[RyanMcGreal]

America has some of the worst worker protection laws and regulations in the developed world: occupational health and safety; minimum wage; paid time off (vacation, illness, parental leave); lunch and other breaks; consecutive hours worked in a day; 'at-will' termination; and so on. It really is an extreme outlier.

[mixedCase]

On the other hand, at least when it comes to software developers, americans seem to be extremely well paid compared to the rest of us and they pay far less in tax.

I'd make that trade any day, but then again that's just one industry and I'm just one person.

[coldtea]

>I'd make that trade any day

It's not a trade, it's just a temporary result of a market imbalance. When that stops to be case, programmers will get the same bad treatment like everybody else.

So I'd make rather live in a country with more sane and fair laws for all, and not extrapolate too much from what a specific field or two (even if it happens to be mine) might temporarily command.

[brazzledazzle]

It's been some time since I ran the numbers but when you isolate federal taxes and compare them the difference is stark. But when you combine all of our income taxes and compare the percentage the difference is much, much less significant. Federal, social security, state, state disability, etc. It does depend on the state though. If you add in health insurance costs since those are covered by the government in other countries the difference shrinks even more.

When you combine it all and compare the amount of benefits and safety nets provided to other countries it kind of feels like you're being screwed. I guess getting paid more is nicer but raising children here and realizing that they may not make nearly as much money while having such small or irrelevant safety nets is a sobering experience.

[exelius]

So my total tax rate in the US is just shy of 50%. Software developers are actually in the "sweet spot" for paying a ton in taxes: they make enough money to qualify for the high tax rates, but not enough money to make it worth exploiting the loopholes that rich folks use to avoid paying taxes.

[da02]

Which country are you in? (The taxes vary depending on the U.S. state.)

[refurb]

Occupational health and safety? Have any examples? OSHA seems to shut stuff down in a hurry in the US.

And I've worked in both the US and Canada and I'd say there isn't much difference beyond the paid time off for parental leave.

[zerkten]

There is an overview on https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/c....