Dane here. I work 30 hours per week as a programmer. My wife works full time for an NGO. Looking at that chart I think we're fairly average for our country, may

Dane here. I work 30 hours per week as a programmer. My wife works full time for an NGO. Looking at that chart I think we're fairly average for our country, maybe a little bit higher. My wife is currently on maternity leave with almost full pay. I am allowed by law to take paternity leave, and as is common my contract gives me several months with full pay. Even if you don't get paid by your work, you have the right to take up to a year off (in all for both of us) with government support. Even if we both lost our jobs, our (government-subsidized) unemployment insurances are enough to mean we would be able to live more or less as we do now for the two years that the insurance covers, without finding jobs. With some adjustments to our living standard, we might just about be able to at least stay where we live now, even with just the lower benefit rates that we would be able to collect after the two years. We are, however, both in positions where finding new work is fairly simple. Health care is free and not tied to our employment situation. If either of us become gravely ill, we can worry about the illness, not the cost of treatment. There is no such thing as a "medical bankruptcy" here, and we don't have GoFundMe. We were paid a little to go to university. I still have some (government) student loads from that time because I was a bit of a fuck-up and didn't work while studying, but it's not so bad. All in all, I live mostly free of fear and certainly free of want. You think I'd trade that for 18k per year? Would saving up all of it mean I could get even close to this? And how do the people who are below average fare?