months out of every 12.
  - ElysianEagle 8y ago
    > one issue with the SF/Seattle-type areas is that you can't afford to be out of a job for very long Absolutely true. Some years ago a contract gig I was working at in NYC was abruptly cancelled, and the following month or two were pretty stressful as I watched my emergency funds get so rapidly depleted due to the high COL there. Thankfully I was able to line something up but it was a valuable shift in perspective. And as much as I'd love to do the 9-months-out-of-12, I'm not sure there's an easy way to pull that off in the US (or anywhere really).
    - arwhatever 8y ago
      I think it should be possible if you can live in some lower cost of living area if you can secure a remote role in a higher pay area. Frankly, after the expensive 6 years in Seattle, I'm now spending some time in Budapest, Hungary, where the cost of living is particularly low and the city is particularly good. The local salaries are remarkably low according to American expectations, but all I need to do is land an occasional part time project, or work perhaps 1/3 of the time to do quite well. I've met some local folks who have pulled this off quite well, also, getting remote jobs in higher paying areas and living quite handsomely here. It has been a bit of an eye-opener for me.
- alkonaut 8y ago
  > There’s more to lifelong financial planning than “can I afford house payments?”. I think a key difference here is pensions and social security too. I live in Sweden don't have any lifelong financial planning. I expect to have a decent pension coming from payments made by my employer, not saved by me (I save a little to extend it just a little bit). I expect that if I get sick I'll get by on my public and private insurances. That is: I expect to have a whole working life where I don't need to put aside anything. As long as I afford my house, car, holidays etc - I'm fine. There are no future massive expenses such as my own pension, my kids' college or a sudden illness. And that's also at least partially why my salary is so low, compared to a place where the salary would be required to cover an expensive education, pensions, healthcare etc. > I would rather have 50% higher expenses and 100-300% higher income I think this is also a matter of culture. With 100-300% higher income you could argue that you can afford to take a month off every now and then, instead of having the 6w paid a german gets. But the cultural difference is that in the US, perhaps you don't. And with a huge income you can afford to take a year off after having a child. But the cultural difference might mean you can't (because management would object) and so on. To paraphrase you: there is more to econominc planning than the purely economic too. I think americans often focus a lot (perhaps too much) on income and cost, when the real differences between countries are cultural and lies in how much holiday people take (not just are allowed to take), how long parental leaves are, and so on.
  - phamilton 8y ago
    Especially with Sweden, I think jantelagen[0] is also an important thing to call out. Not so much in a negative tone, but more in terms of simply framing career success. There just isn't the same pressure to be a rockstar. You can be good at your job, even just ok at your job (maybe even bad at your job) for decades and that's fine. That's not to say that ambitious and driven individuals are rare, but the amount of social judgement around career is significantly less in most circles than in the states. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante
  - bluesroo 8y ago
    > That is: I expect to have a whole working life where I don't need to put aside anything. As long as I afford my house, car, holidays etc - I'm fine. As an American, I think this may be the hardest thing to wrap my head around. Since I was a kid I (and anecdotally, many of my peers) have been told to never rely on a government or business-sponsored pension. What happens if the government swings in a different direction in the 3 decades before I retire? What if a couple bad administrations screw things up? What if the company who has my pension goes under or poorly invests it? It seems that having nothing saved for yourself for your decades-away end of life care is putting A LOT of trust in a system that is less than 100 years old. I think this is where my desire to trade earnings for government services comes from... I can't guarantee that the services will be there for me, but if I manage my money conservatively I can more-or-less guarantee that it will be there. Keep in mind that I'm also a software engineer, giving me the privilege to choose higher earnings over government services. If I were lower-income or in a line with less future earnings potential I might feel differently.
pmorici 8y ago
I'm not sure what you consider the suburbs but I'm confident you could find that same situation or better so long as you looked at medium size and smaller cities or towns in the US.
- mschuetz 8y ago
  When I was living in suburbs for a few months, getting from A to B on a bike took a long time. 40 minutes to work. 30 minutes to the next mall/shopping street. Just one small house after another, with no amenities nearby. Vast low-density residential areas make for a long commute. After I got back to the city it felt incredible to bike through it. Everything you need is within a few minutes driving distance. Work is 20 minutes on bike and I don't live particularely close to it. No worries about parking either, because there is always some place that you can lock your bike to.
  - pmorici 8y ago
    A small to medium sized city is not the suburbs.
- dtech 8y ago
  Berlin isn't exactly a medium or small city, and then you'd still have the problem that American cities are very car-centric.
  - pmorici 8y ago
    I guess that is my point. The OP says that having a family in the US would be a struggle but if you set aside the handful of cities with out of control costs in the US like SF, NY, and DC the rest really are quite affordable.
    - Retric 8y ago
      Exclude the east and west coast mega cities and you have a lot of land but a small chunk of the population. This tends to tie you much closer to a specific employer and has long term risks.
CalRobert 8y ago
Thinking about a change in country in a year or two and Germany comes up a lot. How is the cycling infrastructure? I understand it's not great compared to NL or DK but worlds better than where I am now (Ireland) and obviously incomparable to the disaster that is US bike infrastructure.
- ocfnash 8y ago
  Cycling infrastructure in Ireland is woeful but there are great people working to improve it: https://twitter.com/ibikedublin https://twitter.com/ibikedublin They're eager for help ;-)
  - CalRobert 8y ago
    Hah, I'm glad you found our little pseudo-anarchic protest group! Interesting to see the profile change between Dublin Cycling Campaign and IBD in terms of mindshare... Incidentally, I made a tool for finding homes: 1) Near a decent bike route, or the few that exist (grand canal, Phoenix Park, Waterford Greenway, etc.) 2) Near an Educate Together school. Any comment is appreciated! https://www.gaffologist.com/ https://www.gaffologist.com/
- wolfgke 8y ago
  > Thinking about a change in country in a year or two and Germany comes up a lot. How is the cycling infrastructure? I understand it's not great compared to NL or DK In my very culture-biased observation as a native German (who also goes to work mostly by bicycle (and if not, by tram)), I would say that the Germans who go by bike are more risk-tolerant. Where people of other cultures would refuse to go by bike, the group of Germans who love to go by bike will go by bike no matter what the cycling infrastructure is like (I know quite a lot such people). If your cycling annoys motorists, know the laws and simply tell them that you also advocate for better cycling infrastructure. In this sense, my impression is that the central reason why the cycling infrastructure becomes improved in Germany is so that motorists become less annoyed by cyclists. P.S. To answer your question: In NL and, I think, DK the cycling infrastructure is better (how much depends on the city; for example Münster is very bicycle-friendly). But this is not something that you care about when you bicycle in Germany (especially to/from work), since it is rather an attitude to life. Because you are convinced that going by bike is "the right thing", you will go by bike no matter how sketchy the cycling infrastructure is like.
KozmoNau7 8y ago
I guess everything is relative. I also fell for a German woman, who I met because she came here to Denmark to write her PhD. As much as she likes being home in Germany for vacations, we're both pretty much settled on staying in Copenhagen. She certainly wouldn't want to live in Berlin, but of course she may be biased, coming from rural southern Germany herself. For reference, she comes from a small town just south of Stuttgart, and she's lived in Munich, Aachen and Mannheim in Germany, and Dublin in Ireland, before moving to Copenhagen. So I figure she's got a reasonable comparison to make :-) Copenhagen is simply outrageously amazing for biking, public transport, cultural events and food selection. I honestly couldn't imagine living anywhere else, and I've lived at both ends of the rural/urban spectrum in Denmark, as well as visited a fair few places around the globe. I wouldn't want to live in the city centre (way too expensive and cramped), I'd like to have a garden and such. But no more than 30-45 minutes by public transport to the city centre.
- germinalphrase 8y ago
  I have heard that the cost of living is significantly higher in Copenhagen. Is that true (if you choose to live outside of the city center)? I’m American, so the idea of emigrating to the EU feels mostly moot, but it’s fun to consider alternatives.
  - magduf 8y ago
    Yes, it's pretty well-known that Denmark is on average a much more expensive place to live than Germany (esp. east Germany).
  - lagadu 8y ago
    Not the person you replied to but I can answer: yes. Yes it is.
  - KozmoNau7 8y ago
    Yes, cost of living is relatively high in Denmark in general, and especially (housing costs) if you want to live in Copenhagen proper. Personally, I think it's worth it, for one of the safest, happiest and fairest countries in the world. We do however stock up on a lot of stuff like cosmetics and shampoo and such, which costs almost 3 times as much in Denmark, compared to Germany.
zerr 8y ago
But are you able to buy a decent detached house with a backyard and maybe some pool in Berlin with that income? The worst thing in Germany (and maybe in most of Europe) - most of the people (esp. millennials) live in rented flats.
- thisone 8y ago
  Why would this person make their decisions based on your personal requirements?
- michaelt 8y ago
  Berlin is at a higher latitude than London or Seattle. For obvious reasons, very few people have outdoor pools.
- jdietrich 8y ago
  Flats are good, because they increase density. The UK has a weird cultural aversion to flats, so we have vast sprawling suburbs full of tiny houses with tiny gardens; British cities have noticeably less green space than in most of the rest of Europe. Residents in flats might not have a private garden, but they usually have a balcony, good views from their windows and access to a communal garden. New-build developments in Britain tend to feel stiflingly claustrophobic, because the developers have crammed in as many houses as the planners will allow - you might live in a detached house, but you could lean out of your bedroom window and touch your neighbour's house. Renting is fine if your rental market is well regulated. The UK has very laissez-faire rental laws, so most tenants are desperate to own a home; Germany has very strict tenure laws, so most people are perfectly happy to keep renting.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 8y ago
    Flats are good, because they increase density This is exactly why some of think "flats are bad." I really hate living on top of other people.
    - yourapostasy 8y ago
orbifold 8y ago
Ironically for a long time (and to a lesser degree even now) European politicians constantly tried to emulate aspects of the American System. This is true on the macro political scale with a „United States of Europe“ being one ultimate goal for some politicians, but also when it comes to reform higher education (the Bologna reforms) and other policies. Yet even the most affluent parts of the US (east coast around Boston, Martha’s Vineyard etc.) have in my view never compared favorably to many areas in Europe. It is really unfortunate that Europeans don’t have a sense of Manifest Destiny and Potential for the whole of Europe but instead fall back to nationalism, whenever a challenge like the financial crisis or refugee crisis emerges.
- krageon 8y ago
  It's not unfortunate, it's what makes Europe Europe. I'd say that if you changed the countries in Europe to be more like American states, you'd lose one of the factors that makes it the way it is today. That is leaving aside the very loaded term "Manifest Destiny", which I originally thought was something people only used ironically. Perhaps I misread your text?
- watwut 8y ago
  Wasn't Manifest Destiny all about territorial expansion? Cause European countries did the expansion thing and it gave us WWI and WWII. So it is kinda good they stopped.
  - Kroniker 8y ago
    Manifest Destiny was the spirit of the times during western expansion. The West was considered "free and empty" (Let's ignore the natives), and it was America's destiny to control the continent from coast to coast. So not as much about expanding, and more about growing in to what room "was available", I think.
    - watwut 8y ago
      That is likely just changing one kind of radical nationalism for another. Had European union decided that we are the thing in the Manifest Destiny meaning, nearby places would cease to count as really occupied too.
branchless 8y ago
You should hand over more of your surplus value to bankers and landlords, or get off hacker news (they love these guys!). Pay the rentiers.
- sctb 8y ago
  We said, multiple times, that we would ban you if you continued to post off-topic ideological provocations here. So we've banned the account.
ataturk 8y ago
All your "issues" are your lifestyle choices, however. And the daycare in Germany isn't free. Strangers pay for it. I don't see how that is better. Also, you are forfeiting a ridiculous amount of your income in taxes with the promise of a future welfare state retirement that may or may not come to be. I am under no illusion that I live as a free man in the US or that I am totally independent or anything else, but I do think the concept of placing individuals above bureaucrats, and preserving even a semblance of free enterprise is totally worth it. Also, there's no way that living in Germany is cheaper than living in the US because of all you said. Not trying to be antagonistic here, but you really need to take off the rose-colored glasses. I'm glad it is working out for you.
jklinger410 8y ago
>We could have moved to the suburbs, but we really hate car culture and wanted to live in a biking city. Oh, so it is totally possible. But not if you want to live in a big city. K.
- chrisabrams 8y ago
  There are plenty of cities in the US where this is possible but they may not be as desireable. Europe has a couple thousand years advantage on the US in offering cities vs suburbs.
- vostok 8y ago
  I feel like every statement of that form has an implied "with the lifestyle that I want". If you remove that constraint then it's always possible for a software engineer because they make more than average and that average person does live somehow.
  - bilbo0s 8y ago
    Yep. Invoking Reductio Ad Absurdum, there's always a place for us in the ghetto too, the only question is do we want to live there?
    - jklinger410 8y ago
      The word can't is used in the title.
    - nsxwolf 8y ago
      Suburbs are perfectly reasonable places to live. You just have to get over yourself a little bit and buy a car.
      - vostok 8y ago
        I know you're responding to a different comment, but I want to clarify that I am not claiming that suburbs are unreasonable places to live. OP said that they didn't want to live in a suburb, which is a reasonable view to have. I don't want to live in one either.
madeuptempacct 8y ago
My understanding is that dev salaries are dramatically lower in Germany, England, and Switzerland - the only European countries where you would even consider going to work in tech.
blobbers 8y ago
Urban design in the United States and North America has generally been evolved in a way you'd expect. Larger spaces caused people to spread out further. North America is a (relatively) new place where people seeking land struck out from their ancestral homes for places with space. The return to urbanization and need to be around other people is only now really starting to take hold as people see the benefits of european cities, which by North American standards are ancient. Maybe they were that way for a reason? Imagine that... For comparison: https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/european-countries-by-population-density.html https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/european-countries-by-po... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population_density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...
CalRobert 8y ago
Regarding salaries... I work in tech. I make less than I would in the US (though with a new job that's fully remote, the delta isn't as big as it might be). My wife, however, makes a good deal more than she would in the US. She doesn't work in tech. Also, she gets a full month off a year. 6 months' paid maternity even if the job itself is crummy. Paid public holidays (or double-pay if she has to work). On top of all that, we don't have to drop thousands of dollars a year on car ownership. It's worked out pretty well.
- kylestlb 8y ago
  The USA tried to balance this with crazy tax rules and brackets, where you will get rewarded if you massively out-earn your partner. My buddy was actually lamenting the fact that his wife got a nice raise at the public library because it would actually mean less take-home money after tax day.
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    Increasing pretax retirement contributions would’ve fixed that (would’ve dropped their tax bracket while putting more away for retirement).
    - kylestlb 8y ago
      They also have a house and some other tax complexities. You are probably right, but that kind of illustrates the ridiculous nuance with US tax law.
      - toomuchtodo 8y ago
        The US tax code has a lot of interests competing against each other (revenue vs benefits for different constituencies); I agree it should be simplified, but that takes substantial effort and political will. Changing your 401k contribution is 15 minutes. Choose the hill to die on carefully.
        8y ago
tmaly 8y ago
I have two neighbors, one from Germany and one from Austria. Both have extended their work contracts here in the US. They both told me they are staying for higher pay and lower taxes. The German family gets a good amount of subsidies from the company to stay here in the US, so I think that has to be one of the primary factors in them deciding to stay.
- Mvandenbergh 8y ago
  High earners, in good health, and especially with no kids will definitely make more money - even after costs for healthcare - in the US. The difference is in how protected they are from downside risk. You can even price it if you want: how much would it cost to buy a level of income and health protection in the US equivalent to the German safety net? Germany by the way isn't that generous by Western European standards. I'd be interested to see someone price it - my suspicion is that it would be ruinously expensive. Of course, German nationals have the option of returning if they have to. They can earn in the US if their life circumstances make that possible while fleeing to safety if required. It's a pretty valuable option.
  - oh_sigh 8y ago
    High earners in the US almost certainly have high quality health insurance available through their business which exceeds the quality of the default+private healthcare you get in Germany.
    - orbitur 8y ago
      Hope they never have to find out what isn't covered by their high quality insurance.
- lg 8y ago
  of course, then they have the luxury to go home to a country with universal healthcare in case of, say, lost job due to serious/chronic illness.
- magduf 8y ago
Melchizedek 8y ago
It's not just the welfare state that makes this possible, it's maybe more so the fact that (as far as I understand) Germany has a functioning housing market, and Berlin especially is very cheap for such a big city. In many parts of Europe housing costs would have killed you.
- organsnyder 8y ago
  Any ideas why Berlin has such an affordable housing market?
  - somethingsimple 8y ago
    A friend of mine who lives there told me rents cannot be increased by more than the current inflation rate for years. It’s only every x years that landlords are allowed to adjust to market rates or something. Can someone from Berlin confirm that this is accurate?
    - patall 8y ago
      In theory, there is some law that should prevent rent increases too much but you would not get anything like that anymore now. Now you get fixed term contracts and after that rent will increase by whatever amount is possible. The time you describe is over (and only valid for old but still existing contracts)
  - krn 8y ago
    Berlin is affordable, because, like Leipzig and Dresden, it's in former East Germany. Most of the country's economy is still concentrated in West Germany[1] (Munich, Frankfurt, Hamburg), which is much less affordable. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_German_states_by_GRP#2017_List https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_German_states_by_GRP#2...
  - haldean 8y ago
    At its peak (in the early 40s) it had 4.5M people living in it, and only has about 3.5M people living there now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_population_statistics#/media/File:Berlin_population2.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_population_statistics#/... The city was built for a population bigger than its current population.
angmarsbane 8y ago
My mother, sister and I are applying for Italian citizenship so we can move and work in an EU country more easily. My brother is a university student in Germany with no plans to return to the USA. For my partner and I the drive to move to the EU is the opportunity to have a good family life. A reasonable commute (30 mins or less, and the option to bike or take public transit), a modest home, reliable childcare, and predictable healthcare. Your current life is our goal!
softawre 8y ago
A 400k home in a ~80k salary, thats 5x what you make. I make 150k and live in a 300k home in the midwest. I do like the privacy of my area (you'd call it "car culture" for sure), so tradeoffs, I guess.

by rio517 8y ago

sneak 8y ago

Having lived in Berlin for ten years, I can say with certainty that wages there are less than half equivalents in our industry in the US, and income taxes are much higher. Cost of living in some places, like Berlin, is lower (for now), but that only matters if you intend to be a low income earner over your career. I would rather have 50% higher expenses and 100-300% higher income, myself. There’s more to lifelong financial planning than “can I afford house payments?”.

liotier 8y ago
Nice - until you have kids and health problems... Then you appreciate how much Europe makes these a non-problem - at least financially.
- sophistication 8y ago
  Is that really a problem for engineers earning >~60K a year?
  - jventura 8y ago
    If your health problems do not prevent you from working, it’s not a problem.. But keep in mind that even non-engineers and poor people have those benefits.
    - tunap 8y ago
      Until they experience a major medical event, survive and find shortly thereafter that they have been furloughed for "other reasons" because their insurance becomes too costly for the employer to afford.
      - hackerman12345 8y ago
        Sounds like you need long-term disability insurance.
        liotier 8y ago
        ... unless you have a "pre-existing condition"
        tunap 8y ago
        And that is what Uni Health Care addresses, supposedly. The caveat is, while insurance providers must cover PECs, it says nothing about how much they will charge. The systemic problems with for-profit/quasi-social healthcare were not fixed nor addressed(outside more welfare options), it just mandated more participants paying into the coffers.
        tunap 8y ago
        And a new job to afford yet another payment? Where do I sign???? PS: not me... family, friends & acquaintances who had spent decade(s) with employers and after returning to work able bodied only to be subsequently let go for reasons other than their abilities to perform their duties.
  - lotsofpulp 8y ago
    $60k USD minus taxes, rent, insurance, and other fixed costs is not going to buy you much healthcare. The cheaper places to live in the US might not even have decent healthcare options. Not to mention significant time off will result in termination.
  - Spooky23 8y ago
    Absolutely. Most companies cut off the oxygen after a few months. Expensive diagnoses like cancer or pregnancy are not good for the career.
    - germinalphrase 8y ago
      It’s incredible that pregnancy is considered an “expensive diagnosis”.
      - alkonaut 8y ago
        It's increadible that cancer is considered an "expensive diagnosis".
      - sneak 8y ago
        Pregnancy is optional, like a luxury car.
        germinalphrase 8y ago
        Raising a child certainly costs a lot. Of course, it being optional doesn’t stop people from hyperventilating about our reduced fertility rate.
        magduf 8y ago
        People lament the falling fertility rate (esp. among a particular ethnic group), but they never want to do anything about the government policies and living costs and other social factors that are driving this reduced rate.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
coryrc 8y ago
Your children might not all be high income earners. You live somewhere like that and you're essentially condemning your (future) extended family apart and forcing yourself to stay on that same career track for a long time. I'm jealous of one branch of my extended family that lives in one medium-cost city with a diverse set of career options and can keep their family bonds strong.
- WalterSear 8y ago
  And if you don't live somewhere like that, you significantly limit your kids' opportunities to be high earners, and all the other valuable things that come with an in demand career.
patd 8y ago
I think the main difference is kids. Daycare, healthcare and education is much cheaper in most of Europe (due to high taxes). You can earn more in the US as a top earner, but you can have a more relaxed and care-free life in Europe while still making a good living and retire early if you're one of those top earners.
ItsMe000001 8y ago
I lived in the Bay Area for almost a decade until around 2005, the Presidio in San Francisco was my last address. I had a choice to stay - but I decided to go back to Germany. Wonderful city (for the most part), wonderful landscape, great climate, and I'll forever miss it - but different people have different priorities. I (still) don't really care where I live, but Europe (most of it) is hard to beat as an overall package deal. When you are young you don't care about much that you do care about in your forties or later. About high incomes: What's the point of high income when you have to use it to buy things you otherwise get as part of the package anyway - or, more frequently, that no money can buy because the society as a whole has to provide it (includes the soft stuff like political climate and how much some arts of the population think they have to protect themselves from other parts)? I understand and accept when different people choose differently, but if there is only a single argument, a single data point "my income" then I see a lack of vision (almost literally).
- leetcrew 8y ago
  > What's the point of high income when you have to use it to buy things you otherwise get as part of the package anyway it doesn't just cancel out though. software devs in the states make much more money, to the point where you can easily afford the things that the government would provide you in europe. plus you obviously have to pay for those things through taxes anyway, and guess who pays the lions share of that. if you are in a high income bracket, you are always going to pay more in than you get back in direct services.
  - heavenlyhash 8y ago
    > where you can easily afford the things that the government would provide you in europe Call me when the SF metro holds a candle to Berlin. Or really, any functioning city. Gauntlet thrown. Transit in SF is a trainwreck. And you're not gonna fix it with your big big paycheck.
    - WalterSear 8y ago
      I don't need to, because it isn't the >complete< trainweck everyone claims it to be.
raverbashing 8y ago
> There’s more to lifelong financial planning than “can I afford house payments?”. Being that the most expensive purchase one is going to make over their lifetime, while yes, there is more to that, it is an important factor. Especially as not affording them can have a significant impact in quality of life.
arwhatever 8y ago
I just moved away from Seattle after 6 years, where some argue the tech income-to-cost of living ratio might be the best in the world, due to the even higher cost of living in SF. (If I'm wrong, no matter, just substitute SF in your mind.) Anyway upon moving away to a much lower cost of living area I've discovered one issue with the SF/Seattle-type areas is that you can't afford to be out of a job for very long, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, without the cost of living bleeding you dry. If you don't want to live stressed out about losing your job due to bristling against some boss/company, or you might want to take a few months off from time to time to work on a personal project or just to relax, what I might do from now on is consider the pay-to-cost of living ratio of an area under the assumption that I work, say, 9 months out of every 12.
- ElysianEagle 8y ago
  > one issue with the SF/Seattle-type areas is that you can't afford to be out of a job for very long Absolutely true. Some years ago a contract gig I was working at in NYC was abruptly cancelled, and the following month or two were pretty stressful as I watched my emergency funds get so rapidly depleted due to the high COL there. Thankfully I was able to line something up but it was a valuable shift in perspective. And as much as I'd love to do the 9-months-out-of-12, I'm not sure there's an easy way to pull that off in the US (or anywhere really).
  - arwhatever 8y ago
    I think it should be possible if you can live in some lower cost of living area if you can secure a remote role in a higher pay area. Frankly, after the expensive 6 years in Seattle, I'm now spending some time in Budapest, Hungary, where the cost of living is particularly low and the city is particularly good. The local salaries are remarkably low according to American expectations, but all I need to do is land an occasional part time project, or work perhaps 1/3 of the time to do quite well. I've met some local folks who have pulled this off quite well, also, getting remote jobs in higher paying areas and living quite handsomely here. It has been a bit of an eye-opener for me.
alkonaut 8y ago
> There’s more to lifelong financial planning than “can I afford house payments?”. I think a key difference here is pensions and social security too. I live in Sweden don't have any lifelong financial planning. I expect to have a decent pension coming from payments made by my employer, not saved by me (I save a little to extend it just a little bit). I expect that if I get sick I'll get by on my public and private insurances. That is: I expect to have a whole working life where I don't need to put aside anything. As long as I afford my house, car, holidays etc - I'm fine. There are no future massive expenses such as my own pension, my kids' college or a sudden illness. And that's also at least partially why my salary is so low, compared to a place where the salary would be required to cover an expensive education, pensions, healthcare etc. > I would rather have 50% higher expenses and 100-300% higher income I think this is also a matter of culture. With 100-300% higher income you could argue that you can afford to take a month off every now and then, instead of having the 6w paid a german gets. But the cultural difference is that in the US, perhaps you don't. And with a huge income you can afford to take a year off after having a child. But the cultural difference might mean you can't (because management would object) and so on. To paraphrase you: there is more to econominc planning than the purely economic too. I think americans often focus a lot (perhaps too much) on income and cost, when the real differences between countries are cultural and lies in how much holiday people take (not just are allowed to take), how long parental leaves are, and so on.
- phamilton 8y ago
  Especially with Sweden, I think jantelagen[0] is also an important thing to call out. Not so much in a negative tone, but more in terms of simply framing career success. There just isn't the same pressure to be a rockstar. You can be good at your job, even just ok at your job (maybe even bad at your job) for decades and that's fine. That's not to say that ambitious and driven individuals are rare, but the amount of social judgement around career is significantly less in most circles than in the states. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante
- bluesroo 8y ago
  > That is: I expect to have a whole working life where I don't need to put aside anything. As long as I afford my house, car, holidays etc - I'm fine. As an American, I think this may be the hardest thing to wrap my head around. Since I was a kid I (and anecdotally, many of my peers) have been told to never rely on a government or business-sponsored pension. What happens if the government swings in a different direction in the 3 decades before I retire? What if a couple bad administrations screw things up? What if the company who has my pension goes under or poorly invests it? It seems that having nothing saved for yourself for your decades-away end of life care is putting A LOT of trust in a system that is less than 100 years old. I think this is where my desire to trade earnings for government services comes from... I can't guarantee that the services will be there for me, but if I manage my money conservatively I can more-or-less guarantee that it will be there. Keep in mind that I'm also a software engineer, giving me the privilege to choose higher earnings over government services. If I were lower-income or in a line with less future earnings potential I might feel differently.

pmorici 8y ago

I'm not sure what you consider the suburbs but I'm confident you could find that same situation or better so long as you looked at medium size and smaller cities or towns in the US.

mschuetz 8y ago
When I was living in suburbs for a few months, getting from A to B on a bike took a long time. 40 minutes to work. 30 minutes to the next mall/shopping street. Just one small house after another, with no amenities nearby. Vast low-density residential areas make for a long commute. After I got back to the city it felt incredible to bike through it. Everything you need is within a few minutes driving distance. Work is 20 minutes on bike and I don't live particularely close to it. No worries about parking either, because there is always some place that you can lock your bike to.
- pmorici 8y ago
  A small to medium sized city is not the suburbs.
dtech 8y ago
Berlin isn't exactly a medium or small city, and then you'd still have the problem that American cities are very car-centric.
- pmorici 8y ago
  I guess that is my point. The OP says that having a family in the US would be a struggle but if you set aside the handful of cities with out of control costs in the US like SF, NY, and DC the rest really are quite affordable.
  - Retric 8y ago
    Exclude the east and west coast mega cities and you have a lot of land but a small chunk of the population. This tends to tie you much closer to a specific employer and has long term risks.

CalRobert 8y ago

Thinking about a change in country in a year or two and Germany comes up a lot. How is the cycling infrastructure? I understand it's not great compared to NL or DK but worlds better than where I am now (Ireland) and obviously incomparable to the disaster that is US bike infrastructure.

ocfnash 8y ago
Cycling infrastructure in Ireland is woeful but there are great people working to improve it: https://twitter.com/ibikedublin https://twitter.com/ibikedublin They're eager for help ;-)
- CalRobert 8y ago
  Hah, I'm glad you found our little pseudo-anarchic protest group! Interesting to see the profile change between Dublin Cycling Campaign and IBD in terms of mindshare... Incidentally, I made a tool for finding homes: 1) Near a decent bike route, or the few that exist (grand canal, Phoenix Park, Waterford Greenway, etc.) 2) Near an Educate Together school. Any comment is appreciated! https://www.gaffologist.com/ https://www.gaffologist.com/
wolfgke 8y ago
> Thinking about a change in country in a year or two and Germany comes up a lot. How is the cycling infrastructure? I understand it's not great compared to NL or DK In my very culture-biased observation as a native German (who also goes to work mostly by bicycle (and if not, by tram)), I would say that the Germans who go by bike are more risk-tolerant. Where people of other cultures would refuse to go by bike, the group of Germans who love to go by bike will go by bike no matter what the cycling infrastructure is like (I know quite a lot such people). If your cycling annoys motorists, know the laws and simply tell them that you also advocate for better cycling infrastructure. In this sense, my impression is that the central reason why the cycling infrastructure becomes improved in Germany is so that motorists become less annoyed by cyclists. P.S. To answer your question: In NL and, I think, DK the cycling infrastructure is better (how much depends on the city; for example Münster is very bicycle-friendly). But this is not something that you care about when you bicycle in Germany (especially to/from work), since it is rather an attitude to life. Because you are convinced that going by bike is "the right thing", you will go by bike no matter how sketchy the cycling infrastructure is like.

KozmoNau7 8y ago

I guess everything is relative. I also fell for a German woman, who I met because she came here to Denmark to write her PhD. As much as she likes being home in Germany for vacations, we're both pretty much settled on staying in Copenhagen. She certainly wouldn't want to live in Berlin, but of course she may be biased, coming from rural southern Germany herself. For reference, she comes from a small town just south of Stuttgart, and she's lived in Munich, Aachen and Mannheim in Germany, and Dublin in Ireland, before moving to Copenhagen. So I figure she's got a reasonable comparison to make :-) Copenhagen is simply outrageously amazing for biking, public transport, cultural events and food selection. I honestly couldn't imagine living anywhere else, and I've lived at both ends of the rural/urban spectrum in Denmark, as well as visited a fair few places around the globe. I wouldn't want to live in the city centre (way too expensive and cramped), I'd like to have a garden and such. But no more than 30-45 minutes by public transport to the city centre.

germinalphrase 8y ago
I have heard that the cost of living is significantly higher in Copenhagen. Is that true (if you choose to live outside of the city center)? I’m American, so the idea of emigrating to the EU feels mostly moot, but it’s fun to consider alternatives.
- magduf 8y ago
  Yes, it's pretty well-known that Denmark is on average a much more expensive place to live than Germany (esp. east Germany).
- lagadu 8y ago
  Not the person you replied to but I can answer: yes. Yes it is.
- KozmoNau7 8y ago
  Yes, cost of living is relatively high in Denmark in general, and especially (housing costs) if you want to live in Copenhagen proper. Personally, I think it's worth it, for one of the safest, happiest and fairest countries in the world. We do however stock up on a lot of stuff like cosmetics and shampoo and such, which costs almost 3 times as much in Denmark, compared to Germany.

zerr 8y ago

But are you able to buy a decent detached house with a backyard and maybe some pool in Berlin with that income? The worst thing in Germany (and maybe in most of Europe) - most of the people (esp. millennials) live in rented flats.

thisone 8y ago
Why would this person make their decisions based on your personal requirements?
michaelt 8y ago
Berlin is at a higher latitude than London or Seattle. For obvious reasons, very few people have outdoor pools.
jdietrich 8y ago
Flats are good, because they increase density. The UK has a weird cultural aversion to flats, so we have vast sprawling suburbs full of tiny houses with tiny gardens; British cities have noticeably less green space than in most of the rest of Europe. Residents in flats might not have a private garden, but they usually have a balcony, good views from their windows and access to a communal garden. New-build developments in Britain tend to feel stiflingly claustrophobic, because the developers have crammed in as many houses as the planners will allow - you might live in a detached house, but you could lean out of your bedroom window and touch your neighbour's house. Renting is fine if your rental market is well regulated. The UK has very laissez-faire rental laws, so most tenants are desperate to own a home; Germany has very strict tenure laws, so most people are perfectly happy to keep renting.
- HeyLaughingBoy 8y ago
  Flats are good, because they increase density This is exactly why some of think "flats are bad." I really hate living on top of other people.
  - yourapostasy 8y ago

orbifold 8y ago

Ironically for a long time (and to a lesser degree even now) European politicians constantly tried to emulate aspects of the American System. This is true on the macro political scale with a „United States of Europe“ being one ultimate goal for some politicians, but also when it comes to reform higher education (the Bologna reforms) and other policies. Yet even the most affluent parts of the US (east coast around Boston, Martha’s Vineyard etc.) have in my view never compared favorably to many areas in Europe. It is really unfortunate that Europeans don’t have a sense of Manifest Destiny and Potential for the whole of Europe but instead fall back to nationalism, whenever a challenge like the financial crisis or refugee crisis emerges.

krageon 8y ago
It's not unfortunate, it's what makes Europe Europe. I'd say that if you changed the countries in Europe to be more like American states, you'd lose one of the factors that makes it the way it is today. That is leaving aside the very loaded term "Manifest Destiny", which I originally thought was something people only used ironically. Perhaps I misread your text?
watwut 8y ago
Wasn't Manifest Destiny all about territorial expansion? Cause European countries did the expansion thing and it gave us WWI and WWII. So it is kinda good they stopped.
- Kroniker 8y ago
  Manifest Destiny was the spirit of the times during western expansion. The West was considered "free and empty" (Let's ignore the natives), and it was America's destiny to control the continent from coast to coast. So not as much about expanding, and more about growing in to what room "was available", I think.
  - watwut 8y ago
    That is likely just changing one kind of radical nationalism for another. Had European union decided that we are the thing in the Manifest Destiny meaning, nearby places would cease to count as really occupied too.

branchless 8y ago

You should hand over more of your surplus value to bankers and landlords, or get off hacker news (they love these guys!). Pay the rentiers.

sctb 8y ago
We said, multiple times, that we would ban you if you continued to post off-topic ideological provocations here. So we've banned the account.

ataturk 8y ago

All your "issues" are your lifestyle choices, however. And the daycare in Germany isn't free. Strangers pay for it. I don't see how that is better. Also, you are forfeiting a ridiculous amount of your income in taxes with the promise of a future welfare state retirement that may or may not come to be. I am under no illusion that I live as a free man in the US or that I am totally independent or anything else, but I do think the concept of placing individuals above bureaucrats, and preserving even a semblance of free enterprise is totally worth it. Also, there's no way that living in Germany is cheaper than living in the US because of all you said. Not trying to be antagonistic here, but you really need to take off the rose-colored glasses. I'm glad it is working out for you.

jklinger410 8y ago

>We could have moved to the suburbs, but we really hate car culture and wanted to live in a biking city. Oh, so it is totally possible. But not if you want to live in a big city. K.

chrisabrams 8y ago
There are plenty of cities in the US where this is possible but they may not be as desireable. Europe has a couple thousand years advantage on the US in offering cities vs suburbs.
vostok 8y ago
I feel like every statement of that form has an implied "with the lifestyle that I want". If you remove that constraint then it's always possible for a software engineer because they make more than average and that average person does live somehow.
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  Yep. Invoking Reductio Ad Absurdum, there's always a place for us in the ghetto too, the only question is do we want to live there?
  - jklinger410 8y ago
    The word can't is used in the title.
  - nsxwolf 8y ago
    Suburbs are perfectly reasonable places to live. You just have to get over yourself a little bit and buy a car.
    - vostok 8y ago
      I know you're responding to a different comment, but I want to clarify that I am not claiming that suburbs are unreasonable places to live. OP said that they didn't want to live in a suburb, which is a reasonable view to have. I don't want to live in one either.

madeuptempacct 8y ago

My understanding is that dev salaries are dramatically lower in Germany, England, and Switzerland - the only European countries where you would even consider going to work in tech.

blobbers 8y ago

Urban design in the United States and North America has generally been evolved in a way you'd expect. Larger spaces caused people to spread out further. North America is a (relatively) new place where people seeking land struck out from their ancestral homes for places with space. The return to urbanization and need to be around other people is only now really starting to take hold as people see the benefits of european cities, which by North American standards are ancient. Maybe they were that way for a reason? Imagine that... For comparison: https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/european-countries-by-population-density.html https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/european-countries-by-po... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population_density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...

CalRobert 8y ago

Regarding salaries... I work in tech. I make less than I would in the US (though with a new job that's fully remote, the delta isn't as big as it might be). My wife, however, makes a good deal more than she would in the US. She doesn't work in tech. Also, she gets a full month off a year. 6 months' paid maternity even if the job itself is crummy. Paid public holidays (or double-pay if she has to work). On top of all that, we don't have to drop thousands of dollars a year on car ownership. It's worked out pretty well.

kylestlb 8y ago
The USA tried to balance this with crazy tax rules and brackets, where you will get rewarded if you massively out-earn your partner. My buddy was actually lamenting the fact that his wife got a nice raise at the public library because it would actually mean less take-home money after tax day.
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  Increasing pretax retirement contributions would’ve fixed that (would’ve dropped their tax bracket while putting more away for retirement).
  - kylestlb 8y ago
    They also have a house and some other tax complexities. You are probably right, but that kind of illustrates the ridiculous nuance with US tax law.
    - toomuchtodo 8y ago
      The US tax code has a lot of interests competing against each other (revenue vs benefits for different constituencies); I agree it should be simplified, but that takes substantial effort and political will. Changing your 401k contribution is 15 minutes. Choose the hill to die on carefully.
      - 8y ago

tmaly 8y ago

I have two neighbors, one from Germany and one from Austria. Both have extended their work contracts here in the US. They both told me they are staying for higher pay and lower taxes. The German family gets a good amount of subsidies from the company to stay here in the US, so I think that has to be one of the primary factors in them deciding to stay.

Mvandenbergh 8y ago
High earners, in good health, and especially with no kids will definitely make more money - even after costs for healthcare - in the US. The difference is in how protected they are from downside risk. You can even price it if you want: how much would it cost to buy a level of income and health protection in the US equivalent to the German safety net? Germany by the way isn't that generous by Western European standards. I'd be interested to see someone price it - my suspicion is that it would be ruinously expensive. Of course, German nationals have the option of returning if they have to. They can earn in the US if their life circumstances make that possible while fleeing to safety if required. It's a pretty valuable option.
- oh_sigh 8y ago
  High earners in the US almost certainly have high quality health insurance available through their business which exceeds the quality of the default+private healthcare you get in Germany.
  - orbitur 8y ago
    Hope they never have to find out what isn't covered by their high quality insurance.
lg 8y ago
of course, then they have the luxury to go home to a country with universal healthcare in case of, say, lost job due to serious/chronic illness.
magduf 8y ago

Melchizedek 8y ago

It's not just the welfare state that makes this possible, it's maybe more so the fact that (as far as I understand) Germany has a functioning housing market, and Berlin especially is very cheap for such a big city. In many parts of Europe housing costs would have killed you.

organsnyder 8y ago
Any ideas why Berlin has such an affordable housing market?
- somethingsimple 8y ago
  A friend of mine who lives there told me rents cannot be increased by more than the current inflation rate for years. It’s only every x years that landlords are allowed to adjust to market rates or something. Can someone from Berlin confirm that this is accurate?
  - patall 8y ago
    In theory, there is some law that should prevent rent increases too much but you would not get anything like that anymore now. Now you get fixed term contracts and after that rent will increase by whatever amount is possible. The time you describe is over (and only valid for old but still existing contracts)
- krn 8y ago
  Berlin is affordable, because, like Leipzig and Dresden, it's in former East Germany. Most of the country's economy is still concentrated in West Germany[1] (Munich, Frankfurt, Hamburg), which is much less affordable. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_German_states_by_GRP#2017_List https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_German_states_by_GRP#2...
- haldean 8y ago
  At its peak (in the early 40s) it had 4.5M people living in it, and only has about 3.5M people living there now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_population_statistics#/media/File:Berlin_population2.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_population_statistics#/... The city was built for a population bigger than its current population.

angmarsbane 8y ago

My mother, sister and I are applying for Italian citizenship so we can move and work in an EU country more easily. My brother is a university student in Germany with no plans to return to the USA. For my partner and I the drive to move to the EU is the opportunity to have a good family life. A reasonable commute (30 mins or less, and the option to bike or take public transit), a modest home, reliable childcare, and predictable healthcare. Your current life is our goal!

softawre 8y ago

A 400k home in a ~80k salary, thats 5x what you make. I make 150k and live in a 300k home in the midwest. I do like the privacy of my area (you'd call it "car culture" for sure), so tradeoffs, I guess.