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In my (albeit unusual, privileged) experience as a highly paid tech worker, vacations/healthcare are not bad in the US... I've had more vacation days, and much
by mcntsh 3y ago
In my (albeit unusual, privileged) experience as a highly paid tech worker, vacations/healthcare are not bad in the US... I've had more vacation days, and much better access to healthcare (for a cheaper price) in the US. Also the wealth differential is astronomical.
- dragonwriter 3y ago> In my (albeit unusual, privileged) experience as a highly paid tech worker, vacations/healthcare are not bad in the US... Healthcare and vacations in the US are often reasonable for the developed world if you are, e.g., a highly-paid tech worker or other elite worker or, in some jurisdictions, a public sector worker (especially one with many years in, for vacations) For the other, oh, 80% of the US working population, though, that's not true.
- mcntsh 3y agoRight, I'm just speaking for the "highly skilled" working class here. To put it into perspective, in Germany you might make 4k/month as a highly educated, highly skilled worker with years of experience. Even if you work remote (most don't) you won't be able to find a decent small house even in the middle of nowhere below 500k.
- pillefitz 3y agoAfter tax, healthcare and pension, I make 80k Euros as a highly skilled tech worker in Germany. Living expenses including rent amount up to 20k per year, so I save 60k per year. Paying off a nice house therefore takes around 10 years, which is not bad at all. I recently visited the US and haven't been happier to be a EU citizen in a long time, tbh.
- mcntsh 3y agoSo you make 140k+ a year? That's an extremely high salary for Germany, you must be in the top 1-2% of earners in the country. Going by levels FYI, this would put you in the 95th percentile, the equivalent in NYC would be $400,000. Which is nuts combined with your 20k/yr living expenses. When did you get your apartment, 2009?
- pillefitz 3y agoYes, that's right. Unfortunately I don't own any property. Rent is around 1500-1800eur a month for a two person appartment in a bigger city
- dragonwriter 3y agoSo you make 140k+ a year? He said he made 80k Euros ($84.5k) and save 60k euros from that. Where do you get 140k+?
- mcntsh 3y ago80k net is around 140k gross.
- atomicUpdate 3y agoYou’re ignoring the “after tax” at the very beginning of his statement.
- gen220 3y agoJust for reference, converting to USD $150k be in the top 6-7% of earners in the U.S. in 2022. Taxation rates vary widely. I budget for ⅓ off the top, living in NYC (this is an overestimate, but common practice) for a post-tax income of $100k. High income geographies are correlated with high tax rates in the U.S., too. Anyways, all this to say that U.S. post-tax-post-benefits income is not wildly different from the E.U. Maybe the main difference is that you can work as a freelancer, expense everything, and effectively opt-out of health insurance, and take home more salary. But if you're salaried and in tech in the top quartile of the labor market, post-tax savings is pretty much the same in western EU vs U.S. There's no 10x difference in wages, (excluding equity performance, which is not a tax/benefits policy issue). In general, E.U. citizens I know who have come to the U.S. do it because the businesses here are more interesting and have more upside (i.e. the aforementioned equity upside component). If they're making bigger heaps of money, it's because of startup equity comp, not because of tax or benefits policies.
- mcntsh 3y ago
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago>After tax, healthcare and pension, I make 80k Euros as a highly skilled tech worker in Germany. That's insanely high post-tax salary for Germany. Most aren't making that before-tax. You're an exceptionably rare circumstance that's far from the norm.
- pillefitz 3y agoI wouldn't call it insanely high, given that my baseline is tech jobs. As a freelancer, you make around 800-1000$ a day working for bigger German companies, and the bar to become one is not very high from my experience on both sides of the table. For internal employees the ceiling is at around 120k for senior engineers, above that you need to go into middle management territory or be an EM equivalent.
- woobar 3y agoHow did you get 80%?
- slaw 3y agoHe pulled it out of his ass?
- bandyaboot 3y agoI’m guessing it was an intuited number since the subject was an undefined standard of reasonableness that would be a matter of personal opinion and experience. Since it’s impossible to assign a definitive number to such a thing, most people would assume that that’s not what the writer is attempting to do.
- woobar 3y agoI wanted to understand the reasoning behind a comment like this. There are great wiggle words (most, significant amount, etc) that let one pretend they are objective. But the GP went for a very precise number without substantiating it in any way.