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>Now compare your cousin’s yearly salary in Belgium with the average salary of a US employee doing the same job. Take home is about the same after including he
by callmeal 3mo ago
>Now compare your cousin’s yearly salary in Belgium with the average salary of a US employee doing the same job.
Take home is about the same after including health insurance and all the myriad taxes that US employees are subject to.
- smsm42 3mo agoNo, that's not true. Most companies offer at least HDHP plans either fully covered or at minimal cost. HDHP plans, by nature, have high deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums, but usually well under $10k per year. So for a typical case, unless there's some catastrophic expense not covered by any insurance, the difference can't be more than $10k per year. The difference between typical compensation for a seasoned SW engineer is much more than that, even before taking options & stock into account. In the US $150-200k is pretty common for a seasoned engineer. In Belgium, you'd look at around E100-110k from what I could find online. And I don't think Belgium has lower tax burden overall. So the health insurance alone doesn't come close to covering the gap.
- callmeal 3mo ago>So the health insurance alone doesn't come close to covering the gap. You're right - I was also including all the other taxes - SS/Medicare/Unemployment/State/city etc. For ex: someone living in NYC, with 150-200k would be paying a total effective rate of about 35% (breakdown of 24% Fed, 6% SS, 1.5% Medicare, 9% NYS + 3% NYC). Add in health insurance of around 6% and you're close to what EU employee would take home.