6 ms·

Uhm, safety nets etc. do not really offset this. That's because Europe also has higher taxes though/autodeductions. When someone in Germany casually says 50k p

Uhm, safety nets etc. do not really offset this. That's because Europe also has higher taxes though/autodeductions. When someone in Germany casually says 50k per year pre tax, they typically mean pre deductions (tax and social/health insurance) and the effective received money is more around 25k per year. People in the US underestimate how much of ones salary a European has to give up for that safety net.

DasIch 7y ago
50k per year pre tax in Germany, would end up being 30k after taxes. If you're married, you'd get substantial tax benefits and there are also benefits, if you have children.
- eecc 7y ago
  Well those benefits still go towards payments you have to do anyway and it’s never 100%... (eg in NL you’d pay ~1k/month in childcare, and get back ~800. You’re still down ~2.5k/year)
  - DasIch 7y ago
    In Germany childcare costs vary a lot and depend on your income, so it's hard to say what somebody would pay for that. However you'd definitely pay less than 400/month. If you're paying more than 200/month, you got quite unlucky. In some places, such as Berlin, childcare is free.
    - eecc 7y ago
      Yup, Germany is surprisingly more generous than NL. But here the Liberals have been working hard to prevent a “Scandinavian socialist hellhole”... ;)
komali2 7y ago
If we're going to calculate like that I think it's only fair to calculate in the average American's medical cost including insurance premiums which can put quite the dent in effective take home pay.
- K0SM0S 7y ago
  Everytime I look at it, the US in PPP per capita¹ is ~10th worldwide, ranking behind places like Luxembourg, Norway, Switzerland. But well above the bulk of Europe including France, Germany. The problem when comparing is that the structure of a city-state like Luxembourg or Singapore has nothing to do with big countries; and even France or Germany are like 1/5th of the US in population, much less in area, so you can't compare much, certainly not the homogeneity. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...
- topkai22 7y ago
  Roughly $5k/year out of pocket, with employers posting $17k for full family coverage for very good insurance (as it goes in the US). Health care costs in the us are the most burdensome on the working poor and lower middle class because they stay a fixed cost even as income rises. For well paid tech workers, moving to the US and going from $75k to $105k/ year (the median for the US BTW) is probably going to be a good move economically. A roofer moving for a $30k to $40k bump is a much dodgier proposition. An aside, I saw a great analysis a few years back looking at the increasing income gap in the US. It determined that a large part of the gap can be laid at the feet of rising health care benefits to employers. The math is simple and interesting. In 1990 worker A costs an employer $10k ($8k in pay and $2k in benefits) and worker B costs $100k ($98k in pay, $2k in benefits). In 2020 worker A costs $25k, but a whopping $10k now goes to health insurance, meaning thier pay is only $15k and saw an 87% increase even though the employer saw a 250% increase in cost. Worker B? They got went from $100k to $250 in total cost, but saw thier pay go from $98k to $290k, or a 244% increase. The highly paid worker saw a 3x more percentage increase compared to the low paid worker, even though their cost to the employer increased by the same percentage.
  - grumple 7y ago
    > Roughly $5k/year out of pocket That's for single young men. My mother pays > 1k per month for herself and my stepdad monthly. That's not unusual, and she has excellent insurance.

DasIch 7y ago

50k per year pre tax in Germany, would end up being 30k after taxes. If you're married, you'd get substantial tax benefits and there are also benefits, if you have children.

eecc 7y ago
Well those benefits still go towards payments you have to do anyway and it’s never 100%... (eg in NL you’d pay ~1k/month in childcare, and get back ~800. You’re still down ~2.5k/year)
- DasIch 7y ago
  In Germany childcare costs vary a lot and depend on your income, so it's hard to say what somebody would pay for that. However you'd definitely pay less than 400/month. If you're paying more than 200/month, you got quite unlucky. In some places, such as Berlin, childcare is free.
  - eecc 7y ago
    Yup, Germany is surprisingly more generous than NL. But here the Liberals have been working hard to prevent a “Scandinavian socialist hellhole”... ;)

komali2 7y ago

If we're going to calculate like that I think it's only fair to calculate in the average American's medical cost including insurance premiums which can put quite the dent in effective take home pay.

K0SM0S 7y ago
Everytime I look at it, the US in PPP per capita¹ is ~10th worldwide, ranking behind places like Luxembourg, Norway, Switzerland. But well above the bulk of Europe including France, Germany. The problem when comparing is that the structure of a city-state like Luxembourg or Singapore has nothing to do with big countries; and even France or Germany are like 1/5th of the US in population, much less in area, so you can't compare much, certainly not the homogeneity. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...
topkai22 7y ago
Roughly $5k/year out of pocket, with employers posting $17k for full family coverage for very good insurance (as it goes in the US). Health care costs in the us are the most burdensome on the working poor and lower middle class because they stay a fixed cost even as income rises. For well paid tech workers, moving to the US and going from $75k to $105k/ year (the median for the US BTW) is probably going to be a good move economically. A roofer moving for a $30k to $40k bump is a much dodgier proposition. An aside, I saw a great analysis a few years back looking at the increasing income gap in the US. It determined that a large part of the gap can be laid at the feet of rising health care benefits to employers. The math is simple and interesting. In 1990 worker A costs an employer $10k ($8k in pay and $2k in benefits) and worker B costs $100k ($98k in pay, $2k in benefits). In 2020 worker A costs $25k, but a whopping $10k now goes to health insurance, meaning thier pay is only $15k and saw an 87% increase even though the employer saw a 250% increase in cost. Worker B? They got went from $100k to $250 in total cost, but saw thier pay go from $98k to $290k, or a 244% increase. The highly paid worker saw a 3x more percentage increase compared to the low paid worker, even though their cost to the employer increased by the same percentage.
- grumple 7y ago
  > Roughly $5k/year out of pocket That's for single young men. My mother pays > 1k per month for herself and my stepdad monthly. That's not unusual, and she has excellent insurance.