> Also, please, bear in mind that you cannot directly compare US and EU salaries. Your 80k€ gross in e.g. France should be the equivalent of $150k for a US worker; if you account for the same level of medical care and retirement savings. Not much of a difference after you realise this.
What makes you think that? As to retirement savings, American retirement payments replace 70% of working income on average, versus 60% in France: https://www.etk.fi/wp-content/uploads/PaG2017EN.jpg. The US retirement system is one of the better ones in the OECD. Like the U.K., Germany, Netherlands, and Sweden, the U.S. has a two-pillar system, with a public pillar and a defined contribution (i.e. 401k) pillar. The public system alone pays out about as much in absolute terms as in France. (60% of French pre-retirement income ~= 40% of US per-retirement income.) Adding in the tax-advantaged defined-contribution component (but excluding other private investment income) makes the total income replacement one of the highest in the OECD.
Of course, at the end of the day, a programmer is going to be a “net contributor” to the retirement system in both countries. The French person will pay (percentage wise) much higher social insurance tax to get a bigger (percentage wise) public pension check, while the American person will make a 401k contribution plus a lower social insurance tax. At the end of the day, that doesn’t have any effect on the comparison of 80k euros being less than $150k, because retirement savings will come out of both numbers.
As to healthcare, programmers are going to be among the 65% of American workers who get healthcare through their employer. That means that, on top of their salary, they get additional compensation in the form of employer-paid healthcare premiums. Meanwhile, the French person will pay for healthcare in the form of higher taxes out of that 80k euros. Although Americans spend twice as much on healthcare as French, that isn’t relevant to this comparison, because for the American the additional part is paid by the employer on top of the $150k. It’s not something you subtract out. (Put differently, the 80k euros versus 150k comparison understates the difference, because the American salary includes $10-15k in additional health benefits.)
Finally, cost of living is about the same in France as in the US.
