(Living and working in Berlin for 2 years now)
Also while salaries are relatively low, an experienced engineer and still earn 60k+ which is decent money because the city is still quite cheap. Many other startup jobs are paid pretty poorly though.
Also while salaries are relatively low, an experienced engineer and still earn 60k+ which is decent money because the city is still quite cheap. Many other startup jobs are paid pretty poorly though.
Consumer Prices in Berlin are 30.83% lower than in San Francisco, CA
Consumer Prices Including Rent in Berlin are 56.36% lower than in San Francisco, CA
Rent Prices in Berlin are 78.16% lower than in San Francisco, CA
Restaurant Prices in Berlin are 36.88% lower than in San Francisco, CA
Groceries Prices in Berlin are 49.39% lower than in San Francisco, CA
Local Purchasing Power in Berlin is 16.50% higher than in San Francisco, CA
(http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?coun...)
I just checked Immoscout24 and though the average is higher it seems you still can find stuff around 1000EUR (of course there's pricier options if you want)
For a 3 room (2 bedroom) apartment of around 90m^2 (hardly what I would call big for a family) you will pay around 1000 net (kaltmiete) for a place outside the Ringbahn in Tempelhof/Stieglitz/Schöneberg/etc.
In Mitte prices will be a higher (although there are still shittier areas near Wedding where prices might actually be lower in Mitte).
Another surprising discovery is that KaDeWe is in Schöneberg as well
Also its about 10-15min into Mitte by bike or public transport.
Protip: write a script to get the latest openings on wg-gesucht and shoot an email as fast as you can. Then maybe you'll get to view it
Btw, if you google "senior developer salary berlin", you will get `Berlin earns an average salary of €57,355 per year`. [1]
1 : https://www.google.de/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&es...
Eg. I'm currently paying around 30% income tax in Norway (but that'll probably ease up towards 40% as I move into a more reasonable income bracket - and one needs to remember 25% VAT here - I'm guessing it amounts to another 5%-10% points added on top of the income tax).
This includes free health care, free education from primary school through college, subsidized pre-school etc.
Even in states like Texas, AFAIK one doesn't typically come out much ahead in terms of taxes in the US - and in general get very little in return.
Also the pensions aren't something to write home about really. (There's already politicians starting to talk that everyone should get a standard pension - no matter how much they paid into the system. Give it a few decades and we might arrive there).
You would do much better to invest that money either in your education/career/life standard or doing proper investing.
State pensions are around 50% of your work income. Even if that is only €50k per year in the end, that would be equivalent to the annuity from a €1 million private pension pot.
And it is backed not by a company which will go bankrupt twice over in the next forty years, but the taxation powers of the German government, which is famously good at balancing its books.
TLDR: The pensions are better than most anywhere in the world - though you also pay the price for it.
I'd rather put the money in a private saving plan than to hand it over to the government for a vague promise of "no worry, we'll pay you somehow back".