But you also get half the salary, compared to the US. Taxes are probably on a similar level, but you get more for your taxes in France.
It’s not all good. As a single, somewhat ambitious guy living in Europe, I’m planning to move to the US, because building wealth in most of Europe is much harder, so you are effectively a slave of the system. You get a barely livable salary, you pay half of it to the taxman, and half of the remaining net salary in rent (or mortgage). If you are a single guy like me, you get barely anything in return. And since the European economy is struggling, and European governments are going all in on austerity, the situation regarding taxes and social benefits will only deteriorate.
PTO is nice, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. At the end of the day, I feel better having the freedom in the shape of $$$ in my pocket, compared to being at the mercy of a government, which I don’t fully trust, to treat me well.
Twice the salary for twice the work load isn’t more money.
I had a friend who got a NY white shoe law job. He was earning $250k walking in the door. But he slept under his desk pulling 100 hour work weeks and was always terrified of being let go for underperforming.
That’s not a better salary. That’s just 2.5 jobs earning $80k (which you can easily get with a JD pretty much anywhere).
Once he realized that, he quit and landed a job with normal hours earning twice as much per hour worked.
I feel you’re discarding the free education and Healthcare system you were able to enjoy (because it’s available for everyone) until you’ve decided you could do better for yourself by yourself.
As a single straight healthy educated white dude, yes you could probably do better for yourself in the US, it just takes forsaking the meaning of solidarity. As long you don’t do the usual thing of coming back to Europe whenever you’re sick / having children because “it’s just so expensive in the US and it’s harder to have a family life there”
Healthcare is not free. I pay 250€/month here in Germany, and I literally cannot even access it at all. I go to the doctor and get turned away. They have this shitty two tiered system where unless you have the private insurance or are a pensioner, you have to fight against a thousand bureaucratic dragons to get any service out of it.
University is not free either. I paid 500€/semester and had to source my own food and accommodation. And although I got a degree, you cannot really compare, even the top of the top of German universities with places like MIT or Stanford where you get so much prestige and networking opportunities. One has to compare apples to apples.
I am for both universal healthcare and education, but Americans need to understand that you aren’t going to get the American service for the European price point.
USA here. I like in one of the areas with the lowest cost to living in the USA (Kentucky). I just paid my daughter’s fall tuition to the University of Kentucky yesterday. It’s a state school which accepts 95% of those who apply. Average SAT ~1100. (My point, by no means is it a selective school.) Her tuition for one semester was $6851 or 6275 €. This does not include housing, food, or living expenses.
I don’t want to get into USA vs anyone else, as everyplace is different, with their own areas that make them stand out or not. However when it comes to post-secondary education and healthcare in terms of COST (not quality) the USA quantitatively lags well behind Western Europe.
This is becoming a fruitless discussion without getting into the specifics.
Here’s the thing, with my talent and experience, I could easily be earning 4x as much as I do here in Germany. I work in AI, it’s super hot right now. But here in Germany the only job for me is in the public sector, where I get paid like a lowly government employee. It’s completely ridiculous when compared to what my fellows in the US are earning. I earn around $45,000 of which I net $25,000 after taxes, of which $12,000 I pay in rent per year. And my benefits? A fixed two year contract. It’s not even a permanent position.
I have colleagues who decided to pay out of pocket some $120k to do an MSc. in California so they could access the tech network there and secure a job, and all of them are financially better off than I am.
AI companies in the USA are located is super expensive areas, I always wonder if the quality of life is actually better for these types of jobs.
There is also meta in Paris, Google in London, etc. have you considered that ?
I went to the cheapest public university I got into here in the US. An extremely standard university. I paid $10,000 per semester in tuition, not including books and fees. Do you really think American education is twenty times better?
I pay more than double that for my insurance, and they still deny care and determine which doctors I can see. I have to wait months to see specialists, and I have to spend $5,000 a year cash before insurance pays a dime.
And education at a public university can cost 10 grand a semester just for tuition. 500 euros wouldn’t cover a parking tag.
Stop lying. The majority of doctors here take public insurance and they dont turn you away when you have public insurance. You can even call your insurance and they help you get an appointment at a Facharzt.
I work in a big tech company, and there are probably interns in NY/Cali that get paid better than I do as an experienced engineer in the UK.
Most of the people I work with in NYC live like students, despite having a yearly salary that could probably cover a sizable chunk of a UK pension. I own a house and have enough saved to not need to work for several months, yet there are people that vastly outearn me in the US and still get fucked by healthcare costs, rent, house prices, etc.
I do understand that building wealth is tricky, but I think you’ll be extremely shocked at how high the costs are in some places, and how many people that do build wealth are rolling the dice on health insurance and not taking sick days/vacation. I’m considering a move to LA this year, and despite a high-band salary my life will likely be considerably worse, purely looking at the rent prices in/near Santa Monica…
You are thinking of walking to work? You’re going to be commuting like everyone else. That’s why everyone in LA is stuck in traffic. Or just work from home.
Income scales with cost of living. They’re only outliers by scale. They’re right in line with the marginal living conditions of Americans (living poor because costs outpace wages).
If you discount health care, transit, and education, ignore paid time off benefits, and try not to think about how much lead is in our drinking water? I guess.
Your employer usually pays your healthcare in both cases, US does have deductibles, and a very stupid system if you’re self-employed. But personally, being under 26, I’ve had a far better experience with US healthcare. I’ve been able to be treated, and my family members haven’t been neglected(not saying it doesn’t happen though). My partner was told he’d have to wait 6+ months to see a specialist for ear infection treatment when it didn’t go away after 1 round of anti-biotics in Europe. A relative of mine has to travel to the US for treatment that was deemed a waste in her home country, in the hospital she was staying in her whole wing was so neglected that their chamber pots were overflowing and they weren’t being properly fed. This was in a European capital city(Prague).
transit
Depends on the city, but a cheap 90s or 00s sedan generally won’t cost enough to make up for that extra 40-60%
education
I know a fair number of people who went to private highschools because they couldn’t even get into public ones. But its true uni is cheaper in Europe if you can get in- but its nowhere near a necessity.
and try not to think about how much lead is in our drinking water?
If you think you have lead in your drinking water, call your water company, they’ll probably send you a free test kit.
In the United States? That’s not true at all. Roughly half of American workers don’t get health insurance from the employer. And that’s before you consider folks who lose their jobs after suffering a medical emergency.
Bud, you’re in for a haaaaaaaaaaaarsh awakening if you think all of those negatives in your second paragraph isn’t exactly what the states are, magnified.
But you also get half the salary, compared to the US. Taxes are probably on a similar level, but you get more for your taxes in France.
It’s not all good. As a single, somewhat ambitious guy living in Europe, I’m planning to move to the US, because building wealth in most of Europe is much harder, so you are effectively a slave of the system. You get a barely livable salary, you pay half of it to the taxman, and half of the remaining net salary in rent (or mortgage). If you are a single guy like me, you get barely anything in return. And since the European economy is struggling, and European governments are going all in on austerity, the situation regarding taxes and social benefits will only deteriorate.
PTO is nice, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. At the end of the day, I feel better having the freedom in the shape of $$$ in my pocket, compared to being at the mercy of a government, which I don’t fully trust, to treat me well.
Twice the salary for twice the work load isn’t more money.
I had a friend who got a NY white shoe law job. He was earning $250k walking in the door. But he slept under his desk pulling 100 hour work weeks and was always terrified of being let go for underperforming.
That’s not a better salary. That’s just 2.5 jobs earning $80k (which you can easily get with a JD pretty much anywhere).
Once he realized that, he quit and landed a job with normal hours earning twice as much per hour worked.
I feel you’re discarding the free education and Healthcare system you were able to enjoy (because it’s available for everyone) until you’ve decided you could do better for yourself by yourself.
As a single straight healthy educated white dude, yes you could probably do better for yourself in the US, it just takes forsaking the meaning of solidarity. As long you don’t do the usual thing of coming back to Europe whenever you’re sick / having children because “it’s just so expensive in the US and it’s harder to have a family life there”
Healthcare is not free. I pay 250€/month here in Germany, and I literally cannot even access it at all. I go to the doctor and get turned away. They have this shitty two tiered system where unless you have the private insurance or are a pensioner, you have to fight against a thousand bureaucratic dragons to get any service out of it.
University is not free either. I paid 500€/semester and had to source my own food and accommodation. And although I got a degree, you cannot really compare, even the top of the top of German universities with places like MIT or Stanford where you get so much prestige and networking opportunities. One has to compare apples to apples.
I am for both universal healthcare and education, but Americans need to understand that you aren’t going to get the American service for the European price point.
USA here. I like in one of the areas with the lowest cost to living in the USA (Kentucky). I just paid my daughter’s fall tuition to the University of Kentucky yesterday. It’s a state school which accepts 95% of those who apply. Average SAT ~1100. (My point, by no means is it a selective school.) Her tuition for one semester was $6851 or 6275 €. This does not include housing, food, or living expenses.
I don’t want to get into USA vs anyone else, as everyplace is different, with their own areas that make them stand out or not. However when it comes to post-secondary education and healthcare in terms of COST (not quality) the USA quantitatively lags well behind Western Europe.
This is becoming a fruitless discussion without getting into the specifics.
Here’s the thing, with my talent and experience, I could easily be earning 4x as much as I do here in Germany. I work in AI, it’s super hot right now. But here in Germany the only job for me is in the public sector, where I get paid like a lowly government employee. It’s completely ridiculous when compared to what my fellows in the US are earning. I earn around $45,000 of which I net $25,000 after taxes, of which $12,000 I pay in rent per year. And my benefits? A fixed two year contract. It’s not even a permanent position.
I have colleagues who decided to pay out of pocket some $120k to do an MSc. in California so they could access the tech network there and secure a job, and all of them are financially better off than I am.
Wow, cool that they had $120,000 just sitting around to pay for things. Almost sounds like they were already financially better off than you.
And rich enough already.
Thus will be such a fun fuck around find out for you my guy. Really enjoy it.
AI companies in the USA are located is super expensive areas, I always wonder if the quality of life is actually better for these types of jobs. There is also meta in Paris, Google in London, etc. have you considered that ?
You do realise a lot of places in Europe would lrefer you have a european uni degree over any american one. The systems are not the same.
I went to the cheapest public university I got into here in the US. An extremely standard university. I paid $10,000 per semester in tuition, not including books and fees. Do you really think American education is twenty times better?
I pay more than double that for my insurance, and they still deny care and determine which doctors I can see. I have to wait months to see specialists, and I have to spend $5,000 a year cash before insurance pays a dime.
And education at a public university can cost 10 grand a semester just for tuition. 500 euros wouldn’t cover a parking tag.
Stop lying. The majority of doctors here take public insurance and they dont turn you away when you have public insurance. You can even call your insurance and they help you get an appointment at a Facharzt.
I work in a big tech company, and there are probably interns in NY/Cali that get paid better than I do as an experienced engineer in the UK.
Most of the people I work with in NYC live like students, despite having a yearly salary that could probably cover a sizable chunk of a UK pension. I own a house and have enough saved to not need to work for several months, yet there are people that vastly outearn me in the US and still get fucked by healthcare costs, rent, house prices, etc.
I do understand that building wealth is tricky, but I think you’ll be extremely shocked at how high the costs are in some places, and how many people that do build wealth are rolling the dice on health insurance and not taking sick days/vacation. I’m considering a move to LA this year, and despite a high-band salary my life will likely be considerably worse, purely looking at the rent prices in/near Santa Monica…
You are thinking of walking to work? You’re going to be commuting like everyone else. That’s why everyone in LA is stuck in traffic. Or just work from home.
You know NYC and California are outliers, right?
Income scales with cost of living. They’re only outliers by scale. They’re right in line with the marginal living conditions of Americans (living poor because costs outpace wages).
Except wages are half of US wages(nationwide), with relatively similar cost of living in Europe.
If you discount health care, transit, and education, ignore paid time off benefits, and try not to think about how much lead is in our drinking water? I guess.
Your employer usually pays your healthcare in both cases, US does have deductibles, and a very stupid system if you’re self-employed. But personally, being under 26, I’ve had a far better experience with US healthcare. I’ve been able to be treated, and my family members haven’t been neglected(not saying it doesn’t happen though). My partner was told he’d have to wait 6+ months to see a specialist for ear infection treatment when it didn’t go away after 1 round of anti-biotics in Europe. A relative of mine has to travel to the US for treatment that was deemed a waste in her home country, in the hospital she was staying in her whole wing was so neglected that their chamber pots were overflowing and they weren’t being properly fed. This was in a European capital city(Prague).
Depends on the city, but a cheap 90s or 00s sedan generally won’t cost enough to make up for that extra 40-60%
I know a fair number of people who went to private highschools because they couldn’t even get into public ones. But its true uni is cheaper in Europe if you can get in- but its nowhere near a necessity.
If you think you have lead in your drinking water, call your water company, they’ll probably send you a free test kit.
In the United States? That’s not true at all. Roughly half of American workers don’t get health insurance from the employer. And that’s before you consider folks who lose their jobs after suffering a medical emergency.
They’re also the highest pay band for most companies, which is why many people want to go to NYC or the Bay area to work.
Bud, you’re in for a haaaaaaaaaaaarsh awakening if you think all of those negatives in your second paragraph isn’t exactly what the states are, magnified.