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Ask HN: Why do companies outside the US pay so much less?

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Re: Ask HN: Why do companies outside the US pay so much less?

#201

Post by mywittyname »

closeparen wrote: post #127
bgia wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employers in the US do the same thing. On top of your salary they pay ~7% for your retirement (social security, the public retirement), then taxes for your unemployment and a bunch of state taxes, and if you work in tech they pay for your health insurance (the one at my previous employer was $600/month). Usually they will also match money you'll put into your private retirement account. That's usually another $7-9k i…

Money paid into social security is only for your retirement if you're scheduled to retire before social security is scheduled to become insolvent. You're not encouraged to rely on public unemployment insurance - the standard financial planning advice is to save and maintain 6 months of expenses in a liquid account. If the public retirement and unemployment systems in other countries are actually sufficient, so you do…

> Money paid into social security is only for your retirement if you're scheduled to retire before social security is scheduled to become insolvent.

You'll get Social Security benefits after retirement for as long as the SSA is around. It may not be the exact that dollar your employer is putting away for you now, but you'll get back something.

Re: Ask HN: Why do companies outside the US pay so much less?

#202

Post by cwcwcw »

Shanea93 wrote: post #152
234dd57d2c8dba wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the great thing about the internet, if you like France, stay in France! You can work anywhere. I prefer the USA compared to Europe because I can practice my favorite sport (competitive shooting) without any hassle. Each place has their pros and cons.

I've found that there are very few "remote-working" companies in the United States who consider applicants from outside of the US - most of them have an "must be eligible to work in the US" disclaimer.

I guess this is part of why I'm able to make this comparison; I'm a US citizen living in Europe, so I can apply for "able to work in the US" gigs as well as "able to work in Europe" ones.

Re: Ask HN: Why do companies outside the US pay so much less?

#203

Post by cwcwcw »

So a lot of the comments have argued the relative merits of one economy over another, or simply invoked "supply and demand" or "availability of capital" to explain the difference.

What I very often see in Europe isn't a marketplace of employers saying "We will pay X" and then finding a developer who will work for that. Rather, it often is a company desperate to hire a talented engineer, but when quoted a totally-not-outrageous-by-US-standards salary, respond with "Oh, we'd never pay that".

I suppose in some cases the employer literally couldn't pay that, but to me it seems more like there's some kind of cultural block, like "engineers make this amount and that's all there is to it".

Managers/executives don't seem to have any such restriction, again based on what I've been privy to, so I don't think that it's (completely) a case of just "salaries are lower here"

Re: Ask HN: Why do companies outside the US pay so much less?

#204

Post by sigi45 »

234dd57d2c8dba wrote: post #144
sigi45 wrote: post #55

I don't really care how much someone in USA earns. As a software engineere in germany you are earning good money. There are no killings in cities, affordable health care, high quality living standards, university costs 150$ for 6 month, no donald trump, 30 days real holiday (i take them, everyone does, every year), seldom over hours, parental leave. Btw. IT is more than google, apple, facebook and twitter. And no we…

You act like everyone in the USA has to wear body armor, has to set broken bones themselves and lives in tent cities. I have amazing dental, health, and eyecare. Free routine health checkups such as physicals, heck I even get a free gym membership. I drive a 350HP luxury sedan. Oh and I've never shot anyone, had to shoot anyone, or been the victim of a crime other than petty theft where my car was broken into one tim…

You know my main point was, that it doesn't matter at all for me to go to usa to work there only because the figures are 'higher'.

You counter argued nearly every point but not about my 30 days holiday every year and the overhours. Why?

Re: Ask HN: Why do companies outside the US pay so much less?

#205

Post by sigi45 »

sremani wrote: post #77
sigi45 wrote: post #55

I don't really care how much someone in USA earns. As a software engineere in germany you are earning good money. There are no killings in cities, affordable health care, high quality living standards, university costs 150$ for 6 month, no donald trump, 30 days real holiday (i take them, everyone does, every year), seldom over hours, parental leave. Btw. IT is more than google, apple, facebook and twitter. And no we…

>> university costs 150$ for 6 month. This is not a German miracle, its simple demographics, most of the Germans are in their productive years of 40s and 50s and their population in teens and 20s is tiny, so their investments are low even though at per-capita level they look tremendous. This is the reason why Germany's hope is automation. They are demographically not in a great place. of course, this will come home t…

Yeah but there is a counterargument: We don't need more young people because the bip (Gross domestic product) per person is increasing as well. Lets see what will happen :)

Re: Ask HN: Why do companies outside the US pay so much less?

#206

Post by sigi45 »

synicalx wrote: post #104
sigi45 wrote: post #55

I don't really care how much someone in USA earns. As a software engineere in germany you are earning good money. There are no killings in cities, affordable health care, high quality living standards, university costs 150$ for 6 month, no donald trump, 30 days real holiday (i take them, everyone does, every year), seldom over hours, parental leave. Btw. IT is more than google, apple, facebook and twitter. And no we…

> There are no killings in cities I mean yeah if you ignore all the people shooting up malls, attacking people with machetes, driving trucks into crowds etc, Germany's a really peaceful place.

Yeah it is.

Why the heck do i have to read such stupid comment @hn? Do you really mean this or did you just use it as a troll counter argument?

Re: Ask HN: Why do companies outside the US pay so much less?

#207

Post by mywittyname »

schmichael wrote: post #200
acchow wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop trying to own. Just rent.

This is generally terrible advice in the US. The tax breaks for ownership (mortgage interest + property taxes) is huge, and it is likely - although far from guaranteed - that your real estate investment will become more valuable over time. Rent - generally - never goes down, you have no tax breaks, and you have no asset. There are many lifestyle reasons to rent but few financial (in the US).

This has been argued ad nauseam, but there absolutely are financial reasons to rent, especially in cheaper regions.

My yearly rent is twice what the property taxes alone would be on the condos across the street. I considered getting one of them, but after doing the numbers, it didn't make since. After interest, taxes, maintenance, and HOA fees, there's no way these people are coming out ahead until they've been there 10+ years.

It's all well-and-good that some of that is tax deductible, but the standard deduction on a couple is still more than taxes+interest on a 250k loan. So it really doesn't matter unless you have many more deductions.

Now go from the mid-west to a west coast boom city, and you'd be a fool not to buy.

Re: Ask HN: Why do companies outside the US pay so much less?

#208

Post by omouse »

Eridrus wrote: post #186
nasalgoat wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've had Canadian VCs tell us it was too risky to invest in internet startups. Full stop.

They're not really wrong though. Unless you really know what you're doing you will lose money, as evidenced by the fact that most VCs do in fact lose money and venture as an asset class sucks.

They aren't wrong but salaries are too low; you can't really bootstrap unless you're doing a side business and then you're effectively working two jobs. There's no YC in Canada or at least it's harder to get some funding.

Re: Ask HN: Why do companies outside the US pay so much less?

#209

Post by tedmiston »

alimw wrote: post #146
tedmiston wrote: post #93

Five things: 1. We are taxed on income heavily in the US. 2. Insurance is expensive here. 3. In the hubs, rent is very expensive. Take-home pay after considering these three things is a lot less than you might think. And also: 4. Generalizing the salary of positions across the whole US is misleading. An average engineering job in the midwest or outside of a hub can pay half the salary of SF or NYC. 5. It really depen…

> 1. We are taxed on income heavily in the US. I was surprised at this so I looked it up. From the article [1] it looks as if income tax in the US is lower than in most of Europe. But yes, higher than Russia, Saudi Arabia or Mexico. [1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26327114

There are a couple issues with that article.

1. "For each country, they calculated how much a high earner on a salary of $400,000..."

That number is way higher than programmer salaries. Most programmers are high earners but not that high.

2. It assumes a constant salary amount in any country, but this isn't reality.

If someone makes $250k as a programmer in the US, it might equate to $100k–125k in another country. US tax rates are tiered (see "Marginal Tax Rate" at [1]), so someone that makes $250k pays more than double the taxes of $125k.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_State...

Re: Ask HN: Why do companies outside the US pay so much less?

#210

Post by alimw »

tedmiston wrote: post #209
alimw wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. We are taxed on income heavily in the US. I was surprised at this so I looked it up. From the article [1] it looks as if income tax in the US is lower than in most of Europe. But yes, higher than Russia, Saudi Arabia or Mexico. [1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26327114

There are a couple issues with that article. 1. "For each country, they calculated how much a high earner on a salary of $400,000..." That number is way higher than programmer salaries. Most programmers are high earners but not that high. 2. It assumes a constant salary amount in any country, but this isn't reality. If someone makes $250k as a programmer in the US, it might equate to $100k–125k in another country. US…

If you scroll down a bit further, you should find that both your points are addressed in the second set of figures. US tax rates looking even lower there.
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