Poland is now among the 20 largest economies • Hacker News Board

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#751

Post by dhosek » Fri, May 08, 2026, 9:51 PM UTC

scyzoryk_xyz wrote: post #629

somenameforme wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious what this means in real terms from the perspective of a Pole. GDP/capita is often a relatively useless metric in modern times. For instance Ireland has one of the highest GDP/capitas in the world -- around 50% higher than the US. But that's because of economic games with their working as a tax haven to enable corporations to avoid paying taxes to their home countries. It doesn't translate to anything for…

As a Polish millenial the perspective is a rollercoaster. In one way the transformation of absolutely everything over and over and over is mind blowing in a positive way. OTOH we're also all paranoid running on what feels like a never ending hamster wheel of inflation, raises and mortgages. And then Gen-Z's feel straight get up locked out of everything. We visit western European countries and it's like WTF it's cheap…

Just as a quick note, the “second world” would have been the Eastern Bloc countries, so by definition, living in Poland in the 80s would have been 2nd-world conditions.

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#752

Post by dhosek » Fri, May 08, 2026, 9:55 PM UTC

mejutoco wrote: post #743

rayiner wrote: post #693

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends what you’re using the data for. If you’re comparing across countries, or looking at a developing country over time, it’s a relatively small factor. The ratio between the average and the median isn’t that big even in the U.S. (about 1.3). Meanwhile, Poland’s GDP per capita has tripled since 2005: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?location... .

> The ratio between the average and the median isn’t that big even in the U.S. (about 1.3) Being off by 30% might not matter for some usages, but it is not a small amount. It seems the median is more accurate to report and we agree.

I don’t know that there is any way to calculate a median value of GDP/capita. You can look at income distributions and find a median income and compare that to a mean income, which could allow an estimation, but beyond that, GDP is an intrinsically composite number which cannot be easily (at all?) broken down to individual contributions. I assume income is what the parent commenter is basing the median-mean comparison on, but it’s kind of out of nowhere with no explanation.

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#753

Post by decimalenough » Fri, May 08, 2026, 9:59 PM UTC

unmole wrote: post #523

wussboy wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe. But I don't think you will find any of those things without strong democracy.

Singapore says hi.

Singapore is a "managed democracy". The PAP plays dirty, but if they genuinely stopped delivering the goods, they would get voted out.

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#754

Post by trhway » Fri, May 08, 2026, 10:02 PM UTC

scyzoryk_xyz wrote: post #629

somenameforme wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious what this means in real terms from the perspective of a Pole. GDP/capita is often a relatively useless metric in modern times. For instance Ireland has one of the highest GDP/capitas in the world -- around 50% higher than the US. But that's because of economic games with their working as a tax haven to enable corporations to avoid paying taxes to their home countries. It doesn't translate to anything for…

As a Polish millenial the perspective is a rollercoaster. In one way the transformation of absolutely everything over and over and over is mind blowing in a positive way. OTOH we're also all paranoid running on what feels like a never ending hamster wheel of inflation, raises and mortgages. And then Gen-Z's feel straight get up locked out of everything. We visit western European countries and it's like WTF it's cheap…

>We visit western European countries and it's like WTF it's cheaper here?

Warsaw is the only place in Europe where a casual search out of curiosity brought 15-20K euro/month developer positions.

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#755

Post by dismalaf » Fri, May 08, 2026, 10:03 PM UTC

comrade1234 wrote: post #42

I spent some time in Poland for work about 10 years ago. I remember the cities being very expensive and chic - on par with Paris, Berlin, etc but when you got out of the cities (my project was in Bydgoszcz) it's a completely different world - poor, rundown, etc. would be curious how it is now and also where most of the Ukrainian refugees settled.

I haven't been to Poland but have a second home in Czech Republic (my wife's country) which has the same phenomenon. It has nothing to do with economics or poverty and everything to do with people. Young people move to where the jobs are which means the larger towns and cities (this happens worldwide BTW). This means old villages are entirely inhabited by old people, most of whom only worked during the days of communism. They can't and won't change. They don't want to renovate or live in a new house. So the village gets run down. Canada (where I was born) also has run down towns and even ghost-towns, you'll just never see them. In Europe secondary highways pass through every town it seems, so you do see them.

My wife's grandma, now in her 90's, lives in a >100 year old farmhouse that's crumbling and only 1/3 of the home is even heated. Hell installing the electric heaters and indoor toilet involved a ton of arm-twisting. She's been insisting she'll die any day for the last decade and refuses to move or renovate. Meanwhile my wife's cousin lives in the same town (is a remote worker) and lives in a super-modern new home that's built to a much higher standard than the average new home in Canada. Old people are just stubborn...

Anyhow the point is that things only get renovated when the owner wants to renovate it, it has nothing to do with wealth. In the city, land is worth $$$ so inevitably it gets bought and improved. In small towns, meh...

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#756

Post by mrsvanwinkle » Fri, May 08, 2026, 10:11 PM UTC

I am simply so happy for them. I used to have insomnia and in a music filesharing hub mostly Euros are awake around midnight Singapore time, so had so many online Euro friends mostly from Poland, Finland, Sweden, and especially Romania. It is from my Polish friends that I learned of so many great artists and authors, Beksinski and the nobel laureate Wislawa among many others. I memorized the Polish anthem once but I just know the first line now, Marsz, Marsz, Dabrowski! Polish diaspora especially Polish Americans are just too cool too, Mark Z Danielewski is a favorite.

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#757

Post by Byamarro » Fri, May 08, 2026, 10:13 PM UTC

niemandhier wrote: post #76

I love the polish, but credit where credit is due: „Poland is the largest beneficiary of EU funds 2014-2020, with one in four euro going to Poland“ https://www.gov.pl/web/funds-regional-policy/poland-at-the-f... Update: The comments below this are strange. I ment: „Poland gets money, Poland transforms it into more money”. Is Poland more efficient in it than other countries? I do not know. Would Poland have generated…

This is no charity, this money largerly comes back to the countries that are biggest spenders on these funds. It's basically an equivalent of FDI

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#758

Post by thegreatwhale8 » Fri, May 08, 2026, 10:19 PM UTC

badpun wrote: post #659

avgDev wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of dev salaries are you seeing in Poland? I have family in Poland, they are from smaller villages and they ALWAYS complain about EU and the economy. I wonder if things are similar in large cities.

Typical salary for a senior dev is around 20-30k PLN per month, which translates to $65k-$100k per year (gross). Also, a lot of devs do a little bit of tax avoidance that is currently not persecuted, which allows them to pay total taxes below 20% on that amount. So, your take-home pay is $50k-$80k.

This website says Senior Java Developer is 20kPLN-27k PLN (64k USD per year after taxes) (employment contract) and 25k PLN-30k PLN if you agree to lose employee rights.

https://bulldogjob.com/it-report/salaries/java

30k PLN per month on employment contract would be 71k usd per year after taxes

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#759

Post by Leonard_of_Q » Fri, May 08, 2026, 10:20 PM UTC

scotty79 wrote: post #697

kleiba2 wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this is Poland for you. everyone complains about everything Must be the proximity to Germany...

It's quite incredible how close Poland and Germany are culturally. And how unaware both countries are about this.

Are they really unaware or do they actively deny the cultural connections? Prussia was a thing not that long ago - it is still used as a slang term for Germans in parts of the Netherlands ("de Pruisen" of "die Preußen"). Anyone who had a bit of history or who has looked at an older map sees that Prussia was divided between what is now Germany and Poland. Of course both countries went through a lot of upheaval between then and now but there's still plenty of people alive who will remember living in Prussia.

Re: Poland is now among the 20 largest economies

#760

Post by pure_magic » Fri, May 08, 2026, 10:23 PM UTC

idontwantthis wrote: post #412

Can anyone tell me what impact their whole government dying at once in a plane crash had on this? Would they probably be doing better or worse if those people had stayed in power? Was that a significant factor in this?

In Poland, we have a president and a parliament, with parliament holding most of the power. It was the president who died in the crash, and he was most likely going to lose the upcoming re-election later that year. In short, I don’t think it changed much.