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As a portuguese, while this looks good on paper, it won't contribute whatsoever to our current situation. We're a country where the nationals earn like shit -

As a portuguese, while this looks good on paper, it won't contribute whatsoever to our current situation. We're a country where the nationals earn like shit - probably one of the worst avg and median incomes in whole EU - and are choked to the brink of passing out by high taxes. Our political class is exchanging our young and bright over to foreign pensioners, and now apparently, foreign remote workers. Just so you understand the status quo: people were being pushed out of big cities for years, and now with remote work even more people are being pushed out of medium sized cities in the interior, because everyone wants to live in the country side or by the shore. We're fucked in every direction by high rents, high real-estate, high taxes, high energy costs, yet our incomes remain shit. In 20 years you'll probably see the news headline: "Workers in Portugal now must work until the age of 75 so they could see a healthier work-life balance under new labor laws!"

sofixa 5y ago
As always, grass is always greener - by median income Portugal is 11th in the ascending order (11th worst). https://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?query=BOOKMARK_DS-053406_QID_-78EC589D_UID_-3F171EB0&layout=TIME,C,X,0;GEO,L,Y,0;AGE,L,Z,0;SEX,L,Z,1;INDIC_IL,L,Z,2;UNIT,L,Z,3;INDICATORS,C,Z,4;&zSelection=DS-053406INDICATORS,OBS_FLAG;DS-053406SEX,T;DS-053406INDIC_IL,MED_E;DS-053406AGE,TOTAL;DS-053406UNIT,EUR;&rankName1=INDIC-IL_1_2_-1_2&rankName2=UNIT_1_2_-1_2&rankName3=AGE_1_2_-1_2&rankName4=INDICATORS_1_2_-1_2&rankName5=SEX_1_2_-1_2&rankName6=TIME_1_0_0_0&rankName7=GEO_1_2_0_1&sortR=ASC_2&sortC=ASC_-1_FIRST&rStp=&cStp=&rDCh=&cDCh=&rDM=true&cDM=true&footnes=false&empty=false&wai=false&time_mode=NONE&time_most_recent=false&lang=EN&cfo=%23%23%23%2C%23%23%23.%23%23%23&utm_source=pocket_mylist https://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?query=BOOKM... It sounds like a good piece of legislation. The rest needs to be fixed of course but that shouldn't stop all positive change.
- vmception 5y ago
  Steep bell curve for everyone beneath them to be in eastern europe while Portugal is surrounded by or in close proximity to the highest percentile earners in Western Europe
- jdmoreira 5y ago
  It's only 11th because a lot of countries are missing data for 2020. It's actually 19th for 2019. And I bet you it's not adjusted for taxes.
citilife 5y ago
This is a product of socialism without protections. Put simply, you have high taxes to redistribute wealth. Unfortunately, the government takes their cut. As government becomes increasingly large / naturally corrupt that cut becomes larger. The wealthy can leave and gain more else-where and many leave. Increasing the burden. If you don't have heavy border controls, people who are less advantaged move to the country to gain from the social system. You'll also have remote workers move into cities because it is cheaper than their home region. This drives up costs in cities, but isn't enough tax revenue to offset the loss in wealthy people leaving, as it's highly focused. You'll also have people investing and buying property, which also drives up the costs. At the end of the day, if you want to improve life, you have to focus on (a) strict immigration policies (reducing pressure from immigrants) (b) strict import controls (raising internal wages) (c) reduce social system, focus on citizens and potentially reduce general services (d) reduce taxes on income, land and sales (e) increase import taxes and potentially tax on foreigners If you do the above, it'll reduce the burden on the individuals and protect & improve the internal labor market.
- rubyn00bie 5y ago
  You are out of touch with the reality of modern economics. Your advice reads like a brochure from the 1920s and is flat out bad. You’re essentially saying strip social services and become isolationist. Neither of which does any good for the economy or citizens. If people do what you suggest they will have a bad time because it’s empirically proven your suggestions are mostly shit.
  - user743 5y ago
    We can see now that without import controls corporations are going to chase slave-like labor around the globe until there isn't another country left to go to. I'm guessing everyone is against worker exploitation. What else is the answer? Globalization circumvents any wins for human rights made locally.
  - 988747 5y ago
    The advice worked for both Japan and South Korea. Probably it is the only way to jump from "emerging" to "developed" category, economically.
pelasaco 5y ago
I live partially in Germany and Portugal, as I have roots in both country. You are right, the average salaries are a joke and the living costs are sky rocketing. However, you have a great and stable society, a really specific market, good universities and sometimes I think what is missing is initiative. The young people prefer to go abroad than try to innovate in Portugal. For example, almost all disrupting startups in Portugal are lead by Brazilians. Sometimes I have the impression that we all forgot about our resilience (well described by Camoes and Pessoa). To all my Portuguese friends: "Viver não é necessário. Necessário é criar." Fernando Pessoa
- galfarragem 5y ago
  Might be relevant: https://taxfoundation.org/comparing-corporate-tax-systems-europe-2021/ https://taxfoundation.org/comparing-corporate-tax-systems-eu...
- PaywallBuster 5y ago
  going abroad is initiative too and actually there's very little initiative there too, seen it too many times, comfortable at parents place / not desperate, why bother going abroad
- vmsp 5y ago
  Mind explaining how to find this initiative of yours if you're living paycheck to paycheck?
  - pelasaco 5y ago
    In the end is about how much you want to sacrifice. Put some money aside, invest your free time, believe in an idea, but in the end: Put in the Work! Specially in our branch. A full stack developer earns in average EUR 1.500/month in Portugal. Work remotely from Portugal, have a side gig and make it happens.
    - rfks 5y ago
      Coming from Poland (theoretically a country with lower salaries than Portugal) this strikes me as super low - you can easily earn 2-3x that working remotely for English-speaking contracting companies, and way way more if you try to get a job at a remote first tech company.
rcpt 5y ago
> and are choked to the brink of passing out by high taxes What are property taxes like over there? I'm suspicious that your problem is the same as California, New Zealand, Canada and everyone else: deep tax cuts for long time landowners which everyone else has to make up for.
goodpoint 5y ago
> Our political class is exchanging our young and bright ...who would be unemployed. > over to foreign pensioners, and now apparently, foreign remote workers. ...who already have and income and are happy to spend it in Portugal. Not a terrible deal.
- secondcoming 5y ago
  Yes, fine if those pensioners move to Portugal permanently. If they're just living there during the summer then the place is dead for the rest of the year, and locals are priced out of staying there.
- gruez 5y ago
  >> Our political class is exchanging our young and bright >...who would be unemployed. presumably the "young and bright" that are moving out of portugal aren't doing so they can be unemployed in another country. if anything they're retaining the unemployed/unemployable young adults but offloading the employable young adults.
- libertine 5y ago
  Those pensioners aren't the ones who will pay Social Security in the future mate. Portuguese politicians are digging a hole that we won't be able to recover from - just so you know the age of retirement keeps increasing with no end in sight. It should be the other way around.
vcoelho 5y ago
Yea, even us brazilians are refusing portuguese job offers , even though we're struggling here, because of low salaries.
speeder 5y ago
I was born in Brazil but I am currently in process to try to get a Portuguese citizenship (my ancestors are portuguese and raised me to be portuguese, I was only born in Brazil). I am considering moving to portugal even, but I must say I was shocked when I saw that income taxes for me would be 45%? And I was thinking I pay too much in Brazil at 27.5%... Are portuguese services really, really good at least? (in Brazil the services are not very good, we pay taxes + private education, private healthcare, private security, and the government expects private sector to build railways, etc... hell, some places people have private army too, with some parts of the country you being safe only if you bribe the army itself or hire mercenaries...)
- JetSpiegel 5y ago
  > I am considering moving to portugal even, but I must say I was shocked when I saw that income taxes for me would be 45%? Only if you earn the same as the prime-minister, I think that's the top marginal rate.
- libertine 5y ago
  >Are portuguese services really, really good at least? That's problem: they're not. Or better yet, they're very inefficient and rely too much on humans. Our public Health Care Service (SNS) is praised in some circles - but at the cost of poor wages and overworked staff. Not to mention the interior is starting to crumble with no people to make up for it.
  - matheusmoreira 5y ago
    > Our public Health Care Service (SNS) is praised in some circles - but at the cost of poor wages and overworked staff. I remember looking up portuguese doctor wages once and I was pretty shocked. Technology jobs would be more advantageous.
    - whimsicalism 5y ago
      This is just Europe in general.
vmsp 5y ago
Taxes are extremely high and that, in and of itself, is a huge issue but things are actually much worse. Want to use a road? You pay. Want to get some financial documents you actually need for work? You pay. Want a doctor to see you at a hospital? You pay. You pay for everything twice.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  I think the problem is more likely decades of under development/funding of social programs under Salazar, not high taxes now. My dad grew up under Salazar, they didn't even have school past 3rd grade, everything was underfunded as hell, it was basically a corporate oligarchy.
- jurassic 5y ago
  How high is high? Can you give some specifics for foreigners who aren't familiar with the tax situation in Portugal?
m0zg 5y ago
Another thing (besides high taxes and low wages) US leftists would like to copy from Portugal is complete legalization of all drugs, including the hard/addictive ones. I'd be curious to know from a local how well that worked (if at all) over the extended period of time.
- libertine 5y ago
  We didn't legalize drugs, we decriminalized them - basically a drug addict wasn't considered a criminal, but someone who's sick and needs help. It worked wonders, we had a heroin epidemic that vanished in the course of 10-15 years. There are still addicts of course, but they're being followed by doctors, offered replacement drugs, etc. Just to contrast: you used to see people injecting themselves on their dicks in the street all over Lisbon, yet more prevalent in some neighborhoods. Such sights are long gone.
  - m0zg 5y ago
    > injecting themselves on their dicks in the street all over Lisbon That's how it is today in San Francisco and a few other places. Are they actually gone, or are they just injecting themselves in the dick at a taxpayer funded injection site?
101keyboard 5y ago
Calm down. Yes, some things are shit in Portugal. €0.2246 per kWh is not cheap but it is not crazy high. "Renewables account for 72% of Portugal's consumption in 5-mo 2021" May be important for the future I know real estate prices in Portugal are crazy. 500k in a city and you get a golden visa. Hence every decent apartment is 500k or more. In a country were the minimum salary is around 500 euros. Look the the future. Portugal can and is attracting an nearly infinite supply of young people from Brazil, Angola, Mozambique. The future is good. Likely better than Italy.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- gh55 5y ago
  Property prices aren't so crazy - a friend of mine pays €400 a month in a nice part of Costa da Caparica for a 2 bed, another bought a great place for under €200k in Cacilhas. For under €500k you can get something like this https://www.idealista.pt/imovel/31578168/ https://www.idealista.pt/imovel/31578168/ more than decent in such a desirable location in the centre of the capital.. The minimum wage is so low because more than 50% of the workforce didn't finish school https://www.theportugalnews.com/news/50-of-portuguese-between-25-and-64-did-not-complete-secondary-school/53517 https://www.theportugalnews.com/news/50-of-portuguese-betwee... There are plenty of Portuguese people smarter than I commanding nice salaries, yes not as high as elsewhere in Europe but the quality of life and cost of living I believe make up for it.

sofixa 5y ago

As always, grass is always greener - by median income Portugal is 11th in the ascending order (11th worst). https://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?query=BOOKMARK_DS-053406_QID_-78EC589D_UID_-3F171EB0&layout=TIME,C,X,0;GEO,L,Y,0;AGE,L,Z,0;SEX,L,Z,1;INDIC_IL,L,Z,2;UNIT,L,Z,3;INDICATORS,C,Z,4;&zSelection=DS-053406INDICATORS,OBS_FLAG;DS-053406SEX,T;DS-053406INDIC_IL,MED_E;DS-053406AGE,TOTAL;DS-053406UNIT,EUR;&rankName1=INDIC-IL_1_2_-1_2&rankName2=UNIT_1_2_-1_2&rankName3=AGE_1_2_-1_2&rankName4=INDICATORS_1_2_-1_2&rankName5=SEX_1_2_-1_2&rankName6=TIME_1_0_0_0&rankName7=GEO_1_2_0_1&sortR=ASC_2&sortC=ASC_-1_FIRST&rStp=&cStp=&rDCh=&cDCh=&rDM=true&cDM=true&footnes=false&empty=false&wai=false&time_mode=NONE&time_most_recent=false&lang=EN&cfo=%23%23%23%2C%23%23%23.%23%23%23&utm_source=pocket_mylist https://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?query=BOOKM... It sounds like a good piece of legislation. The rest needs to be fixed of course but that shouldn't stop all positive change.

vmception 5y ago
Steep bell curve for everyone beneath them to be in eastern europe while Portugal is surrounded by or in close proximity to the highest percentile earners in Western Europe
jdmoreira 5y ago
It's only 11th because a lot of countries are missing data for 2020. It's actually 19th for 2019. And I bet you it's not adjusted for taxes.

citilife 5y ago

This is a product of socialism without protections. Put simply, you have high taxes to redistribute wealth. Unfortunately, the government takes their cut. As government becomes increasingly large / naturally corrupt that cut becomes larger. The wealthy can leave and gain more else-where and many leave. Increasing the burden. If you don't have heavy border controls, people who are less advantaged move to the country to gain from the social system. You'll also have remote workers move into cities because it is cheaper than their home region. This drives up costs in cities, but isn't enough tax revenue to offset the loss in wealthy people leaving, as it's highly focused. You'll also have people investing and buying property, which also drives up the costs. At the end of the day, if you want to improve life, you have to focus on (a) strict immigration policies (reducing pressure from immigrants) (b) strict import controls (raising internal wages) (c) reduce social system, focus on citizens and potentially reduce general services (d) reduce taxes on income, land and sales (e) increase import taxes and potentially tax on foreigners If you do the above, it'll reduce the burden on the individuals and protect & improve the internal labor market.

rubyn00bie 5y ago
You are out of touch with the reality of modern economics. Your advice reads like a brochure from the 1920s and is flat out bad. You’re essentially saying strip social services and become isolationist. Neither of which does any good for the economy or citizens. If people do what you suggest they will have a bad time because it’s empirically proven your suggestions are mostly shit.
- user743 5y ago
  We can see now that without import controls corporations are going to chase slave-like labor around the globe until there isn't another country left to go to. I'm guessing everyone is against worker exploitation. What else is the answer? Globalization circumvents any wins for human rights made locally.
- 988747 5y ago
  The advice worked for both Japan and South Korea. Probably it is the only way to jump from "emerging" to "developed" category, economically.

pelasaco 5y ago

I live partially in Germany and Portugal, as I have roots in both country. You are right, the average salaries are a joke and the living costs are sky rocketing. However, you have a great and stable society, a really specific market, good universities and sometimes I think what is missing is initiative. The young people prefer to go abroad than try to innovate in Portugal. For example, almost all disrupting startups in Portugal are lead by Brazilians. Sometimes I have the impression that we all forgot about our resilience (well described by Camoes and Pessoa). To all my Portuguese friends: "Viver não é necessário. Necessário é criar." Fernando Pessoa

galfarragem 5y ago
Might be relevant: https://taxfoundation.org/comparing-corporate-tax-systems-europe-2021/ https://taxfoundation.org/comparing-corporate-tax-systems-eu...
PaywallBuster 5y ago
going abroad is initiative too and actually there's very little initiative there too, seen it too many times, comfortable at parents place / not desperate, why bother going abroad
vmsp 5y ago
Mind explaining how to find this initiative of yours if you're living paycheck to paycheck?
- pelasaco 5y ago
  In the end is about how much you want to sacrifice. Put some money aside, invest your free time, believe in an idea, but in the end: Put in the Work! Specially in our branch. A full stack developer earns in average EUR 1.500/month in Portugal. Work remotely from Portugal, have a side gig and make it happens.
  - rfks 5y ago
    Coming from Poland (theoretically a country with lower salaries than Portugal) this strikes me as super low - you can easily earn 2-3x that working remotely for English-speaking contracting companies, and way way more if you try to get a job at a remote first tech company.

rcpt 5y ago

> and are choked to the brink of passing out by high taxes What are property taxes like over there? I'm suspicious that your problem is the same as California, New Zealand, Canada and everyone else: deep tax cuts for long time landowners which everyone else has to make up for.

goodpoint 5y ago

> Our political class is exchanging our young and bright ...who would be unemployed. > over to foreign pensioners, and now apparently, foreign remote workers. ...who already have and income and are happy to spend it in Portugal. Not a terrible deal.

secondcoming 5y ago
Yes, fine if those pensioners move to Portugal permanently. If they're just living there during the summer then the place is dead for the rest of the year, and locals are priced out of staying there.
gruez 5y ago
>> Our political class is exchanging our young and bright >...who would be unemployed. presumably the "young and bright" that are moving out of portugal aren't doing so they can be unemployed in another country. if anything they're retaining the unemployed/unemployable young adults but offloading the employable young adults.
libertine 5y ago
Those pensioners aren't the ones who will pay Social Security in the future mate. Portuguese politicians are digging a hole that we won't be able to recover from - just so you know the age of retirement keeps increasing with no end in sight. It should be the other way around.

vcoelho 5y ago

Yea, even us brazilians are refusing portuguese job offers , even though we're struggling here, because of low salaries.

speeder 5y ago

I was born in Brazil but I am currently in process to try to get a Portuguese citizenship (my ancestors are portuguese and raised me to be portuguese, I was only born in Brazil). I am considering moving to portugal even, but I must say I was shocked when I saw that income taxes for me would be 45%? And I was thinking I pay too much in Brazil at 27.5%... Are portuguese services really, really good at least? (in Brazil the services are not very good, we pay taxes + private education, private healthcare, private security, and the government expects private sector to build railways, etc... hell, some places people have private army too, with some parts of the country you being safe only if you bribe the army itself or hire mercenaries...)

JetSpiegel 5y ago
> I am considering moving to portugal even, but I must say I was shocked when I saw that income taxes for me would be 45%? Only if you earn the same as the prime-minister, I think that's the top marginal rate.
libertine 5y ago
>Are portuguese services really, really good at least? That's problem: they're not. Or better yet, they're very inefficient and rely too much on humans. Our public Health Care Service (SNS) is praised in some circles - but at the cost of poor wages and overworked staff. Not to mention the interior is starting to crumble with no people to make up for it.
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  > Our public Health Care Service (SNS) is praised in some circles - but at the cost of poor wages and overworked staff. I remember looking up portuguese doctor wages once and I was pretty shocked. Technology jobs would be more advantageous.
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    This is just Europe in general.

vmsp 5y ago

Taxes are extremely high and that, in and of itself, is a huge issue but things are actually much worse. Want to use a road? You pay. Want to get some financial documents you actually need for work? You pay. Want a doctor to see you at a hospital? You pay. You pay for everything twice.

whimsicalism 5y ago
I think the problem is more likely decades of under development/funding of social programs under Salazar, not high taxes now. My dad grew up under Salazar, they didn't even have school past 3rd grade, everything was underfunded as hell, it was basically a corporate oligarchy.
jurassic 5y ago
How high is high? Can you give some specifics for foreigners who aren't familiar with the tax situation in Portugal?

m0zg 5y ago

Another thing (besides high taxes and low wages) US leftists would like to copy from Portugal is complete legalization of all drugs, including the hard/addictive ones. I'd be curious to know from a local how well that worked (if at all) over the extended period of time.

libertine 5y ago
We didn't legalize drugs, we decriminalized them - basically a drug addict wasn't considered a criminal, but someone who's sick and needs help. It worked wonders, we had a heroin epidemic that vanished in the course of 10-15 years. There are still addicts of course, but they're being followed by doctors, offered replacement drugs, etc. Just to contrast: you used to see people injecting themselves on their dicks in the street all over Lisbon, yet more prevalent in some neighborhoods. Such sights are long gone.
- m0zg 5y ago
  > injecting themselves on their dicks in the street all over Lisbon That's how it is today in San Francisco and a few other places. Are they actually gone, or are they just injecting themselves in the dick at a taxpayer funded injection site?

101keyboard 5y ago

Calm down. Yes, some things are shit in Portugal. €0.2246 per kWh is not cheap but it is not crazy high. "Renewables account for 72% of Portugal's consumption in 5-mo 2021" May be important for the future I know real estate prices in Portugal are crazy. 500k in a city and you get a golden visa. Hence every decent apartment is 500k or more. In a country were the minimum salary is around 500 euros. Look the the future. Portugal can and is attracting an nearly infinite supply of young people from Brazil, Angola, Mozambique. The future is good. Likely better than Italy.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
gh55 5y ago
Property prices aren't so crazy - a friend of mine pays €400 a month in a nice part of Costa da Caparica for a 2 bed, another bought a great place for under €200k in Cacilhas. For under €500k you can get something like this https://www.idealista.pt/imovel/31578168/ https://www.idealista.pt/imovel/31578168/ more than decent in such a desirable location in the centre of the capital.. The minimum wage is so low because more than 50% of the workforce didn't finish school https://www.theportugalnews.com/news/50-of-portuguese-between-25-and-64-did-not-complete-secondary-school/53517 https://www.theportugalnews.com/news/50-of-portuguese-betwee... There are plenty of Portuguese people smarter than I commanding nice salaries, yes not as high as elsewhere in Europe but the quality of life and cost of living I believe make up for it.