A lot of the Europeans in this thread will jump on things like health care or other social benefits without realizing that high paid workers in the US are well taken care of in this regard.
The truth is the pay is higher in the US and is not particularly close. It's funny trying to see Europeans argue places like London, Zurich, or Amsterdam are "low cost" compared to US cities to try justify the difference
Having worked in both Stockholm and San Francisco, living in the latter is definitely _far_ more expensive. My apartment in Stockholm was _much_ nicer than the one I had in San Francisco, despite having a much lower salary. And that's Stockholm, which has experienced a housing bubble of its own over the past decade, so it's pretty expensive by European standards.
Now, you can get a lot more for your money outside of San Francisco while staying in the US, but that applies to European cities as well.
Don't get me wrong – US pay still outweighs these lower costs as a young engineer without children. If you're planning on starting a family, things get a little muddier. Having a child is free in Sweden, whereas it ranges from thousands to tens of thousands in San Francisco. Childcare in Sweden is progressively prized and never goes above ~$100/month, while it ranges from thousands of dollars a month in San Francisco, to hundreds in other parts of the US. School? Yup, that one's free too – college and the works. Got elderly parents? Elderly care is also subsidized to ~$300 a month (although private alternatives do exist).
However, there's no such thing as a free lunch, and these things do need to be paid for. This is done by many different taxes. Working as a contractor, you become painfully aware of a few of these – I've contracted for an American company while based in Sweden, at American rates, and I still end up with way less than I did working in the US.
First off you have your payroll tax at ~31%. Normally this cost is quietly absorbed by the employer, so from the get-go almost a third of your salary is gone without you knowing it. After that point, you have a progressive income tax that can go as high as 60% – which is what employees see on their pay stubs.
So they're just different models. The European model largely optimizes for a high common denominator, whereas the US model seems to optimize for extremes.
Also, just because those benefits exist doesn't mean that they're good or worth it. In the UK I often need to access healthcare privately not through the NHS. My projected state pension is a joke even though the National Insurance contributions are significant. I feel like I'm paying a lot and not getting anything in return. Add to that the high cost of living in London and the whole picture looks much worse than the US given the difference in salaries.
Just saying, check what a private health insurance costs in the US vs the UK. Even if the NHS is not the best, it's a big market force which makes it very hard for private insurances to fuck you up in the ass like in the US. At least in my country, having my 4 pax family in a premium private insurance costs me close to 400€/m.
It's impossible to adequately talk about private insurance in the UK: you still have to go to your GP and if the state won't give the service (e.g. MRI scan) fast enough, only and only then the private insurance would step in.. I can't comment on the US insurance but I have a feeling it's quite different.
> without realizing that high paid workers in the US are well taken care of in this regard.
Do these benefits go on if you quit your job? As in can you quit your job and get paid a little less for a while you search for a new one? If you only work a few years in a high paying job the rest in other industries, can you still expect a pension that pays enough money for your last 20-40 years of life? Can you afford proper health care you got in your great job in case you can't work in it anymore for whatever reason?
I see your reasoning pop up as often as the European viewpoint and each time I have the same reflection: what about your loved ones? AFAIK your significant other + children can be covered by your insurance, but what if one of your parents or siblings get in financial straits due to some medical event?
> that high paid workers in the US are well taken care of in this regard.
A lot of Americans will jump into this conversation without realising homelessness rate is 10s times higher in US and EU country with lowest literacy has higher literacy than highest literate state in US
This is tangential to the salary and benefits. I live in a county in California where homeless is close to 0 and still makes 3x what a SWE in Europe. American companies such as FAANG take care better of their employees than Europe.
And some understate just how fragile the “well taken care of” employee’s circumstances are in the US. All those great perks (and they quite often are) tied to your employment, which can be easily and readily lost in America.
I’m glad that these sort of protections apply to more people in Europe, too, rather than just some small privileged set of highly-paid employees.
>Also, the Canadian healthcare is not exactly stellar. For some reason, dental care in Canada is "only cosmetic" and not covered by insurance.
This is the case in at least some western european countries as well - for example, dental is not included in Sweden (except for children, which get this coverage for free).
Regarding healthcare, sure a US worker may be well taken care of while employed at that company, but what happens later? A US friend, his father, after decades of well-to-do middle class lifestyle, unfortunately got cancer while between jobs and not properly covered by health insurance. I believe that as result the family were worried about having to sell their home, at a time when the real estate market was falling. This could happen to anyone in the US, today's high-flying Google engineer could later have some kind of health problem (especially given some of the lack of food standards or pollution controls in the US - not that I'm saying Europe is perfect either...) then they lose their job and their insurance. As result, if you intend to live the rest of your life in the USA, it seems to me you need to amass some "danger money" to deal with health problems, for yourself or loved ones. Therefore a decent chunk of your salary needs to be used for this, and invested properly to keep pace with inflation which can be a pain/hassle/time sink . That then doesn't make those super high US salaries look so superior. And 1 more thing, price of basic fresh fruit etc, non-junk food in the US seems very high to me compared to other countries
A lot of my US friends are paid a lot but have 0 free time. I'm not paid as much but I have a lot of free time and holiday (31 + public holidays). Also being sick doesn't use holiday days
The truth is the pay is higher in the US and is not particularly close. It's funny trying to see Europeans argue places like London, Zurich, or Amsterdam are "low cost" compared to US cities to try justify the difference