this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2024
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Afaik it's similar here in Germany.
BUT you need go remember: We have social insurance and don't need to pay 5000$ when taking the ambulance etc. etc.
So if you exclude that we may come close if you need to see a doc on the regular.
Even then it's a pay cut. I know some people who moved to NA, and egotistically it's a sound decision because engineers there are on the right side of the wealth disparity ravine. Money's good enough that you don't need social safety nets. And if push comes to shove, someone making $100k/y can definitely afford health insurance and the occasional trip for medical tourism.
Now personally I believe in income redistribution so I'm happy to pay a lot of taxes in one of the most income-egalitarian countries in the world. But I'd make a shit-ton more if I lived&worked in Luxembourg or Canada.
I did the math a few years ago when Trump was president.
I currently make double in America of what is made in other countries. It was something ridiculous like even if I had $35k a year in med expenses, I'd still be making more in the US.
Either American engineers are paid way out of proportion, or the rest of the world pays poorly. Either way, I'm going to ride this train before Skynet replaced me.
Then you need surgery and your COL is already >50% of your net income and you are a 100k in debt. And assuming you have savings, I'd rather spend them on myself (vacation etc.) rather than brace for my bankruptcy because I stood up wrong.
So same for me
These careers do have decent insurance in the US. Long term illness is a different beast, but the most of ever pay for a medically necessary surgery is $3800, which is my max out of pocket. And I'd get short term disability which pays both 80% of my salary to me, and some amount to the company to compensate for my lost time.
Good jobs in the US really don't have as many horror stories you are always hearing on the internet. I mean, we have lots of other horror stories which are totally true, like our schools being violent and deadly. And rural areas being filled with the stupidest people on the planet. And even in lots of tier one US cities, the public transportation being useless.
How do these comparisons look if we go by pay per hour worked? Because here in Germany the maximum amount you are allowed to work in a week is 60 hours. Unless in special positions (like the ones that have harvesting season or mine stuff), this has to be equalised down to 48 over a 6 week period at max (the special ones just have a longer period for it or a different timing system on what counts as break). If you are in a position that equals to 48 hours a week (6 day week), your minimum PTO is 24 days. If you have a 5 day week it is 20 days, and the numbers above shift down to 50 and 40 respectively. Most jobs that have any kind of skilled work behind them have 30 days PTO. Plus there are a lot of national holidays.
I work in taxes and the average days worked in a year is assumed at 230 (if we don’t have information otherwise ofc). That is less than 2/3 of the year.
Whereas my knowledge on the US is that 60 hour weeks are not necessarily an exception, you get way less PTO, you have less national holidays and you often need to network after hours to even be successful to a moderate degree (of course networking is a thing here as well, but it isn’t that necessary at a medium level, only if you want to get the high positions).
Again in my industry I work 40-50 hours and have 20 days of PTO but it's not really a hard limit. There are ten national holidays on top of that.
So you are always at least at the maximum average we have and often higher, with less PTO and holidays?
You also missed my core statement: how would the salary comparison go if we break it down to a hourly one? How would the gap look then?
Not to mention we are "forced" to take those days and are not in an at-will position where you can get fired any day of the week.
COL is not anywhere near $50k/y ($4100/mo!) except maaaybe in some very narrow parts (basically just SV an Manhattan, assuming you want a decently large apartment). But in either of those places an engineer makes up for it by making $150k/y instead.
Also rich Americans have good insurance, I'm sure you could find an example of someone who had this happen but it's basically a non-risk.
And if healthcare was the only problem, then Canada would be an option as well. Engineers there still make a shitload more than German engineers. Watch out for the real estate market tho.