[WhrRTheBaboons]

what about US costs of living?

[weatherlite]

West Europe is far from cheap. Housing, childcare etc is unaffordable for many in the middle class (and as dev, you are in most cases in Europe not a very high earner). Universal healthcare is the main (last) advantage Europe has over the U.S (and its a big one.)

[kjkjadksj]

If you can afford housing and child care in the US you don’t care about healthcare because you are probably on a good employee plan.

[marcinzm]

Many European cities aren't exactly low cost of living, and those that are have even lower salaries.

In the end someone who was working at Google in the Bay Area for 15-20 years can retire if they didn't have life style creep (which is different than cost of living). Not the case in Europe.

[Sonnigeszeug]

'Someone who worked at one of the best paying companies in the world can retire after 15-20 years'.

This has nothing to do with Europe. This is particular a tech thing

[blacklion]

What about European taxes? I', paying 48% + there is 21% VAT on almost everything. Plus taxes for water (taxes, not pay-per-used-m3, and this payment is here too), energy (atop of market energy prices), roads, gasoline, etc.

[icameron]

Slightly tangential question for you- does 48% taxes include healthcare? How about pension? It’s tax week in the US, I think my rate was 22% overall. But another 10% of compensation is health insurance. Another 15% is retirement savings. My municipal water bill last quarter mostly was not for actual water usage (about 40% was for water) rest is system charge and storm water fees. Regarding the VAT thing… we may be effectively getting the equivalent with tariffs on goods and materials supposedly taking effect!

[concordDance]

You can use numbeo to compare. https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...

Basically, almost all places, particularly in the UK, have worse salary to cost of living ratios.

[wiseowise]

Ams is same or even worse than some US areas when it comes to costs of living.