> Having to spend half your available income for things that are automatically taken on your salary in Europe is _the_ major reason Americans are paid considera

> Having to spend half your available income for things that are automatically taken on your salary in Europe is _the_ major reason Americans are paid considerably more, with "US tech companies and VCs have so much money they don't give a damn about salary" as a close second. I don’t think you can name many things here that the American tech workers have to spend on, that are included in typical European social benefits package. For example, if you were thinking about healthcare, you would be very wrong, as American tech workers spend very small fraction of their pay on healthcare, smaller than a typical European tech worker.