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I've personally worked with people who I know made 6-figures of total comp in Germany. Checking the relatively-new https://techpays.eu/ https://techpays.eu/, th

I've personally worked with people who I know made 6-figures of total comp in Germany. Checking the relatively-new https://techpays.eu/ https://techpays.eu/, there are plenty of 6-figure entries for Germany. I'm not saying this means it's the norm, just that it's achievable for people whose posts make it to the front page of Hacker News. You mentioned taxes. When people talk about comp in the US, we aren't taking out taxes. Effective tax rate (federal+state+fica) for a single individual making $200k of salary+bonus is ~30% here. That would turn $200k into $140k take home.

shankr 4y ago
I think the parent above you is talking without taking out taxes. For 90K, you would pay (taxes+health insurance + pension+unemployment benefit) ~42%. So at the end, what you see in your account ~52K/year. This is as a single person. For family/kids, you can make little bit more.
ineedasername 4y ago
30% is just federal. State can add between 0%-10% on top of that. So depending on where you live it may be very close to Germany. Then there's medical insurance, which is usually paid out of a portion of your paycheck. It's optional, but it would be a poor risk/reward tradeoff for even for a young healthy person to not at least have a high deductable plan, which will be another 3-4% of $200k.
- sciurus 4y ago
  I'll mention this not to disagree with your overall point, but because I've seen it be a source of confusion for some people. In the US federal income tax system, the marginal tax rate varies depending on the tax bracket each dollar of your income falls in. That is, someone making $200k would pay 10% on their first $9,950 of income, 12% on their next $30,575 of income, and so on. They'd only pay a rate above 30% for the last $35,075 of their income. You can plug in numbers and locations at https://smartasset.com/taxes/income-taxes https://smartasset.com/taxes/income-taxes to get a sense of how this plays out.

shankr 4y ago

I think the parent above you is talking without taking out taxes. For 90K, you would pay (taxes+health insurance + pension+unemployment benefit) ~42%. So at the end, what you see in your account ~52K/year. This is as a single person. For family/kids, you can make little bit more.

ineedasername 4y ago

30% is just federal. State can add between 0%-10% on top of that. So depending on where you live it may be very close to Germany. Then there's medical insurance, which is usually paid out of a portion of your paycheck. It's optional, but it would be a poor risk/reward tradeoff for even for a young healthy person to not at least have a high deductable plan, which will be another 3-4% of $200k.

sciurus 4y ago
I'll mention this not to disagree with your overall point, but because I've seen it be a source of confusion for some people. In the US federal income tax system, the marginal tax rate varies depending on the tax bracket each dollar of your income falls in. That is, someone making $200k would pay 10% on their first $9,950 of income, 12% on their next $30,575 of income, and so on. They'd only pay a rate above 30% for the last $35,075 of their income. You can plug in numbers and locations at https://smartasset.com/taxes/income-taxes https://smartasset.com/taxes/income-taxes to get a sense of how this plays out.