A part of the gap can be explained by the way that work is organized in the US compared to Europe. Let's compare e.g. Germany and the USA: https://data.oecd.org/germany.htm https://data.oecd.org/united-states.htm If you scroll down to the Economic indicators, you will see that on average people in the US work around 1.700 hours a year, whereas people in Germany (and many other European countries) work only 1.400 hour…
My wage in the US is about 3 times what I'd be making home in France. 3 times. Trust me I'm not working 3 times as many hours as my friends over there. Actually it's quite the opposite.
I'm guessing you don't get 6 weeks vacation either.
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.
These percentages are misleading because they don't paint the full picture. Especially considering insurance and rent.
Your salary is irrelevant. What matters is your buying power in the country you live. Plus safety, health, vacation time, racism, culture etc. etc. It is a complex issue. In the same way that choosing a job based on salary only is a big mistake.
Same here. This might be one route to consider: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DAFT
Thanks for this. I'm sure it's not quite as scary as it sounds, but the only thing I can think of that's more challenging than "start a business" is "start a business in a new country where you don't know the language." The "friendship treaty" seems like a great idea, but right now I'm not a very good friend.
I have friends who've moved to the NL via DAFT. You'd probably do well to hire an accountant who can deal with the tax authorities (who are the only branch of gov't that will not speak English to you), but the business doesn't necessarily need to cater only to Dutch speakers.
And while it's nice to learn the language and all, the NL has among the highest English competency in Europe. It's rather difficult to learn Dutch because English is so useful and prevalent.
Generally speaking good healthcare (insurance) is going to cover the majority of the cost of the drugs for the person that has it.
Yes, assuming one remains employed and still has this great employer-paid health insurance while needing this hypothetical $70k/year drug while fighting leukemia. I really do wonder though, since there's zero guarantee in the US that one would remain employed through all of this.
Hum, I don't know how the system works in the US, but in France a lot of money is taken from the salary to cover for health insurance, unemployment insurance and retirement plan. Plus we have 5 weeks paid vacation automatically included. And I think cost of life is lower than in the US, even in Paris which is the more expensive area. To go with numbers, I currently earn 50k€ per year (gross), which makes for 3k€ per…
I envy your positive attitude. 3k€ of disposable salary per month in a huge European metropolis like Paris seems very low to me. That's roughly what a web developer with 3-5 years of experience can get in a mid-sized (400-600k) city here in Poland and the prices of virtually everything are way lower. 700eur can get you a nice 2-3 bedroom apartment in a very downtown of such city and transport, food, groceries, restaurants, cinema tickets are probably all 2-3 times cheaper than in Paris. I personally feel developers in big cities of Spain, France and Italy are getting screwed big time comparing with their counterparts in US or other places in Europe and even Asia.
I don't really care how much someone in USA earns. As a software engineere in germany you are earning good money. There are no killings in cities, affordable health care, high quality living standards, university costs 150$ 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…
This is such a weird reply. If you are talking about where you'd rather live, then it makes sense to talk about all things given you like your choice.
However, that's not the discussion. Wouldn't it be more productive to say "how were american engineers able to get so well paid, and how can we emulate that in Europe?"
I also work remotely for a US company, but live in the Philippines right now. It's quite inexpensive to live here on the US dollar. Now, the big difference between your situation and mine is that I'm in a developing country that is struggling to become modern in the sense you're referring to and that developers are accustomed to. So I pay a premium for fiber internet fast enough to enable remote work, and I'm healthy…
I think the infrastructure is a major reason to choose Eastern Europe. Internet speeds are actually better than they are in the U.K. I spent six weeks in Morocco last spring and it was a constant struggle to find consistent connectivity. Healthcare is another reason: as a U.K. Citizen, I get free healthcare anyway, and that extends for most treatments to EU counties too. When I do have to pay for medical treatment, i…
Your comment about internet speed is interesting. Why do you think it's faster in Eastern Europe than in the UK?
A possibly flawed analogy follows: Hollywood is the biggest city in the world for acting, followed by New York, and maybe Vancouver is in third place. I'm pretty sure people working as actors in any of those three cities are going to be paid more than actors working elsewhere, because there's greater demand in Hollywood/NYC/Vancouver than there is Omaha, Nebraska. The biggest cities for software are San Francisco, Bo…
There's also video game industry, which produces software, and traditionally the only kind of software normal people enjoy using to the point of getting emulators for. It's a little more distributed: http://www.gameindustrycareerguide.com/best-cities-for-video... I'm surprised SF comes up so much still. Isn't the rent an existential threat to the industry?
The rent is a minor expense if it gets you access to a competitive labor market and venture capital you otherwise would not have.
Plus, I imagine that many of those studios may have gotten their start before things like Unity and Steam made it possible for anybody with enough time on their hands to make and publish their own games very inexpensively.
Hum, I don't know how the system works in the US, but in France a lot of money is taken from the salary to cover for health insurance, unemployment insurance and retirement plan. Plus we have 5 weeks paid vacation automatically included. And I think cost of life is lower than in the US, even in Paris which is the more expensive area. To go with numbers, I currently earn 50k€ per year (gross), which makes for 3k€ per…
I envy your positive attitude. 3k€ of disposable salary per month in a huge European metropolis like Paris seems very low to me. That's roughly what a web developer with 3-5 years of experience can get in a mid-sized (400-600k) city here in Poland and the prices of virtually everything are way lower. 700eur can get you a nice 2-3 bedroom apartment in a very downtown of such city and transport, food, groceries, restau…
Well, maybe, I don't know, my only data points are personal experience and testimonies, which are not really the best building blocks for fully informed opinions.
However, I'd argue that this depends a lot on what you value in life. If I get paid less than someone for the same job, but that "less" is already way enough to live my life in full, am I really screwed?
I don't know. I think that yes, I am screwed if that makes me jealous and pushes me to want stuff I don't need for the sake of it.
As I said, I'd rather take more time over more money.
Or I'd be satisfied if I knew that additionnal wealth was given where it's useful.
In my opinion, race to more and more personal wealth is damaging.
But that's just my opinion, on an absolute scale, I may be putting in the same amount of work as others for less pay (aren't we all?), and that can be considered unfair, true. And it would surely bug me if the difference was high enough for me to struggle, so my 'positive attitude' may as well be just me not caring because I lack nothing anyway :/