3 ms·

> Where did you get this figure? https://www.payscale.com/research/DE/Job=Registered_Nurse_(RN)/Salary https://www.payscale.com/research/DE/Job=Registered_Nurs

by Amezarak 11mo ago

> Where did you get this figure? https://www.payscale.com/research/DE/Job=Registered_Nurse_(RN)/Salary https://www.payscale.com/research/DE/Job=Registered_Nurse_(R... I am happy to accept your figure of "slightly more than half" for the sake of this discussion. > Mind you, half of socialized costs, like health insurance is payed by the employer, so you need to adjust figures accordingly. Nurses in the US also have half (or more) of costs like health insurance paid for by their employer - in that particular case, almost always much more than half. Half of Social Security retirement tax is paid for by the employer, but additional retirement payments beyond Social Security are usually much less than half. We can probably safely call this a wash. > It's of course a totally ridiculous comparison without adjusting for living costs, etc.. Germany has overall notoriously high living costs. For instance, the electric rate my German friend is paying in east Germany is 4x(!!!![1]) my rate in the US, and she and her husband pay much more for a small apartment than I do a large house. On top of this, German housing often comes ludicrously unfurnished - most Americans would be surprised to learn that renters are often expected to provide their own kitchen. Germany certainly does not win out on housing costs. Nurses are underpaid. Pay nurses more. [1] I used to be baffled as to why Germans typically have no AC, only small appliances, often no clothesdryer, etc. Then after learning this I realized that for an average person, running American-style appliances would be totally unaffordable. Even lower class Americans will happily blow hundreds of dollars keeping their house at 60F in 95F degree heat while cooking in their electric oven and running their electric clothesdryer. While this results in "high" bills around $400 here, that'd be $1600 in Germany. You couldn't live like an American there. Even my personal "high" bills which sometimes approach $200 would cause me to cut back severely - $800 would be way too much.

jijijijij 11mo ago
Jesus, you people are certainly something... > We can probably safely call this a wash. Does it tho? Cause in Germany there are no deductibles or co-pay. How many hours do your nurses work for the money? How man vacation days are included. Btw. the median income in Germany is 52,159 Euro. > Germany has overall notoriously high living costs. According to this site, US is 21% more expensive than Germany: https://www.mylifeelsewhere.com/cost-of-living/germany/united-states https://www.mylifeelsewhere.com/cost-of-living/germany/unite... > I used to be baffled as to why Germans typically have no AC, only small appliances, often no clothesdryer, etc. Then after learning this I realized that for an average person, running American-style appliances would be totally unaffordable. Are you comparing Idaho to Germany? Cause Californians have to pay more for electricity than Germans. 0.23€/kWh is the current price for electricity in Germany. We don't have ACs, because we got well insulated homes and live in a rather cold climate. Modern houses are equipped with heat pumps which can do both. Yes, we now widely heat houses with unaffordable electricity! https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/info/Strompreis-aktuell-So-viel-kosten-die-Kilowattstunden,strompreis182.html https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/info/Strompreis-aktuell-So-vi...
- Amezarak 11mo ago
  > Does it tho? Cause in Germany there are no deductibles or co-pay. By the time we're quibbling about deductibles and co-pay, we're not talking about meaningful differences - and of course, it can vary widely. However, when your employer is the medical system, your insurance is usually pretty good. > How many hours do your nurses work for the money? 36-40 hours is a typical workweek. Around here, it's 36 hours. > How man vacation days are included This is, as well-known, not federally mandated, and can vary widely. Leave is also often lumped into many different categories. A look at my local, poor rural hospital system says they get 200 hours of PTO a year starting out, or five weeks, plus holidays. > 0.23€/kWh is the current price for electricity in Germany Maybe something has changed. This was what I looked at, and that's not what my friend is paying right now. It's only twice as high as California, which is not representative of the US as a whole. https://www.bundesbank.de/resource/blob/862768/b159d13929f1740e66f7d2d94d3fab14/472B63F073F071307366337C94F8C870/r0540-data.png https://www.bundesbank.de/resource/blob/862768/b159d13929f17... > We don't have ACs, because we got well insulated homes and live in a rather cold climate. Yes, and having an AC would put a stop to the German obsession with opening windows to stop mold from forming. But even though climate control would be very convenient even if most of the time it's not necessary, Germans don't have it because they can't afford it. Because professions like nursing are paid too little. Why is there such resistance to just paying people more? How on earth does it make more sense to import people to pump up the labor supply, suppressing wages, so that you have to continue to import people, because there's no reason for a German to go into a low-paid field with a bad work environment?
  - jijijijij 11mo ago
    > 36-40 hours is a typical workweek. Around here, it's 36 hours. Didn't expect that, tbh. Not bad. > Why is there such resistance to just paying people more? Because I said elsewhere, nurses are mostly happy with their wages, it's the hospital management and de facto working conditions which suck. Higher wages won't fix these working conditions.
    - Amezarak 11mo ago
      We're talking in circles. The way you attract people into a field despite poor management and working conditions is higher wages. That's the basic foundational truth of labor economics. Simply importing people who are desperate for even a below-market (in Germany) wage means that there is no economic incentive for conditions to improve or for wages to rise, and that your own pipeline will continue to dry up, leaving you totally dependent on foreign labor. Aside from any other issues with migrant labor, what happens when that dries up? This is an extremely foolish, shortsighted policy that can be solved by the simple expedient of paying people more.

jijijijij 11mo ago

Jesus, you people are certainly something... > We can probably safely call this a wash. Does it tho? Cause in Germany there are no deductibles or co-pay. How many hours do your nurses work for the money? How man vacation days are included. Btw. the median income in Germany is 52,159 Euro. > Germany has overall notoriously high living costs. According to this site, US is 21% more expensive than Germany: https://www.mylifeelsewhere.com/cost-of-living/germany/united-states https://www.mylifeelsewhere.com/cost-of-living/germany/unite... > I used to be baffled as to why Germans typically have no AC, only small appliances, often no clothesdryer, etc. Then after learning this I realized that for an average person, running American-style appliances would be totally unaffordable. Are you comparing Idaho to Germany? Cause Californians have to pay more for electricity than Germans. 0.23€/kWh is the current price for electricity in Germany. We don't have ACs, because we got well insulated homes and live in a rather cold climate. Modern houses are equipped with heat pumps which can do both. Yes, we now widely heat houses with unaffordable electricity! https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/info/Strompreis-aktuell-So-viel-kosten-die-Kilowattstunden,strompreis182.html https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/info/Strompreis-aktuell-So-vi...

Amezarak 11mo ago
> Does it tho? Cause in Germany there are no deductibles or co-pay. By the time we're quibbling about deductibles and co-pay, we're not talking about meaningful differences - and of course, it can vary widely. However, when your employer is the medical system, your insurance is usually pretty good. > How many hours do your nurses work for the money? 36-40 hours is a typical workweek. Around here, it's 36 hours. > How man vacation days are included This is, as well-known, not federally mandated, and can vary widely. Leave is also often lumped into many different categories. A look at my local, poor rural hospital system says they get 200 hours of PTO a year starting out, or five weeks, plus holidays. > 0.23€/kWh is the current price for electricity in Germany Maybe something has changed. This was what I looked at, and that's not what my friend is paying right now. It's only twice as high as California, which is not representative of the US as a whole. https://www.bundesbank.de/resource/blob/862768/b159d13929f1740e66f7d2d94d3fab14/472B63F073F071307366337C94F8C870/r0540-data.png https://www.bundesbank.de/resource/blob/862768/b159d13929f17... > We don't have ACs, because we got well insulated homes and live in a rather cold climate. Yes, and having an AC would put a stop to the German obsession with opening windows to stop mold from forming. But even though climate control would be very convenient even if most of the time it's not necessary, Germans don't have it because they can't afford it. Because professions like nursing are paid too little. Why is there such resistance to just paying people more? How on earth does it make more sense to import people to pump up the labor supply, suppressing wages, so that you have to continue to import people, because there's no reason for a German to go into a low-paid field with a bad work environment?
- jijijijij 11mo ago
  > 36-40 hours is a typical workweek. Around here, it's 36 hours. Didn't expect that, tbh. Not bad. > Why is there such resistance to just paying people more? Because I said elsewhere, nurses are mostly happy with their wages, it's the hospital management and de facto working conditions which suck. Higher wages won't fix these working conditions.
  - Amezarak 11mo ago
    We're talking in circles. The way you attract people into a field despite poor management and working conditions is higher wages. That's the basic foundational truth of labor economics. Simply importing people who are desperate for even a below-market (in Germany) wage means that there is no economic incentive for conditions to improve or for wages to rise, and that your own pipeline will continue to dry up, leaving you totally dependent on foreign labor. Aside from any other issues with migrant labor, what happens when that dries up? This is an extremely foolish, shortsighted policy that can be solved by the simple expedient of paying people more.