Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds | Hacker News Reader

Americans Work 25% More Than Europeans, Study Finds

bloomberg.com

273 pointsantouank396 comments

I find it astonishing how positive Bloomberg tries to spin this:

People earn a wider range of incomes in the U.S., so “workers have an incentive to try harder to move up the job ladder because a promotion is worth more,” said Dora Gicheva

-The income range in the US is so large that there are lots of people at the bottom end who have to work multiple jobs. How much does that have to do with the longer work hours, Bloomberg?

Generous pensions in Europe are also a strong factor in discouraging older people from working, the study said. In the U.S., more people over 65 are working than at any point in the past 50 years. The U.S.’s shift from traditional pensions to 401(k) plans makes it harder for Americans to know when it’s safe to retire.

-This sounds less like people in Europe are "discouraged" from working, rather than many Americans must work longer because they can't retire.

Edit: Formatting

I had a boss (CTO) who worked in the USA (SV) and the UK he commented that he got about the same amount of work from both teams bear in mind that the UK team was ex civil service :-)

> I find it astonishing how positive Bloomberg tries to spin this

Reminds me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNzXze5Yza8

Wow. That pretty much sums the problem up, right there. Talk about spin.

That ad reminds me of an ad I saw in the US in 99 or so, it depicts a man waking up super early (kissing their children who are asleep) and leaving to work, it was for (used?) Mercedes I think, same idea, work super hard to drive a nice car, I thought it was the most depressing ad I ever saw.

Dear god, the concept that someone thought this was a good commercial is almost breathtaking.

And working more hours doesn't necessarily mean more income.

I support an AEC firm and the 'architects' (quotes because most have not been licensed yet) typically work 10-12 hour days, sometimes weekends on a salary. Their take home income might be at a certain level but their effective hourly rate is reduced.

Now, there is the argument out there that working those incredible hours can lead to more income since in American work culture a lot of managers see overwork = strong work ethic / good employee (rather than, as I see it, poor planning and utilization of resources).

I've worked crazy hours (80-90 hours/week) in other circumstances but I was paid for each and every one (with OT and double time). It was great money but I burned out eventually and have pursued the 40 hr/week life instead.

Working more means more income only insofar as it's pretty hard to get promoted if you're working 40 hours and everyone else is working 80 even if you're better producer.

"Working", I'm in and out of offices all day. The amount of dead time spent in those places is insane. This is why I need to start my own business, sitting at a desk pretending to work helps no one and yet is the only way to get ahead.

It's a very light analysis from me, so might not be fully true, but I live in the US, now in Europe, and in Canada before that. You could also say Canada is kind of in the middle.

Well, maybe correlation doesn't imply causation in that case but here is what I can see:

- US > Canada > Europe in terms of opportunities, be it starting salary, end-of-career salaries, and everything in the middle such as promotions, personal growth, etc. - Europe > Canada > US in terms of social support - Europe > Canada > US in terms of work/life balance.

And it's interesting to see how things are different and it looks like there IS causation.

- People in the US work more

- The separation between work and personal life In the US people all have their emails/chats on their personal cellphone, will work on weekends without much reason, will be talking about work with friends more, will show more passion about their company, will show more ambition. In Europe, people seem to take their job more as a secondary things AFTER their life. Their have less coworkers-friends, they talk less about work, show less ambition about a promotion/new job coming.

- People seem to try harder at lower scale jobs in the US There is often the excuse of the tips for waiters etc.. but it's the same for customer support and things like that. When you call cust sup in Europe, the service is way worst. People to try as hard to make the extra effort, etc.

Overall you really explicitly see and feel that most people just see their current job as an end state, versus in the US people constantly work hard to reach the next step and have more ambition.

I'm sure it's in part because there are indeed less opportunities (harder to get promotions, salaries varies less, etc.) and it's harder to move from a class to another compared to the US.

That's mostly my feeling, but it seems like it's so obvious... and Canada, really, is in the middle of those 2 extremes.

> it's harder to move from a class to another compared to the US.

Not true: social mobility in US is lower than in Europe and Canada.

[Citation needed]

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/03/03/the-mobility-my...

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/07/america-...

http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21595437-america...

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2015/05...

http://www.epi.org/publication/usa-lags-peer-countries-mobil...

http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21640316-children-ric...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/08/03/there...

A little Googling seem to suggest that this figure is somewhat representative: the US has slightly more mobility than the UK, which have less mobility than most of Europe:

http://www.epi.org/publication/usa-lags-peer-countries-mobil...

Wait a second. That data just measures correlation between father and son in terms of income. Thinking through it, if you had more sons do worse than their fathers economically, they would show up better in this data.

It's not measuring upward mobility, but mobility in general. Seems suspect.

Yes, this is true - a short article with more data on Canada goes a little deeper:

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-626-x/11-626-x2016059-eng.ht...

The rich stay rich, more than the poor stay poor (in Canada).

But the number is about [relative change in income across] the population - if most people are poor (which they are) high mobility across the population likely means poor people are moving up (or indeed getting much poorer - halving your income when you're already in the lower quartile would probably be as big a shift as doubling it - if not more).

You're right to ask for more detail, though.

Source?

First hit on Google:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility

Graph down the bottom.

A bit disappointing to see you're being down-voted, based on a glance at that wp article, it links to a lot of relevant research (and the gp's statement can hardly be seen as controversial to anyone that's paid even cursory attention to social (in)equality and social studies in the past decades?).

It'd be interesting to see a breakdown of the UK on the various countries though.

That data is a proxy for income mobility. It's measuring the correlation between generations. As I mentioned in another reply, it's not measuring upward mobility, but mobility in general. If a country had a future generation do worse economically it would show up as having better mobility.

http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2013/dec/19/...

There's at least two Americas.

If you are born middle class or with an intact family structure or immigrate, opportunity is unlimited. If you're born here poor/without a family structure, or were born in the wrong place, you're stuck in a feudal-like system.

Anecdata: It can be escaped. I grew up in a divorced household. Poor. In the middle of nowhere. I even had a kid early, at 15. I'm now firmly in the middle class. I feel that if I were less risk adverse, I could find myself moving even higher up.

This is only because "social mobility" is in terms of percentiles, which doesn't account for differences in income variance between countries. The US has anomalously high income variance, so large changes in absolute income can equate to relatively small changes in the percentile.

To put it another way, if everyone made the same wage, an increase in salary of $1 would check the box for "social mobility" because it would move you into the top percentile.

Not sure about this kind of rationalization. Social mobility is a more sophisticated measure.

On the other hand, the incentive to rise above your parents' percentile is much less if that next percentile doesn't feel much better.

At the end of the day, the difficulty with these comparisons is that social mobility measured in percentiles may be the same in a country where it is next to impossible to rise above your parents' social class as in a country where it is completely pointless to even want that.

I'd claim in many european nations rising is motivated by percieved better chances to have a psychologically fullfilling career, rather than considerable improvement in finances - since the increases are not that thrillingly high. But does this make the urge to rise pointless?

In my country (Finland), for instance we don't force anyone to live in the streets. IMO, this creates huge amount of value from second order network effects - better childhoods, better social stability, people are more employable (if we only had jobs). I hope we can still afford this amount of social wellfare after a few decades.

I agree completely. But doing something _only_ for the purpose of moving into a higher income bracket may indeed be pointless (or less desirable) in a more equal society.

In such a society, any meaningful definition of social mobility has to include more than just income percentiles.

Personally, I would love to live in a communist society unless the workings of it were not proven completely impractical and incompatible with basic human instincts.

So, we probably need prices and actual money for resource optimization, with human-sized goals for individuals to aspire to. But how to optimize human condition is partly a separate question and requires placing some value on the life experiences of individuals disrespective of their economic status.

That might be true in the aggregate, but I imagine it's not for specific groups. Why else would so many people move to the US for job opportunities?

1. Because US is big. 2. Because it is more welcoming for immigrants. 3. Because of broken H1B system.

Because it had great (and I mean multi-generational enduring American Dream great) PR from after WWII thru at least the late 60's.

The post-WW2 soft power strategy by the US was awesome and extremely effective. Sadly, it seems that by the 70s the pentagon had become solely obsessed with the projection of hard power. I personally reckon this has a huge amount to do with the decline of the US's popularity around the globe in the subsequent decades.

As an outside observer and frequent critic of US foreign policy I would agree.

The number of immigrants per capita in the US is not especially high. It's lower than in Switzerland, Australia, Canada, Ireland, Germany and similar to most Western European nations.

> Not true: social mobility in US is lower than in Europe and Canada.

I can't speak about Canada but I seriously doubt that social mobility is higher in Europe. Again, you can't generalize. It may be far easier to move from a class to another in Germany than for example Italy or France.

It's a difficult thing to compare, so I wouldn't totally believe the absolute comparisons, but generally most countries in Europe are considered to have higher social mobility than the US. The exceptions are Italy & the UK, with maybe France level pegging with the US.

e.g. https://www.oecd.org/eco/growth/NERO-22-June-2015-income-ine...

Can you back your doubts with numbers from a credible source?

Another comparison of social mobility:

http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/81/1/WRAP_Naylor_twerp_781.pdf

Mobility is lower in the U.S. than in the U.K., where it is lower again compared to t he Nordic countries. Persis- tence is greatest in the tails of the distributions and tends to be particularly high in the upper tails: though in the U.S. this is reversed with a particularl y high likelihood that sons of the poorest fathers will remain in the lowest earnings quintile . This is a challenge to the popu- lar notion of ’American exceptionalism’.

Probably harder but social class in Europe is mostly unrelated to wealth, while in the US the two are closely knit, which is what is often measured.

Yeah, it baffles me when people bring this up.

US social mobility and wealth inequality are among the worst in the developed world.

Completely agreed having lived and worked in all 3. Canada is the sweet spot.

If you're well educated. If you're not then you'll find yourself working much harder in Canada to stay afloat than in Europe.

I have a lot of relatives in Alberta. And it seems like the oil industry there is providing a lot of opportunity for people without college degrees to make a good living. But of course, that's just Alberta. I can't comment on the rest of the country.

Yes, but that's very hard work and quite a few of the people that moved to the territories to participate in the boom there already lost their shirt due to the prolonged drop in the price of oil. Alberta is a bit different because the extraction is easier.

You can make money in lumber, oil, mining, fishing and lots of other industries but it will not be 'easy' money by any definition, and if you get out without injury then you should consider yourself lucky. Long days, very hard work.

Yes, logging and fishing are the most dangerous professions by far according to [1].

[1] http://time.com/4326676/dangerous-jobs-america/

It does not match my own experience. I worked a few years in Canada (Québec) and liked it very much. I found that the work-life balance was much better than in France. It was more constant throughout the year. People have fewer vacations than in France 3-4 weeks/year with a few sick days vs 6-8 weeks/year but the daily working hours are lower (9-5) with quick lunch break where in France it is more 9-7 with a long lunch break (only in the private sector and in IT). The more constant working pace is much better for work. In France it is very complex to schedule a meeting when everybody can attend (there's always someone in vacation) and in summer it is nightmare for managers to find people to make a project going forward. The mood at work was much better in Canada, people were more friendly, less stressed due to a better organization (easier than in France) and also to be fair due to a lower unemployment rate. I did not have the impression to work more than in France to stay afloat, but maybe because because it was going smoother.

At a guess you were living in the cities?

Yes 3,5 years in Montreal (I really miss that city). I am sure that the experience is very different from Toronto and Vancouver.

I'm in the process of moving to Toronto from the US. Any tips on good tech companies to work for. :)

Head to New York or California.

Freshbooks or Shopify.

Take a look at: Shopify, Wattpad, Pager Duty, Uken Games, Opencare, Quandl, The Score (ESPN), Wealthsimple, Top Hat, Event Mobi.

Be ready to take a big salary haircut. Toronto is not SF or NY, but it's still expensive, and you'll earn about 50% less in USD terms.

As a Canadian, I heartily recommend to anyone in the tech business - work remotely for EUR, USD, GBP, or CHF or relocate to the US. You can make good friends anywhere, but a 50% salary difference plus higher taxes takes a lot more to overcome.

Can you be more specific? Quality of life in Europe can vary greatly :)

I've considering applying for Canadian residency last year as I was looking for a new job but I quickly gave up.

There are many places in Europe with similar or even lower CoL all things considered, better social benefits, and a lot more opportunities.

Unless you specifically want to join an early stage startup, I don't see where Canada wins. But I might have missed something.

> People seem to try harder at lower scale jobs in the US There is often the excuse of the tips for waiters etc.. but it's the same for customer support and things like that. When you call cust sup in Europe, the service is way worst. People to try as hard to make the extra effort, etc.

As a person from a third country talking about the USA and Europe (lives in US, traveled in EU), this absolutely rings true. At grocery stores in the US people have been unfailingly polite and courteous to me (even though they don't get any tips or anything). So at my job, if I have to interact with customers I always try to maintain that attitude.

Meanwhile in Europe they are usually grim faced and have a "get on with it" attitude, and have occasionally yelled or grimaced at me for minor errors like using a chip card wrong.

> When you call cust sup in Europe, the service is way worst.

This varies dramatically within Europe. From personal experience, customer service is decent, polite and timely in the UK and Ireland, and generally awful in Germany. It's difficult to generalise across a continent with 700mil+ people (500+ mil in the EU), with enormous cultural variations and expectations of good service (much greater variations than in the US).

There is a great variation in the United States. A country of 300 million people, where each state has a unique culture and identity. For some reason, "American" is often generalized to be a caricature that I, having lived in the Pacific Northwest my entire life, have never encountered.

wow, are u saying states in usa have same level culture difference like european countries?

just in spain alone we have 4 different OFFICIAL languages

No but there is enough regional difference, between East Coast, South, West Coast and Pacific North West. Even though most of the suburbs look alike thanks to mono-cultures and business franchises. The general regional vibe if you observe has some stark contrasts.

Again USA is 300 million people, from Rio Grande Valley to Seattle. Spain has 4 different official languages, but more languages are spoken in US than Spain.

edit: I am not even counting the contrast of Native American Reservations to Metropolis like NY, LA.

If I walk into a government building in my state, I will pick up a pamphlet which has notices in English, Spanish, Russian, Vietnamese and Arabic. I can walk down a street and hear each of those languages being spoken. Are you really going to tell me that the Vietnamese experience in the United States is basically the same as the English experience?

If so, please come visit on of the top 30 cities in the United States and spend a few days walking around different districts and interacting with different people. Don't believe what our exported media is telling you, we are far from a monoculture.

There is a huge distinction between an official language and a language that is in common use by an immigrant community. Within the UK there are far more than five commonly used immigrant languages, and many are not European - Health and Safety documents come in 18 languages - mostly not EU languages.

To compare your five supported languages with a country that has four official languages, and significant cultural diversity within those - and then the immigrant communities from many more equally varied nations - which is just one part of the 28 nation polity that was originally mentioned (which combined have 24 official languages at the EU level, and many more at the national level) - is just really quite silly.

I guess it cant be compared at all since the US doesn't have any official languages. De jure != de facto

You seem to be missing the majority of my point, but I agree it's an arbitrary distinction as a technicality.

However, 32 US states do declare English as their official language. That's certainly more homogenous than the EU, the original point of contention. Just 2 of 28 EU states declare their official national language as English, and only one of these has English as their only official language (indeed, only the UK has English as their official EU language, which means English may no longer be an official language at the EU level after the UK leaves).

In the US, half of all states have English as their only official language.

This is all barely to the point, though (language is only a small part of culture). While the US may not be homogenous, it is clearly more homogenous than the EU, and by a large margin. The attempt to suggest otherwise was just absurd.

In the Brexit threads, it was discussed that the EU language selection is not really representative of populous or culture. Each country could only select one, and multiple entries didn't add anything. So many countries who may have potentially selected English didn't, because it was already selected by another country and it would be a "wasted" selection. For instance, Ireland has more English speakers than Irish speakers, yet it declared Irish as its EU language. It may very well switch to English when Brexit completes.

Your definition of "many" may need a revisit - this is simply not common. Ireland is the only egregious case, and I covered that in my comment. The Maltese population really does speak Maltese, as well as English. Every other language I can see in the official EU list is genuinely a primary tongue of one the nations in the EU.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_European_Unio...

Just in Switzerland (which has only 8 million people) there are 4 official languages. Only 30k people speak Romansh, so let's ignore that one. But if you go to the German part, most people don't even understand French. Likewise, if you go to the French part, most people don't understand German. The Italian part is quite a bit smaller than rest of Switzerland, and most people there choose to learn French as a second language.

People from the north of Belgium don't speak the same language as people in the south of Belgium. The dialects of German spoken in the north vs. the south of Germany are so different that they struggle to understand each other. If you want an example of people speaking English, compare accents in Scotland or Wales to that of London, which is a melting pot of everything from Cockney to Received Pronunciation. Now, imagine what it is like in between countries.

Seriously, trying to say that the difference between the accents of Louisiana, Socal, New England and Chicago are a big deal, throw in the Mexican accent, hell even a good dollop of Spanish, it is still really homogeneous. Compared to Europe where there are places two hours drive away from you which share none of the languages you speak, and where you will find nobody who speaks any of the dominant languages in the area you currently are. And not just a village, or a suburb or cultural enclave, but whole cities of people.

Right, which is why I am _not_ saying that the EU is in any way homogeneous. What I am saying is that _neither_ the EU or the US are homogeneous. And the same treatment that is applied to the EU when claiming that a certain culture describes "Europe" needs to be applied to the US.

No, it is not comparable by any measure. If I move 30 km from my home to the South, I won't be able to understand people and the culture is totally different, the meal hours are shifted by two hours, the food is different, the work times are different, the social system is different, the wages are vastly different, the prices are different, the family organisation is totally different, the religion could be different.

Why? Because there is a bloody border in between. These are different countries, they have evolved separately for centuries. Don't you get it? Those are not two states of the United States of Europa, those are countries forged with a millennium of historical evolution.

It's absurd to use languages spoken as a proxy for cultural diversity. That being said, according to wikipedia there are 430 languages spoken in the US. There are 32 languages used by 100,000+ people.

And implying that simply because people speak the same language they have the same culture is nuts. People in Utah have the exact same language and accent as people in California but the two populations have very different attitudes about family, education, marriage, religion, and government.

In fact you don't even need to cross state boundaries. Compare Park City, Utah with St. George, Utah. Different cultures. Compare any metro area with any rural area.

You and salmon30salmon are missing the point. Language is an indicator of 4000+ years of local cultural differentiation. The rest of us europeans are just trying not to say something about 200years worth of adopting cultures. That does indeed create a unique multifaceted community, but surely you realise how much in common you have with most of the rest of the US population? In Europe these language barriers correspond to sometimes dramatic changes in climate, environment and lifestyle. Finns have very little in common with Italians as far as weltanschauung or culture goes, for instance. I doubt you could find as drastic and systemic difference on your side.

(Just to clarify, I don't mean to imply EU>US, just underlining the difference's depths)

> Finns have very little in common with Italians

Yup. Consider that in the last world war italians and finns didn't even fight on the same side until a certain point in time.

Europe is a melting pot of cultures and to be quite honest I like it that way.

But the point is that the US is 100-200 years of homogenization veneer on cultures ranging from Asian to African to European to indingenous.

In that sense, the US has a broader base of those enclaves within the country and less time to have built a coherent cultural identity between those populations.

Europe, by contrast, hasn't forced the veneer over all of the enclaves (eg, single language), but the enclaves share a more similar historic background.

It's different kinds of diversity, really. Stable multi-components versus broader partial fusion.

we have all sorts of people from all over the world in europe too, it is not an argument....

New Mexico contains just as many languages and vaguely sovereign states as Spain, including our own language isolate.

You'll find the same level of cultural variation in almost any country. It's nowhere near the same level of variation you find between countries of Europe.

For example: England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland each have unique cultural differences; distinct identities. The same goes for counties within England, e.g. Cornwall or Devon versus, say, Yorkshire.

have you ever actually traveled Europe? I mean really visited say 15 countries or more? It doesn't seem so. The diversity when comparing east to west, or north to south is striking.

I am not saying US is a monolithic culture all over, I've seen for example the difference (and lived for months) in LA vs small tourist/fishing place in Maine and quite a few places in between, but man... scale of differences in US is much, much lower compared to what we have here (indian reservations might add up a bit, but still - and those are just reminders of proper evil done by US not so long ago).

I've visited 5 continents and tens of countries, europe ain't my favorite place (that would be south east asia), but man we are way more diverse than anything I've ever seen or heard about considering size of this place (maybe one of the reasons EU will probably fail in long term)

"great variation"?

Really?

Show me a state that speaks 4 major languages.

Show me a state that is majority Catholic. Majority Muslim. Majority Atheist.

Show me a state where euthanasia is legal. Or where abortion is banned outright. Or where all drug consumption is fully decriminalized.

Show me a state that is led by a monarch. Or one that is a direct democracy.

Those are just some of the examples of variations between Europeans countries, and I would not even consider Europe particularly varied compared to other parts of the world.

My own analogy is USA and Thailand.

in terms of geopolitical differences, I think the "Protestant work ethic" tradition is a large driver of USA perceptions on work.

Conversely in Thailand, the emphasis on hierarchy and workplace harmony (no critical conversations) disincentives sticking one's head out, including working longer to work on a perceived deadlines.

> When you call cust sup in Europe, the service is way worst.

I remember a sign at a Mac Donald's in New York that said something like "if the waiter doesn't smile, you get a free burger". In Europe you may not get the forced smile, but it doesn't mean the service is worse. Overall, I'd say the service is slightly better in the US, but you can see it's totally fake and I find it a little bit disturbing.

Having to wait a much longer time till waiters acknowledge you in the German-speaking countries is certainly a bigger part of it than the smiling or lack there of.

Is that just "design" of the culture though? If you're working 20% less of the time you've more time to relax; perhaps then you don't need to stress if you've a little more time to chat before your strudel arrives.

Personally I hate it when you've only just sat down and the waiter is asking what you want, especially if it's a big menu and you've arrived at a meal time.

And I hate when you have to wait 20 min for the "garcon de cafee" to even notice you have finished and want the bill.

Right, you can tell an early waiter you need a couple more minutes, but you can't (easily) tell a late waiter to come early.

What's even more annoying than them not coming on their own is that they actively try to avoid eye contact.

Most of the time I feel like US or UK people are fake, because of all the forced smalltalk.

Yes, this is their culture and I respect it, but I just don't feel comfortable with it :/

I must live in a different part of the UK than you, because I rarely get any small talk. Yes, they do come and ask if everything's okay, but that's it really.

When I visited the US it was like every 5mins asking if I wanted anything else, a drink, etc., etc.

I thought small talk was illegal in the UK.

Never heard the UK accused of forced small talk before.

The US on the other hand...

> When you call cust sup in Europe, the service is way worst. People to try as hard to make the extra effort, etc.

When you call customer support in the US, you get someone in India who barely speaks English. If you call customer support in the Netherlands you get a Dutch person because no one outside the Netherlands speaks Dutch.

Also, due to better consumer protection laws the actual results are often way better too.

Honestly, most times, the Indian representative does just fine. In all my time here, I can count on one hand the times that a customer service rep was ineffective. Larger companies especially (Amazon, WalMart, etc.) will bend over backwards to please the customer. My experiences in NL dealing with customer service has been bad on average.

Disclaimer: lived in the Netherlands for 20 years, living in the US for 12 years now.

I actually never thought of that. We have the same "problem" in the UK with support, although I've noticed more companies trying to get support back into the UK and these are the companies I try and do business with.

>When you call customer support in the US, you get someone in India who barely speaks English.

They usually speak excellent English in my experience. Holding a phone conversation in a second language is very difficult.

Where in the US and where in Europe...? It is very hard to generalize

San Fran vs Toronto vs Paris or Cleveland vs Vancouver vs London

I'm crushing it. The harder I work, the luckier I get. This is why the US has more billion dollar startups. This isn't my first rodeo. 25% more is nothing, try 50%. Eventually, work will set me free.

No matter our differences, our The Apprentice candidates all sound the same

Arbeit Macht Frei

> > The U.S.’s shift from traditional pensions to 401(k) plans makes it harder for Americans to know when it’s safe to retire.

Maybe I am misinterpreting but nobody is in a financial position to retire but continues working because of market volatility. Bonds are that volatile, and nobody with half a brain is heavily exposed to stocks if they have a high 6-/low 7-figure 401(k) and are planning on using that money for retirement income.

>I find it astonishing how positive Bloomberg tries to spin this:

>People earn a wider range of incomes in the U.S., so “workers have an incentive to try harder to move up the job ladder because a promotion is worth more,” said Dora Gicheva

I do not view it as a positive spin. I could take the exact same statement and use it to point out the problem in the US.

Almost everyone I know in the US, regardless of their current income, is trying to get a promotion, simply because one is available.

More often than not it is because a promotion seems to be available, roughly equivalent to a carrot on a stick in front of a donkey.

Here in Finland there has been recent "boom" of pensioners getting part time jobs.

They get something to do and bit of extra money. There is very little stress or risk as they can always fall back on pension. The only weird thing is that this has not happened sooner, as there is very "universal basic income" -like situation going on. It probably has something to do with overall elderly health improvements. And social perception that pensioners should be lightly sedated stay-at-home grandparents.

"Pension discouraging people from working" is at least partially load of bullshit.

> "Pension discouraging people from working" is at least partially load of bullshit.

It discourages the people who need to be stay-at-home grandparents for health reasons from being forced to work. ;)

That is always the dog whistle with US articles.

The people who work more are being 'rewarded' and the people who don't work as hard or want to retire are 'moochers'.

> This sounds less like people in Europe are "discouraged" from working, rather than many Americans must work longer because they can't retire.

Very few people retire at 20 or 40; I fail to see why in an era where people are starting to expect to live until their 80s they should stop working at 65. Is it not good for us all to have the contributions, knowledge & experience of those over 65 in the workplace?

Pension plans (public & private) were built decades ago, based on assumptions which no longer hold true; should they not be revisited?

Perhaps it is reasonable to expect a white-collar worker to work past 65, but how about a blue-collar worker or a laborer? Not everyone sits in a chair in front of a computer all day for their job.

Even for white-collar and computer people, intellectual abilities do degrade over time too. If the task is demanding in that respect and you go below the threshold where it cannot be compensated by experience, performance will drop dramatically to the point of not being able to accomplish the tasks in a reasonable way. Of course the degradation rate and acceleration depend highly on the individual. But you cannot ask everybody to work these jobs after 65 or 70, even though these are white-collar jobs.

Not sure why downvoted - there are people who stay mentally sharp until their 80s or 90s, and everybody keeps talking about them. These are rather exceptions. Most people suffer from slow mental decline, I could see it on my grandparents and their peers. That is, if you are still OK and not crippled physically or mentally by some accident/disease.

It seems that for most healthy, after 70 body goes down the drain too. I cannot imagine myself doing same software dev work at this age, all the bullsh*t and pressures that corporate jobs contain would make me leave on my own.

My plan is to retire earlier (60-61), not later! Enjoy the world, life and freedom of travel while there is still some strength in the body. I don't get why anybody would want to work more than necessary (unless your job is your hobby, but that is true for very few)

White collar, middle-class people can expect to live until their 80s.

Life expectancy for lower class people, blue-collar workers, and manual laborers has not gained significantly - and neither has productive life expectancy.

If you threw out your back stocking shelves at 43, what exactly are you supposed to do? Get a desk job? If you were capable of getting a desk job, you probably would have done that before you crippled yourself.

"I fail to see why in an era where people are starting to expect to live until their 80s they should stop working at 65."

Cause there's more to life than work? For most people, vacations are discouraged, and there's lots of stuff that people are told to "wait until retirement" to do. If they're never going to retire, when are they going to do stuff that isn't job?

All the "25% extra work" is doing is continue to widen the wealth gap. Their input into the economy is exploited by politicians, government, big business and banks. That is why Bloomberg, a well known shill piece for the 1%, is spinning it like a positive.

Sadly, and i know this does not apply to all at the lower end of the income scale, you would be shocked at how some people spend the money they do get. Just get into the home rental business and you will see a world that really needs some fixing.

I am still a believer in that you can move up in society but schools fail to teach people to prioritize their expenditures and to separate needs from desires. It is much easier to stay poor than to stay rich.

I am not sure of the European mindset but I do find a lot of new generations never seem to let go of the need to have the latest stuff. I have relatives in the 75+ range and even they are the stereotype of age, even the stove is older than the kids. Yet the younger generations have bought into an ever in debt lifestyle mostly because they never lived through a real depression or war.

> -This sounds less like people in Europe are "discouraged" from working, rather than many Americans must work longer because they can't retire.

It is very difficult to generalise. In Belgium for example you are legally forbidden to work. If you work or earn more than a very small threshold you lose your state pension. But then the pension used to be good for regular employee, so there was not really a need to work for a lot either.

Really those analysis are like tea leaves reading. You can build whatever story, but at the end of the day each country is a unique snowflake and another country model cannot just be applied.

Take the Belgian model before, so now put an incentive for older generations to work and you realise that another difference with the US is that the unemployment is much higher and you just added additional pressure on the job market.

Dig a bit more and you realise that Belgium has a unusually high level of old generation unemployment because of the specific model (early pension) they used to handle the worst of factory closure. So those people have been written off the job market and putting them back in is just resurrecting the initial problem only worse considering you would need to compensate for the years/decades of missing investment in the affected region/sector.

And if you look at productivity USA is not beaten by European countries that work less

How are you measuring productivity?

GDP?

How happy are they working that extra 25%? They are richer, sure. But I don't think being rich is an indicator of your overall state.

Looking at [1], you can see that people in european countries come out on top of the happiness index. One could argue that working less is actually better for productivity and overall happiness.

[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-23/these-are-...

It's almost like working 60+ hour weeks churning out CRUD apps to get a rich person richer isn't the secret path to happiness or something.

Hold on, I need to write that one down...

In your CRUD ToDo app?

I feel like you're judging me and my app.

Of course I am, I'm European!

This is a CRUD app safe-space.

Shocking how people accept that.

Shocking how average people accept the salaries they make and tax rates they pay.. smart people know better.

Indeed. Just think of the social safety net and universal healthcare we could have in the US if we taxed the highest marginal income rates appropriately.

EDIT: And how much more holiday/vacation time we'd have if it was mandated at the federal level.

You need to tax wealth as well, not just income. Accumulated wealth is what results and continues the inequality, not incomes.

What kind of wealth is currently untaxed?

Stocks or bonds => income tax + capital gains tax

Real estate => property taxes + capital gains tax

Cash => taxed by inflation

Metals => capital gains tax

That will disincentivise investment and encourage consumption and emigration once you've made your pile.

that's very socialist approach - excessive taxation on everything only gives rises to tax havens for wealthy ones. who would be targeted is not truly wealthy, but say upper middle class which isn't rich enough to use these kind of services, they are the ones spending most on services, which keep blue collar jobs, like it or not. This layer of citizens is necessary for healthy function of any society. If you strive to destroy them via excessive taxation (ie move them to low middle class over time), you are hurting economy in long run.

Don't forget truly rich have plenty of completely legal companies that advise them how to 'optimize' their taxes. Companies smarter and better equipped than your average lawmaker. I mean look at the presidential candidates - obviously both are doing it. Everybody rich is doing it.

Raising the tax rates to 45% would (optimistically) generate 250 billion in the first year, which is ~20% of just medicare and medicaid. Which is only to say, improving access to health care and making it sustainable in this country is a much more complicated problem.

EDIT: Links:

- http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/17/business/putting-numbers-t...

- https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/images/pubs...

I agree that we'd also have to drive down healthcare costs using single payer.

You do know that the US has one of the most progressive tax rates in the world right?

You mean progressively lower and lower for those with the most?

The amount of time spent commuting certainly doesn't help either.

Commute time should really be considered part of work. I wouldn't be making the trip if it weren't for going to the job so why shouldn't it be considered work hours?

Because you have considerable influence over how long your commute time is. I can choose to live in a tiny apartment across the street from my job and walk to work, or I can choose a large house and drive 50 minutes to work. That's a personal decision. The worker who chooses the 50 minutes isn't entitled to anything more than the one who lives close by.

not really, once you have kids in picture its a whole different math. also the whole buying vs renting thing. to drive the seriousness of this home, Elizabeth warren did a study back when she was a prof & found that for every 10 point deviation from median in school performance house prices went up by 20 points.

Yeah the amount of influence you have is very minimal, especially when you consider changing jobs, are you supposed to move each time you do? I think that is an often claimed adage (like the whole trickle down effect one) that is much less true in reality.

Don't change jobs then. You have that choice. There are jobs I will not accept because the commute is not acceptable to me.

Just because you do not like the choices that are available to you does not mean such choices do not exist. I have a child so I know all about the different math. We could still choose to live in a small apartment in the city. Some people do that because they want to; others, because they have to.

How common is this really? I've worked at three companies. One big, one small, one medium. And at all of them I work around 40 hours making 6 figures, and feel like I'm working more than everyone else at the company.

Where are all these 60+ hour workers? Are they making even MORE money?

Or more taxes do good for the community, there are a lot of factors...

In most cases is not like they (the Americans) have a choice to work less hours. Vacation time in North America is significantly under the European norm.

We have more (paid) vacation and more public holidays and sick leave is both paid for and not counted towards the vacation budget, and more maternity/paternity leave, and some countries have extra leave for things like family funerals.

It's not hard to "work less" like that.

I have all this things in the US. Sick leave is not counted in my vacation.

Maternity leave is much longer than paternity. And is paid for in full at my company for a time. FMLA allows 12 weeks total but it can be unpaid.

The main difference I've seen with the Europeans I work with is, they take big chunks off at a time in summer. They pay more taxes but have more time off. Most likely don't get full pay for Maternity/paternity leave.

It's great that you have all things things, but are they standard in the US? I think that's the main issue here, that as a baseline, europeans tend to get more time off.

I haven't seen any US companies offering 25 days of paid vacation a year, plus unlimited sick leave (doctors note required for more than 3 consecutive days), plus extra days off for personal emergencies eg children sick, death in family.

All the money in SV could never make me go there if I never have time to spend it.

A quick google search and I can't find many places in Europe that offer 25 days, not including the national holidays.

If I include national holidays I get 22 days off. No set sick days unless you're out for more than 5 consecutive days.

I'm not sure why you'd move to SV, startup life's seems like hell.

From Wikipedia[1], minimum annual days leave are:

UK: 28

Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Luxembourg, Norway, Sweden: 25

Iceland, Malta: 24

Portugal, Spain: 22

The EU mandates a minimum of 20 days, so all other EU member states have 20.

Of course, these are just the mandated minimums. Many employers will give more to be competitive.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_b...

8 of those in the UK are Bank Holidays. I'm not sure about others countries because I'm from the UK, but I think other countries get more "real" holiday days than the UK.

Most companies I've worked for offer a little more than the minimum, for example I get 23 days excluding bank holidays and that generally increases by a day per year you've worked at the company or something like that.

> A quick google search and I can't find many places in Europe that offer 25 days, not including the national holidays.

The legal minimum in Europe is 20 days' vacation plus national holidays. Competitive employers offer more.

6 weeks holiday in UK, Germany and Sweden is fairly normal. I don't know about the other countries.

google provides all of these benefits.

What would my commute to Mountain View be like? 10 minutes by train or bus, while living in affordable accommodation?

If only one of the biggest tech companies in the world had multiple offices.

I don't know about mountain view, but on Google's software dev salary you should be able to live within 10 minutes of pretty much all of their US offices. I know for sure it's possible in nyc.

At least in Spain, maternity is full paid by the state

Right. The articles aren't suggesting that Americans choose to work themselves to death, only that it's culturally acceptable. In most salaried office jobs you could set a hard stop at 5pm and refuse to answer calls on weekends, but you'd find yourself quickly replaced by someone who would. So you "choose" to put in the extra hours so you don't find yourself unemployed.

That's exactly it. Dutch workers apparently work the least number of hours per year, yet Netherland is one of the richest, happiest and most productive countries in Europe. The country where people work the most hours in the EU is Greece.

(I realize this Bloomberg article has slightly different figures than the one I remember from another study. Maybe they used different ways to measure this, maybe the situation changed. I think the former.)

It seems more interesting to ask Are they any more productive? Even if American companies are more productive, can that be attributed to longer working hours? I'm guessing not, because it is the job if the organization to make its workers more productive. The individual, being locked in his position, has little leverage on his productivity.

How do you measure productivity in an information economy? A failed startup may have been very productive at churning out code at an astounding rate, but the problem it tried to solve turned out to be irrelevant, so all that productivity went into the trash. When talking about the correlation between productivity and the overall efficiency of a society, we always have to know whether the end goals succeed in delivering real value to the society. Otherwise, we are busy, advancing nothing.

Studying the charts, only 6 counties exist in both info graphics. Some observations;

Switzerland is the happiest country but works the second most hours Belgium works the third least hours and is at 19 on the happiness chart * The US is still in the top 15 happiest countries

> How happy are they working that extra 25%?

Is it even measurable? Some try. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report Americans don't do badly - on par with Germans (who are close to the top as far as Europe goes) and ahead of the UK, France, Italy, Russia (to name the 5 Europe's major economies).

Leaving aside Wall-street the Tech Bubble where people work grueling hours in the hopes of becoming a millionaire, the rest of the US works grueling hours because they need to in order to eat, pay their rent, etc. Telling someone who is working 40+ hours in order to make ends meet that they need to "work less" is tantamount to telling them to become homeless and destitute.

The point to a more progressive tax system. If the goal is to maximize a number(GPD) then a less progressive tax system makes sense. If the goal is to maximize "total human happiness"(could use a better term here I know) you need a more progressive tax system.

I think the effects of the tax system on GDP and human happiness (defined how?) are still an open research topic.

That is not true. Some tech people go in hoping to be millionaires, but the environment is extremely cut throat, esp with competition like India with billions of people keen on dominating tech, as well as Chinese skill. Many of the tech people end up competing to stay afloat, and to eat the weakest dog in the pack just to stay in that arena.

Silicon Valley and Seattle/Redmond are probably the most cut throat areas you could work in. It gets really nasty there.

I don't think people would be telling them not to work; more they'd be telling their bosses not to be such cheap asses.

What surprises me the most is how much paid vacation time goes unused.

It used to be the case that you could "bank" unused vacation-- often indefinitely. When I started with HP in '92, there were engineers that saved up literal months of vacation time, and would then take it all at once to go spearfishing in the Bahamas or what-have-you.

Then when the .com bust happened, everybody started tightening their balance sheets, and huge piles of unused vacation time was an easy liability to get rid of. So they reduced the max vacation accumulation to 3 or 4 weeks over your yearly accrual in a year (but left you what you had, so you wouldn't gain new vacation if you were at the cap, but you wouldn't lose it either).

Then they tightened further, so you'd only accumulate 2 weeks, then 1 week over your yearly allotment.

It's possible that habits built when vacation was easy to hold on to die hard.

>How happy are they working that extra 25%? They are richer, sure. But I don't think being rich is an indicator of your overall state.

They aren't that richer either -- if anything the majority is less rich in standard of living than most western European and nordic countries. Getting some more money in your salary is not worth much if you have to give most of it to medical coverage and basic services.

GDP per capita in the US is more than 25% greater than Europe.

Which has what to do with standard of living?

Actually, standard of living is pretty heavily tied with gdp per capita, but I'm pretty sure we are talking about which country is richer not standard of living.

Only if the GDP is spread out equally. Income in-equality is a fine way to mask poverty in spite of a huge GDP.

How so? If you take a "cake" of 100 units, let 99 people share 1, and give 1 to 1 person. Then most people have 1/99 units. If your cake is 85, and you give everyone an equal share, everyone has a 85/99 units. Now, the situation in Europe is probably more like having 2 people split 60 units out of 85 - but that still leaves "the rest" way a head of those that only get 1/99...

And how is that GDP distributed again?

GDP is heavily skewed towards the wealthy and big business.

It's borderline useless for determining the wellbeing of the average worker.

> the majority is less rich in standard of living than most western European and nordic countries

Blatantly false (see the other comment re: GDP). With a few exceptions[0], the US is very close to the top in terms of overall standard of living.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...

First of all, GDP and GDP per capita != standard of living.

Even regarding GDP per capita, most the "few exceptions" you mention that trump the US are western European and nordic countries with the exception of #4 Qatar.

  1      Luxembourg	102,717
  2	 Switzerland	80,603
  3	 Norway	74,598
  5	 Ireland	61,206

  6	 United States	56,084 <---

  7	 Singapore	52,888
  8	 Denmark	52,139
  9	 Australia	51,181
  10	 Iceland	50,277
  11	 Sweden	        50,050

And don't think that a 10% change in GDP per capita (like e.g. from USA to Sweden) means much in terms of standards of living -- there's the distribution of this GDP, the organization of everyday life, work standards, state services, etc.

I'm about to turn 31, and I make a decent salary as a Senior Software Engineer. I'm deeply considering going to live on a few acres and go full subsistence to avoid this rat race. Software isn't fun anymore, our generation probably won't retire.

The worst part is that crippling medical bills and college loan repayment are destroying us financially.

I think I'd be happier surviving what I can do myself than to keep doing this bullshit much longer.

> I'm deeply considering going to live on a few acres and go full subsistence to avoid this rat race. Software isn't fun anymore, our generation probably won't retire.

Have you ever actually worked on a farm? Its not fun either, its actual hard work. Most farmers don't retire either. The historical way this worked was as you got older your family helped more on the farm until one of them took over. You worked till you died though.

> The worst part is that crippling medical bills and college loan repayment are destroying us financially.

You think your medical bills are bad now, wait until you start dealing with industrial machinery and hard work. Not to mention the fact that your insurance will come out of your pocket directly instead of being employer provided. Your college loans are a pittance compared to what it would cost to buy an economically feasible farm in the USA right now.

> I think I'd be happier surviving what I can do myself than to keep doing this bullshit much longer.

I'd recommend trying it for a summer before you burn your bridges in Software (which for the record, might be the cushiest way to make a living of all time).

So thanks for the lecture, but yes I actually have. I like communicating with people, so please don't patronize me as if I'm some child. Try actually having a dialog.

Source: grew up on a farm.

I have no desire to sit in a "cushy" job just because it is one. That lifestyle may be harder, but I strongly suspect I'd get to the end of my life with less regrets about the whole thing.

Spending your whole life doing back breaking hard work, tilling soil, planting seeds, hoeing weeds, harvesting, eating and sleeping. Rinse and repeat for years on end, with nothing to show for it except that you've managed to stay alive, all just to die of skin cancer at the age of 65 from being out in the sun all day (or from being around so much fertilizer and insecticide chemicals). Sounds fulfilling!

Source: I grew up on a farm, too.

Glad to hear you are entering your next profession with eyes open.

My first job at 13 was on a farm and I lasted about a week before I realized I wasn't made for that life and I started planning on going to college. There is a long tradition of people claiming that life is for them without having ever actually done it successfully (I'm looking at you Thoreau).

If you think that you'd be happier living that way I don't see much reason not to go do it. But the complaints in your comment don't seem to be addressed by your desire to work as a farmer. Your debt levels, insurance rates and chance for retirement are all likely to be much, much worse as a farmer (subsistence or otherwise) than as a software developer. In fact, right now, you would be hard pressed to find an occupation that optimizes for those 3 things better than working as a software engineer.

But, of course those things don't have to be tied to someones happiness. If they aren't tied to yours, don't conflate them.

you have loan and big medical bills (ie bad health?) and you want to go to work on a farm doing backbreaking hard work? not a very smart move, but than again you don't describe the smartest software dev out there (you can easily retire earlier in this kind of job if you want and work a bit, if not you are doing something very wrong).

By all means if this is what you desire, go for it. It just doesn't seem like a smart move to many here, me included (but we have very few info, so whole picture might be different)

Yeah. What kasey said. I've also considered this-- going down the permaculture route. I'd say, take baby-steps. Try WWOOFing with some of your vacation time. If you like it, get a remote job and start incrementally farming. Raise chickens, etc. Going cold-turkey is probably not a great plan!

Do both. Remote work is a thing and it's what my wife and I are currently doing. We have 9 acres and have many agricultural plans on the horizon.

I am 32, similar position as you (Lead SE).

Just save 50% of your money, retire cheaply at 45 or 50. It's not that hard to do with 100k+ salaries.

Once you get in the mind-set, the job becomes more fun. You know there's an end to it, and you have enough cash to walk at any time.

When I think of my european colleagues I'm always struck by a little jealousy. They enjoy an unbelievable quality life. They seem to be on vacation all the time and their cities are incredibly pleasant. The US has so far to go. There is no meaningful comparison that can be made by using currency.

> They enjoy an unbelievable quality life. They seem to be on vacation all the time and their cities are incredibly pleasant.

Er... I think you accidentally dropped a bucket of green paint on the other side of the fence :-)

amount of vacation guaranteed by law is minimum 20/year, most have 25. in US this is considered as a special perk from what I heard. how about maternity leave, social support during unemployment, sickness and so on? Normal americans travel very little before retirement, they just don't have vacation for 2 or 3-week holidays every year, plus more for family visits, christmas etc. I travel consistently +-7 weeks per year, since I take my vacation when public holidays happen. Having 100% perm job. How common is this in US?

In France, you can have up to 10 weeks of paid vacation (that's a bit extreme, but they are western europe commies after all).

Not sure about pleasantness of the cities, each is different, but one feels generally safer here.

I've noticed some people just plain don't understand this mindset. My boyfriend was offered a higher-paying job in a state with lower cost of living but didn't take it. This was an absolute affront to some people we know, because we were turning down "more money!!"

We live more-than-comfortably and are able to save and make stupid impulse buys occasionally. We genuinely love where we live and are happy. For us, it seems just as insane to jeopardize that just for more cash and cheaper rent prices.

Happiness and even satisfaction are shallow metrics that make wanting to always take on new challenges with real risks seem like an optimization failure.

I've worked in both Europe and the US, and in my opinion, US workers are far worse off for it. You earn more money in the US, you can advance faster, but you have next-to-no vacation time (and even when you do, you're still often expected to be reachable by e-mail), maternity/paternity leave is pitiful, and you have to pay large health insurance premiums, amongst other things.

I know that isn't the case for everyone, but on average I'd advise someone to take Europe over the US, just for quality of life alone.

some of us love work.

As long as you are working on your own stuff, that's usually fine.

I'm sure many Europeans love their work too.

And you can still do that in Europe, no one is stopping you from working more.

And even better, as you have more free time, you can use it for your own projects.

> And you can still do that in Europe, no one is stopping you from working more.

Well, unions do. But that's a good thing, it prevents a race to burnout.

Does that actually apply to every field? I've only worked briefly as a software developer in Germany and not full time, but I never got the impression that unions would realistically stop anyone in that field from working till midnight. If you are working as a factory worker for example that's of course a totally different story. However, I doubt that people in that kind of job regularly decide to put in a few extra hours on some days and are usually on the clock.

The overtime regulations vary from union to union, but generally there's an upper limit – you can work 50 hours a week (and get compensated in some form), but not 90.

If you're in management (defined as having authority to hire/fire IIRC) you're exempt from the law, same if you're self-employed.

For a regular programming job, I believe the the law applies (no more than 10h/day and (8h/weekday average over 6 months). Practically, it only matters if somebody cares about it which only happens systematically on larger companies with a union presence.

But: you're responsible for your employees and they can not waive this right. If you regularly tolerate it, you may run the risk of someone changing his mind after a few years and getting you into trouble, trouble being up to 15000 Euro in penalties and (theoretically) a year in prison if someone was harmed.

In the UK you can opt-out of the EU working time directive.

It's the EU Working Time directive.

You can work longer for yourself, but not for someone else.

http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=706&langId=en&intP...

But is not applied for everyone. In my country, it doesn't apply to engineers typically: the only limit is 13h/day, 6days/week, so that's a "limit" of 78h/week...

In most developed EU countries, especially the happy Denmark, mr. Taxman will make sure that you see little marginal benefit of those longer hours.

Well, for those who love work so much, they'd do so regardless of the extra monetary benefits, would they not?

You can have two jobs if you want to. They won't stop you from that.

Nobody is stopping you but why would you work 60 hours a week for some boring European company that only pays you EUR60k when you can work the same hours in SV on something interesting and make $150k+.

Because a house costs you 200k instead of 400k

So move back to Europe after five years in SV and buy the house in cash.

Not in London, or Paris, or any of those places where there is some interesting work.

Are you implying all European companies are boring? That seems like a strange assumption..

In fairness, that's a pretty privileged opinion to hold.

What % of the population do you think that applies to? I'm very glad for you that you love your work enough to dedicate all the time you have available to it, but there a hell of a lot of people out there in the US who have to, and neglect their families, mental and physical health just to get by.

I think you're confusing loving to work and loving to be at work.

When I was in my late 20s and early 30s I worked all the time - I loved it! At some point though I became disillusioned with work. There was always more of it, and it was primarily for someone else's benefit. If you're working for yourself I can see a stronger case for putting in those hours, but you still risk seeing those years go by in a haze of largely undifferentiated time sitting behind the keyboard, or what have you, with likely little reward at the end. It's possible to have a work-life balance, still enjoy your job and be productive, take vacation, etc. Work can become a soulless endeavor, just as pursuing wealth for its own sake.

nice reply, a lot better than the dictation that europe and vacation are the real way to live.

i work for myself. i generally get to my office around 5am, leave at 230pm, spend around 4 hours every weekday with my wife and kids. i ski mid-week in the winter when there's fresh powder. i'll log research hours on the weekend. i have health insurance, savings, and happiness. i like my work and consider my hours logged a little light, but closer to adequate than 26 or 22 or whatever that bloomberg article says (50 - 60 a wk).

To some extent, this is a choice many Americans intentionally make. There are many jobs that offer European-like benefits, working hours, and employment stability in the US (e.g. Federal government jobs and some companies) but these are frequently viewed as undesirable -- it is not a first choice for many people if circumstances offer something better. The tradeoffs tend to be similar to Europe if you take one of these jobs. Lower pay, less opportunity for advancement (these kinds of environments tend to have promotions that are more seniority based), and you have to work with more people that put in the minimum effort required.

The concept of "quality of life" goes beyond the hours you work to also include having the opportunity to go after your ambition, if you have one. Culturally, I think one of the ways the US and Europe differ is that Europe imposes an environment designed to limit expressible ambition to the lowest common denominator, whereas US culture allows much greater variance in ambition. Or to put it another way, if it is your nature, it is easier to be ambitious in the US and easier to be non-ambitious in Europe. But all other things being equal, I prefer having the opportunity to be ambitious. Americans are not required to be ambitious, but many Americans take the opportunity nonetheless.

> (e.g. Federal government jobs and some companies) but these are frequently viewed as undesirable

Federal and government (city, state etc.) jobs (perhaps excluding IT) are some of the most desirable jobs in US, with long waiting lines. Got try get a city job in NYC....

Are you going to back up any of your claims?

Back up claims? It is common knowledge - bus drivers for example, working for Santa Clara county transit make $35/h, bus drivers for (contracted) Google and such make less than $20.

That's not common knowledge to me, especially since I don't live in California. You have asserted certain claims and offer no evidence. "Common knowledge" isn't evidence.

I do not know how to even reply to that. Bus drivers, post delivery people, municipal construction workers etc. - all have better salaries and benefits than similar private workers. I am not sure how any adult living anywhere in US could manage to not know that.

You're talking past one another, I think. You are correct for most blue collar jobs; GP's description is accurate for most white collar workers.

Your downvotes are probably for your unnecessarily inflammatory final sentence.

> "Common knowledge" isn't evidence.

But it is. The data for public salaries generally has very good availability in the Information age.

If you're trying to participate in a discussion in an informed way, you should at least conduct the minimum due diligence to do so.

Common knowledge is by definition not evidence.

> The data for public salaries generally has very good availability in the Information age.

The salaries don't seem particularly high, and in some cases (construction workers and bus drivers, top quarter) seem particularly low. Of course a lot more goes into job satisfaction than Salary but I agree, this is not common knowledge.

http://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/construction-worke...

http://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/bus-driver/salary

The point that BUS DRIVERS working for GOVERNMENT make better wages than BUS DRIVER working for PRIVATE sector. Not that bus drivers in general are rich people.

Ah. I think you've misread the comment in that case. The argument wasn't that the same job was typically better in private than government sector. It was that the types of jobs typically available in government (like the ones you mentioned) are viewed as less desirable in general, despite having good benefits, shorter hours, etc.

For white collars yes, for blue collars - definitely no.

Yes, they are highly desirable to people that are non-ambitious and strongly risk averse, which includes a non-trivial percentage of the population. For a certain kind of person, those jobs are perfect; the pay and opportunity isn't great but the risk and level of effort is also low. I've worked in these organizations before; the people that take these jobs don't want much out of life, just looking to coast.

But most Americans find government jobs to be unfulfilling and stifling for exactly the same reason -- it is a dead-end. I know it is different in other countries but "government job" has mixed connotations in the US.

> the people that take these jobs don't want much out of life

I disagree - those people don't want much out of work, they still want plenty out of life. Most I've met have tremendously fulfilling family lives, or similar. Not to be discounted.

NASA and Fermilab are also government jobs.

I actually think it's easier to be ambitious in Europe. Both in absolute terms, since it's easier to access good education education and working environment, and in relative terms, since there's more room to work harder than everyone else.

    > To some extent, this is a choice many Americans
    > intentionally make.

Uhm, to what extent do they have a choice? Be super poor or work hard. Hmm..yes those are delightful "options" to get to "select".

But seriously, I don't see a realistic choice for most people. To have any decent level of security and stability in our lives, most of us have to work our asses off!

> and you have to pay large health insurance premiums

This part still bothers me after 10 years in the US. Health insurance might as well be a tax if you have a family or any ongoing health issues. Hearing people say "I don't support universal health care because my taxes would go up" drives me insane. If the proposition was higher taxes but less overall money spent on healthcare then it's a net gain for you. Of course there would still be many issues to resolve (is it 100% public or a public/private mix, how do you control costs, how to you serve the massive rural areas here, how to manage the job losses from removing insurance/billing from the industry etc) but tax increases is a shitty reason not to at least look into it. It also amazes me that the same people opposed to tax increases aren't the ones screaming to remove the burden of health insurance from employers.

There are many things I love about living in the US but I am still often amazed at how much the US accomplishes despite some of these barriers. Perhaps I am naive to assume the US would be even more dominant in the world if we could sort out basic issues that other countries seem to have already resolved.

> If the proposition was higher taxes but less overall money spent on healthcare then it's a net gain for you.

Sure it would cost less, but then I'd be on the same insurance as everyone else. That means worse quality of care for those of us who currently have something other than Medicare.

There are OECD countries that have varying degrees of public healthcare supplemented with private insurance that have excellent quality of care.

I'm not sure the US model for primary care is that great either - there have been many articles about how medical clinics are now pushing people through in 10-15 minutes instead of taking the time to fully understand the patient's needs and avoid over prescription. A routine visit for my kid at the local clinic (Allina Health) is now $150 - $190 (for a 15 minute appointment to check for something basic that a PA at Minute Clinic wouldn't touch). That same visit back in my home country cost $43 USD (non resident rates).

I'm not sure there would be a significant drop in primary care for most people?

It's not a naive assumption at all.

The US has some of the highest entrepreneurship rates in the world despite having a pretty weak government provided social safety net.

People would be far more likely to start a company if it didn't mean giving up their existing healthcare benefits and having to pay for it out of pocket.

Me too - for me the difference is early retirement isn't really feasible in Europe. The exception being maybe get a remote job in the US and then move. Haven't succeeded there yet.

Sorry for this small rant ....

I dont understand why everyone is so caught up with answering emails on vacation. Yes - it's not ideal, but as long as your not expected to be on your phone all day, and in my experience, you are not unless you own your own business, are a doctor, etc. then what is the big deal? 5/10 minutes of email's in the morning means Europeans have a better work/life balance ?

If you work for a small company they might need you to be available because you are an integral part of the operation. Id be surprised you are expected to answer emails on vacation if you currently work large company in the US where you are 1 of N team members where N > 50.

I work for a small company (< 20 people) and I'm an integral part of the team, yet I take 3+ week vacations with no problem. If my boss ever said the above to me, my only answer would be "Fuck you," before I left.

To properly recharge during vacation, to get rid of work stress, and actually return to work energized, you need to disconnect from work. This means you have to do absolutely nothing that's connected to work for at least three weeks straight.

Shorter vacations spoil this. Emailing or talking on the phone while on vacation spoils this.

Quick question: Have you ever taken three consecutive weeks off work?

not since college. im 34

> I dont understand why everyone is so caught up with answering emails on vacation

I'm 35, been working since I was 21, but still get a little (sometimes more) anxious each morning when coming to work and thinking that I have to open my email.

> 5/10 minutes of email's in the morning means Europeans have a better work/life balance ?

It's not "5/10" minutes. It's one or two hours before the fact, thinking "should I check my email? no, I'm sure everything is ok back at work", then another 2 or 3 hours after you actually checked your email, thinking at what you have just read and possibly replied. So, there goes half of your vacation day thinking and stressing about work.

I think its a lot more than 25%. In Sweden where I work, people are relaxed at their jobs. Coming in at 8.30 am and leaving at 4.30 pm with a full lunch break in the middle is normal. Taking a couple of coffee breaks or ping pong matches and chatting with collegues is normal. There is casual talk all day long and bosses are also leaving work early to pick up children, spend time with the family and just enjoy their lives. I think something around 35 hours is what we do around here, but getting payed for 40 of course.

The American culture honestly seems totally crazy to me. There is a massive difference in how you view yourselves over there. If you dont succeed at making some kind of a career, you feel like losers? Please step out of the matrix a little bit guys. Life is not getting some position in a company so you can work even more. Its about finding happiness.

This is pretty standard in the US, especially if you don't work in some MegaCorp cog-in-the-machine type of situation.

I think a good percentage of people working their asses off and working 60 hours a week are people who ARE actually successful. I don't blame them for turning work into a hobby.

What? Where are these 8:30-4:30-with-a-nice-long-lunch jobs?

In my experience, smaller (non bigcorp) companies have to fight to survive and don't have these luxuries..

Is it really so unusual for someone with relatively marketable skills to have a standard 8 hour work day with a proper lunch break?

Are you guys cool with starting at 10:00?

This is just an anecdote though. I work in the US and can come in after 10am and leave by 4pm if I want. I can work remote when I want to and have done this for a week out of state and just random weekdays. This is all on a 40hr salary that hasn't been cut. I bring my dog to work and go to lunch when I want to. I shoot the breeze with coworkers when I want to. We still get our work done. There are some times when I work later, but it's because we're trying to get something out and I want to help.

Just saying not everywhere in the US is as bad as people make it sound...

> This is just an anecdote though.

No, it is not. The guy is telling about a generic situation. And I can tell it goes the same way in Finland too.

Yours is an anecdote though. You know pretty well your case is not common.

Not sure how common it is here or anywhere else based off these comments. That's the point. We now have 3 people saying they've got flexible jobs in 3 different countries. It doesn't generalize to 'everyone/most in those respective countries' from that alone. And country-pride or whatever isn't enough to sway me, sorry.

I know a number of people here that have more flexibility in their jobs than the Sweden job as described. Did I say 'generically, US is better' or anything like that? No, because maybe it's not true. Maybe you two are right.

Higher earning workers in the US work more hours than lower earning workers.

"Between 1979 and 2002, the frequency of long work hours increased by 14.4 percentage points among the top quintile of wage earners, but fell by 6.7 percentage points in the lowest quintile."

There are insinuations in this thread that the reason Americans work more hours is because the working poor have to work long hours to make ends meet. However, "There was no increase at all in work hours among high-school dropouts," from 1979 to 2002.

Americans working long hours is increasingly a higher income phenomenon. Which means those workers have more disposable income they could trade for shorter hours if they chose to.

http://www.nber.org/digest/jul06/w11895.html

I work long hours because if I didn't there's a line of people outside the door who will.

European unemployment rates are higher than the US unemployment rate. Is there really a line of people waiting to take your job? If you are in software the employment market in the US is pretty tight right now.

That's why people invented unions and labour laws. Still amazes me that some states don't have to have a valid reason to fire you.

there is a correlation but that does not mean the jobs are elastic. it is not reasonable to assume that higher paid workers can simply switch jobs or even career paths simply to trade available free time for lower compensation.

Yes it is reasonable. Bankers and consultants move to industry, lawyers and accountants move in house, engineers move to maintain legacy projects. People quit their careers and work for non-profits or become teachers. This happens all the time.

My admittedly SWAG is that this happens more by chance than by choice. this is an important distinction.

An old infographic I had bookmarked which shows this pretty clearly: https://i.imgur.com/Vkd1I01.png Also shows that working more != more pay (I'm Dutch, maybe you can see why I bookmarked it)

I find it ironic that Greece is the third hardest-working country in there. What with the whole stereotype of the lazy Greek.

Is it just me, or is the article looking a bit too hard for reasons why US workers having longer working hours is a good thing?

I would love to live and work in Italy (or any other Mediterranean climate country), but there are simply no [tech] jobs. And what few software jobs there are are not interesting at all and pay very little.

I value my time and I am willing to take a pay cut to live in Europe, but the jobs are not simply there. Why can there be no middle ground? For now, the plan is to work hard and retire early. Real estate price chages in Europe can be considered flat compared to the US.

You can definitely find tech jobs in Portugal and Spain, mostly in Lisbon and Barcelona. They will not pay the same as in Germany, the Netherlands, UK or here in Sweden but you can live very comfortably with a tech salary there, so there's middle ground.

Italy unfortunately doesn't really have a well developed tech industry as far as I know.

Never been to Portugal, I should look into it. I have been looking to go somewhere for NYE.

Why not? Not many Earth shattering startups but being one of the largest EU economies means that Italy has many IT jobs. I spent the first half of my career in a 1000 people consulting company and a 3000 people mobile phone operator. Then I went freelancing, mostly web, and I pay my bills. There are many SME tech companies, selling their own products and services or consulting.

There is quite a difference between the South and the North, two very different economies. If you ever want to try to work Italy go to the North. Probably Milan is the safest starting point.

That said, I'm sure that the UK, Germany and France are better off than Italy, even the North of it.

FPGA designer (and embedded sys FW) living in Italy here, must say that tech jobs are possibly some of the few jobs that you can be safe to find here! Now, if tech means webdev I have friends that struggle to pay the bills by freelancing with that, but going down the stack you find much more demand (I have personally found A LOT of demand for EE). Consider that I'm speaking from the northern part of Italy, no idea about the south tech-jobs situation.

Are your freelancing friends expats, or Italian citizens?

Both. I guess the issue is that freelancing is not a thing here. Those that get into webdev through a company (especially marketing or nice startups) seem to be doing really well, but they are few to my knowledge.

Oh, I see what you mean, you're talking about freelancing for local companies. That's funny, my mindset is all about working remotely for companies in other countries, especially the US. I'm currently living in Thailand, where freelancing for a local company would mean earning something like $10-15 per hour.

I would like to live and work in Italy as a freelancer, but I can only stay for 90 days at a time. Do you know of any ways to stay longer?

EDIT: Wow, I should have done some more research. Italy has a "long-term visa". But more exciting than that, Germany has an actual “self-employment” visa for freelancers. I might start with Germany then.

Berlin is a pretty fun place.

If I wanted to freelance, I can simply do that in the US and solve the work/life/vacation balance myself. I will be exploring freelancing in the near future. I might be too down the tech stack, since I will not find exactly what I have been specializing in.

Of all my friends that "majored" in Computer Science in high school (which is what you do in Italy, ITIS Informatica), none of them work in software. Most never have. I heard of one classmate that was working as a software developer. Granted, I graduated a long time ago (well before social media) and have not heard from any of them since graduation.

Croatia is another country I like due to the lower costs and good weather.

This is true. I'm already working remotely as a freelancer, so I wish it was as easy as just moving to Italy. Unfortunately you can't do that if you're not employed by a company, or have a ton of money to invest.

I just found this startup visa, though: http://italiastartupvisa.mise.gov.it/#direct-application-sec...

I think I might actually look into this.

Assuming you're American, I believe you can get a Schengen visa for most of Europe from any number of countries, including Britain (if you hurry, and it may not be called Schengen since they aren't a member). So try shopping around – it's usually easy if you have ancestors from a country and every country has additional programs for certain purposes (being jewish, for example, gets you German citizenship with no further questions asked).

A Schengen visa allows you to travel freely in the EU, but not to live anywhere unless you actually have a long-term visa for the place.

All administrative acts will require you to have a long-term visa in the country you are doing them.

Software is uniquely suited for remote work. I run a small but acceptably successful startup with one other partner and it really doesn't matter where I am as long as I have a power outlet and internet. (and an hour of internet access is enough if necessary).

So I've started spending about a third of my time abroad (more in the winter, less in the summer). Usually it's a week in some southern-european or mediterranean country, from Portugal to Egypt or Israel. Flights are about 60-200 Euros return, accommodation is around 25 Euro/day, and a changing scenery is actually pretty good for creativity.

I could spend more time away, but social life makes being at home too attractive. I wish there were a few more people and we could start the compiler-wielding traveling circus :)

The number of hours doesn't tell the whole story though. Working cultures differ a great deal. You may put in longer hours, but then it's more laidback, with more socializing etc. whereas somewhere else it's clock-in, work, clock-out, no fooling about.

I'm not sure why you think that European workplaces are stricter than US workplaces, or that US jobs are generally laid back.

I didn't say I think that. If anything, I hinted at it as a possibility worth considering (not phrased as extremely as "US jobs are generally laid back").

It should be looked into if you want to put things in perspective.

In Germany business culture is certainly one of more intense focus, at least in office jobs. Not that it's representative of the whole Europe, of course.

Still, raw numbers don't say the whole story. That's why such findings should be taken with some distance.

I understand that different things are different, but you seem to be appealing to the law of averages.

In the U.S., more people over 65 are working than at any point in the past 50 years

Also, more people over 65 are alive, compared to any point in the past 50 years. Inability to draw insight from data is the 2nd biggest problem of media these days (the first is the linkbait/profit/ad broken business model)

Yeah - they're talking percentages: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-13/-i-ll-neve...

These complaints about the supposed incompetence and/or bias of today's journalism are really getting old, but thanks for highlighting how idiotic they sometimes are.

The bias and incompetence is getting old as well.

As an American currently working remotely while traveling in Europe I have seen some of this first hand. I think there's pros and cons to the aspects I've observed.

- Probably the most obvious is meals. In most European countries its not uncommon to take a 2-hour lunch break and to take 2-3 hours for dinner. But at the same time, the quality of food is higher, meals tend to be larger social affairs (not something you do alone), and slower more relaxed meals probably aid digestion. This contrasts sharply to the obsession with fast food/quick service meals in the US that are mostly taken alone and on the run. In some cases it was frustratingly difficult for me to find a restaurant with quick enough service that I wasn't feeling like I was letting my own team in the US down.

- Transportation is less car-centric. What this means though is that a lot of people have a longer, if somewhat more relaxed commute. For instance, rather than a 15-20 minute drive if you live "near work", you might have a 10 minute walk + 40 minute train/metro ride. Sure, you /could/ be working on the metro in theory, or checking emails on your phone while walking. But people don't, and in a way that's great. It gives you a few moments of wakefulness where you don't have to focus and you don't have to think about work.

- Holidays. I'm not really sure how this works out in small and broad technical teams like Operations. But it seems like given the amount of holiday time Europeans are granted and take that there's probably someone out on holidays on your team at any given moment. On the other hand, I imagine that there are less stress-related deaths in Europe.

These are all just my first-hand observations, I haven't really dug into the stats around it, but I can imagine how these and other factors could easily lead to an overall reduction in work hours or even productivity vs American workers. On the other hand, I've found Europeans tend to be healthier and happier than Americans, so maybe it's not such a big deal?

Does anyone know of a similar comparison that includes South and East Asian countries? From my personal conversations, those areas will see longer hours AND lower pay than the U.S., and I'd be interested to see that broken down statistically.

USA problems are well known for decades now

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM

A glowing example of how a huge economy can also be a terrible economy . That 25% is only the tip of the iceberg.

If Russia is the fall of communism , USA is the fall of capitalism. Two extremely stupid economic and political models.

Is it a coincidence that both countries have the most rich in the world and a terrible track record on wealth and income equality, workers and human rights ?

Nope

> Is it a coincidence that both countries have the most rich in the world...

It is not true that both countries have the most rich in the world[sic].

Russia was never a rich country like the US - not before Communism, not during, and not after. It could create a good facade and a strong military, but that's not the same thing...

I believe he meant rich individuals, billionaires, oligarchs.

Ah, I see. I agree, that probably is what he meant.

I struggle to digest this article. Considering I'm an Italian who has ever worked 40+ hours a week (non tech jobs got me to 60+ hours/wk...). And then, when I lived in England, everyone seemed to be doing at most 35 hrs/wk. I understand that these are statistics, but I can't really match it to my experience (but, hey, maybe this tells me to complain less and enjoy spare time more!)

Italians have the opposite problem - too much spare time (at least, all at once). When I lived in Italy I was astonished that the entire country could effectively shut down for an entire month (ferragosto). I mean, come on, at least stagger your vacations so that everyone doesn't take leave all at the same time...

True, in my company we can't afford to shut in August considered that 90% of our clients are outside Italy. But generally speaking it goes that way. Possibly paid holidays lower the average then. (BTW: ferragosto is just one day - Aug 15th)

The same could probably be said for Norway too. I think it's a good thing, mind. Everyone gets 5 weeks off now, in general. usually 4 weeks in summer (the rest to be used for Easter, Christmas or at employees discretion in agreement with the employer), that matches up with the school holiday. I suppose there'd technically be room to shift those weeks a bit, but then how can you make sure everyone in a household have holidays together, assuming two working parents?

That's true for pretty much most of Europe, in my experience; though as you move further north it's during July instead of August. The most common here in Denmark is the last three weeks of July.

I really like working in July, the whole city is empty and nobody bothers me because they're on vacation :)

Europeans have this shit figured out then. 25% less work means stopping at 3:00PM every day for me (unless you count the difference as block vacations). This would be LIFECHANGING. I get bored and stop concentrating around that time every day as is.

The workdays in Europe are your pretty typical 8 hour days, the difference I think comes from the 15-30 annual vacation days per year, plus all the public holidays.

This. Before I switched to 4 days a week (to do non-work stuff) I had 31 days holiday not including public holidays. I really value this extra time. The lack of holidays was one reason (albeit not the only one) I decided not to work in San Francisco when I had the chance in the past.

This report is pretty pointless, and is at best a puff piece for an American audience. American workers are some of the most productive workers in the world, but working hours are not the sole reason. Working hours really do not tell you that much on their own.

In Europe, Greece works the most hours, and yet they are hardly an economic success story. French people work fewer hours than British people, and yet France has better productivity measures. Italy works the fewest hours, but they are stuck in an economic mire. Industrial Era British factory workers worked many more hours than British factory workers today, and yet I'm certain that today's factory workers are much better value. There isn't a meaningful correlation to be found around working hours independent of other factors.

...according to the unpublished working paper (PDF)

Why would Bloomberg release this as news?

Europe? I would love to even get to the 26 hours/week that my fellow Americans are supposedly working according to the chart.

I’m from Norway. It has always been something of a given, from our perspective, that Americans work on average more hours per week than we do. It’s something you hear all the time. Also, that in the U.S. it’s more common to relocate for a job, and, accept longer commutes.

I have a full-time position, and work a maximum of 37.5 hours every week.

Read a previous study on this same topic, and they hypothesized that it was due to cultural differences. In the US, socialization happens mostly through coworker interaction, and people's worth is assessed by the job you have and the money you make. Where as in Europe, socialization happens mostly out of work, in bars, coffee shops, etc. And people's worth is judged more from their hobbies, knowledge and social qualities.

I thought that was a pretty good hypothesis. It even reflects in the political tendencies each place demonstrate. A lot of people in the US aspire to be CEOs or rich, most people in France for example aspire to have a good glass of wine on the coast of France playing bocce ball all day.

To give some context, the other study I refer to found that Americans are happier when they work longer, while European were happier when they worked least.

Its time to start a world backslash to defend American workers. Like we do to ask for good working conditions in Asia.

During the 17th century England started to fight against slavery. One of the reasons is that with the Industrial Revolution, the only way to compete with them were with slave labor. Maybe we should combat slavery in USA.

Well if as a country you seriously suck at wealth equality and defending basic human and worker rights that 25% seems pretty low. Stupidity after all loves hard work.

Of all this is just old news for researchers

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM

The article makes it seem like the US is where people work the most. It is not. The selection of countries make their graph misleading. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_time

One interesting thing is that “25% more work” is taken at face value.

In my experience, that 25% does not equate to 25% more productive in any non-assembly line job.

Americans are busier, spend more time at work, and don’t get any more work done.

>The U.S.’s shift from traditional pensions to 401(k) plans makes it harder for Americans to know when it’s safe to retire.

That's not really true. Traditional pensions rely on the financial health of whoever is paying the pension. Personally, I'd rather rely on a 401(k) than find out in my dotage the company I was depending on to pay the bills went belly up.

The real problem with retiring under 65 is health care. The situation is so muddled now it's impossible to predict what a health care plan or a serious illness is going to cost you five years hence.

The data is ambiguous as presented. The chart footnote says "Overall hours per person, not just for people with jobs incorporating time at work along with retirement, vacation, unemployment, and other time spent out of the workforce." which does not tell me if it counts children and is still vague about whether it includes adults who have no intention or desire to find a job.

The data given is in the article is far too sparse to draw any conclusions from. I hope the paper it's based on is more explicit and careful.

One crazy takeaway from this: Greeks work longer hours than Germans

Indeed. There are some odd numbers in these graphs which make me a bit skeptical of the conclusions.

The stereotype of lazy Greek is one of the most stupidest in EU.

Factory workers at Porsche are unionized. They work less than 40 hours per week, around 35 per week , still Porsche is one of the most profitable companies in the automotive business with a well-educated workforce.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-11/porsche-pr...

Bizarre. The study apparently did not collect data from Canada. That would be a good way to compare against the comparatively fewer differences between Canada & the US.

Maybe relevant: "Living in Switzerland ruined me for America and its lousy work culture"

http://www.vox.com/2015/7/21/8974435/switzerland-work-life-b...

Reading the comments here, it is amazing to discover how many people dislike their work. When I was younger, I too had my share of jobs that I wasn't overly thrilled about, but with time I've found a great deal of fulfillment in what I do, and I truly hope the same for others.

The article fails to mention culture which is obviously the #1 reason for differences in the first place.

I dont' find this to be a good thing, not something you should brag about...

> U.S. workers not only put in more hours than workers do almost anywhere else.

I understand that they're intending to compare us to other Western nations, but there's simply no way this is true globally.

But do they adjust for median age? The US is probably younger than western Europe on average due to immigration/slightly higher birthrate, which means fewer retired people who don't work.

Thing is, in the software world at least, you earn >25% more than Europeans in the US. Just look at salaries in London. Given the extraordinary cost of living, salaries are pitiful.

Why is that?

Because European governments take a lot more out of your salary before it reaches you in exchange for social services (pensions, healthcare, etc). Unlike America where you are expected to either drop a stack of bills just to see the doctor or die in the streets.

I think the parent is actually referring to pre-tax salaries; the baselines are much lower (last I checked) in the EU relative to the US.

A senior ie 10 years experience in London is unlikely to make more than $70k which is about half what the starting salary is for google in the valley

There are plenty of senior dev jobs in London that pay far more than that. I passed that level in London 15 years ago. At that time I had about 6 years experience.

It depends much more on niche, how well your market yourself, and what type of companies you work for.

Perm or contractor?

Perm. Contractor rates need to be much higher to be anything worth talking about.

EDIT: Basically, never accept the first offer. Brits rarely negotiate, but I negotiated up my last salary 50% over the initial offer, after going in specifically knowing the top end of the stated salary band was lower than what I'd consider. If you take the initial offer, you're being paid less than your employer was willing to pay. I've never had an offer pulled, in London or elsewhere, over trying to negotiate it. I've declined positions where I didn't get it quite high enough, though.

If you take the initial offer, then you'll be very lucky to get a good deal.

And aim for niches. E.g. PHP devs are dime a dozen. Talk to a recruiter and flat out ask them what skills they get most demand for and highest salaries for now. Just be honest and tell them you're considering what to skill up in. I do backend/devops stuff with AWS and other cloud services etc, and that'd doing ok, but there are other opportunities. And network as much as you can. You'll get your salary up a lot if you're coming in via a suitable recommendation rather than the normal hiring channels.

ah just realized I used $ instead on £ there.

Some payroll taxes have to paid by employers (i.e. not subtracted from monthly salary). If they are higher than in the US, employers have less incentive to offer big salaries.

Just did a quick calculation for Brazil and for an employee that earns $1000/month, the employer has to spend $1528/month ($1000 salary + $528 in taxes and mandatory benefits).

At least in France companies pay tax on your salary so even if you receive 2000 € for your salary, the company would have paid 3000 € (salary + taxes).

Then you pay the tax on your revenue.

Then the company pay tax on revenue.

Then politics wonder why France is not attractive to investments

About 90% of Americans overall have health insurance. Most full-time tech jobs in the US at the companies that would pay more than European salaries will include sufficient health insurance. I'm not sure who you're referring to dying in the streets because of a lack of medical treatment due to financial limitations.

Well, maybe not die in the streets, but in my state the best, most expensive health insurance I can purchase still doesn't kick in until I've dropped several thousand out of pocket.

I get decent insurance through my job, but it's still fucking stupid how much I have to spend before it kicks in. Even then, there are all kinds of clauses and stipulations and loop holes. I guarantee if and when I really need my insurance it will fail me and I'll still come out in debt. There simply is not a "pay money and don't worry" insurance plan out there.

Even worse, when I go to the doctor, I have no idea what I'm going to pay. You can possible decode it, but good luck - and if he or she sends something to a lab, etc. one day a bill will just show up and you'll just have to pay it. The doctor doesn't say "we can do a lab test, it'll cost you $40" or anything. Imagine if your dry cleaner wouldn't tell you what the charge would be until your clothes had already been cleaned!

Oh, and that bill is probably gonna be full of medical coding mistakes too. Tests and procedures and all kinds of things marked up, put in the wrong category, and so forth. Expect to have to wrestle the insurance and the hospital for corrections.

I've had to do that once. I got denied short term medical insurance because they said I had diabetes (this is before Obamacare).

I've never had diabetes. I called my doctor and it turned out they coded one of my visits wrong and said I had diabetes, and it had been in everyone's system for at least a couple of years. Wonderful. Got it fixed, at least.

They do if you are a Qliance subscriber.

The 10% of Americans who don't. The other Americans who do but still can't afford to pay what their health care doesn't cover, etc.

Even with sufficient health care, I try to avoid the doctor because of the cost.

> Even with sufficient health care, I try to avoid the doctor because of the cost.

If that is generally true then that is one really big difference between the US and northern Europe and Scandinavia. I never think of money when I or any of my family visit a doctor or hospital. Here in Norway I have to pay about USD30 to visit my GP, various fees for medical tests and so on, and I have to pay something towards any prescriptions but there is a cap on how much I will have to pay each year (about USD150 for drugs). Beyond that limit it is all free (except that of course it is paid for out of general taxation).

> I'm not sure who you're referring to dying in the streets because of a lack of medical treatment due to financial limitations.

Perhaps the GP was referring to the 10% without insurance

I currently have an condition that requires surgery that I'm putting off because even with my insurance (which costs me about 25% of my rent every month, or more than the total of all of my utility bills including phone and internet) it's still expensive enough that I can't do it now. This condition is the result of minor issues that I noticed nearly a decade ago, when I had no insurance, and I decided that I needed to tough it out rather than not have enough money to pay rent.

Just wanted to make this less abstract for you. Lack of insurance led to a more complex situation that underinsurance leaves me helpless to solve, while homelessness waits for me to choose health over shelter.

More and more Americans are getting stuck with High Deductible Health Plans, which for all intents don't exist until you fork over several thousand dollars to meet your deductible (excepting a limited range of "preventable care" items that are covered).

As a relatively healthy young adult I'm actually a huge fan of those plans - I'd rather bank the money I would normally spend on an unused premiums into an HSA for later use. I completely recognize this is not ideal for many (most?) people and support single-payer healthcare.

Yes, but those high deductible plans have significantly lower premiums. They are usually a better deal than the copay plans, where you pay a lot more in premiums even if you never see a doctor.

As someone without chronic expensive health needs, I've been on a HDHP with an HSA for almost a decade. They're great.

With a low deductible, I'm paying more up front so I can pay less if I need care. With an HSA and HDHP, I'm paying less for insurance and putting the difference into an interest-bearing account that I keep with me. Two different jobs that offered HDHPs also offered HSA contributions or matches.

Over time, my HSA has grown to roughly 3x my family's deductible. Tell me how I'm losing out?

Employer provided health insurance is generally not worth your time, especially if you change jobs a lot. I pay for my insurance out of pocket even though my employer offers it, because I can't afford 20% copays.

90% have health insurance? Are you kidding me? I'd love to see where you pulled that figure from.

90.9%, according to the Census Bureau. See the table in this article copied from their report on Health Insurance Coverage: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/oct/...

This doesn't add up though, people often talk about salaries of 60k Euro or less, and then you have to pay higher taxes on that. A $65k salary would be a joke for a software engineer in the US.

Yeah, but we're talking about programmers. We typically get excellent health care benefits.

In almost all European cities except for London (where the cost of living compensates for the disparity, anyway), you're lucky if you're making EUR 70k per year as a senior developer.

From what I've heard in the US a senior developer in a comparable location, i.e. West Coast/East Coast makes at least $ 100k per year.

On top of that, many American software companies give out stock, which almost no European companies do.

That's if you find yourself in an ideal condition: No health issues or no social issues that blocked you from having a perfect career.

If for any unfortunate reason you are not able to land a decent-payed job, the situation in Europe is much, much better.

So yes, top workers life Software Engineers may earn less. But the safety net for the whole population is way better in Europe.

The less inflammatory way of putting that is that the costs of employing someone in most European countries are rather high; up to 100% of salary in many cases.

So let's compare tax rates in the US vs Norway where I live, arguably a "socialist bastion" according to the rest of the world!

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates

Corporate tax Norway: 25%

Corporate tax US: 35%

Individual (Min/Max) Norway: 0%/46.9%

Individual (Min/Max) US: 0%-3%/52.9%

Payroll tax Norway: 0%-14.1%

Payroll tax US: 20.2%

VAT Norway: 10%-25%

VAT US: 0%-11.725%

The tax systems are different though, for Norway, the max tax bracket is from 950.000 NOK (a bit over 100k USD). You do not pay tax until you make around 80k and the rates are progressive. You do have loads of deductibles though like paid interest, children, transportation etc.

So I wouldn't say we pay vastly more in tax here, but we still get social services.

The salaries here are not on EU level, but a bit higher. As an analyst I make about 1.1 million NOK/year. From that I pay around 350k in tax and that is not too bad compared to what we get in exchange. I actually have no objections to paying the tax.

Edit: BTW, I work 37.5 hours a week and two of the days are from home. And I have 27 paid vacation days a year + the public holidays :)

Edit2: the tax stuff was mangled, reformatting

I'm not sure how researched on US taxation you are, however the posted numbers mean absolutely nothing.

The effective tax rates are incredibly low for the upper class. Miniscule.

The middle class pays on average around 25% in income tax.

The good news is this means there's an incredibly simple answer for why the US is underinsured and undereducated: the average american is not willing to pay the amount of money it costs to insure and educate the lower class.

There aren't many non-european Americans willing to live in Scandinavia or europe over the US barring extraordinary circumstances. A significant amount of foreign, non 'white', skill prefers the US over say Norway. Considering that, "socialism" in the context of Scandinavia,europe, etc isn't an attractive option by a long shot in a more global, and highly diverse 'market'. The benefits of a selective style of socialism like Norway may be attractive to say similar mindsets and cultural effects comfortable with a homogenous idealism of utopia, but having the benefits of a highly diverse and varying mindsets and cultures has its own positive effects even with the negatives.

Sadly in the US, the idealisms of socialism often also comes with certain european-centric identities, or commonly bastardized into race ideologies where their proponents emphasize a socialist "utopia" like Scandinavia. These people emphasize this socialism on the basis of certain similar attributes where they can afford such promises to a small percentage, through the removal or exclusion of those they decide are not like them.

Breaking down the US economic system, one would be quick to notice that there does indeed exist a kind of socialist utopia much inline with euro-centric ideologies. One that even dwarfs the so called socialist bastion of Scandinavia and europe.

The tax difference is generally less than people think. 5-6 European countries are very high, with Belgium in a class by itself, but most are not that many percentage point above the US.

Most tech jobs in the US come with very generous health insurance with pretty small out of pockets. And it's mostly paid by the company.

We also have higher costs of living when you factor in healthcare costs and lack of public transportation. A healthy 20 year old can pay $300 a month for insurance that covers nothing until you hit 10k in expenses.

Where is "we"?

Is there any other developed nation where you pay $300 a month for health insurance and it doesn't cover you for the first $10,000 of expenses?

I believe the point was undoing the US-normative "we", rather than questioning the location of the speaker.

Have anything beyond hyperbole?

The highest healthcare costs per capita:

US $8,713 Switzerland $6,325 Norway $5,862 Netherlands $5,131 Sweden $4,904

Expensive yes, but not extreme compared to some of the other richest European countries.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2015/11/14/24-7...

Are you replying to the correct comment, or do Switzerland, Norway, the Netherlands and Sweden offer $300 per month insurance that doesn't cover the first $10,000?

edit: and anyway, your link vehemently disagrees with you on "extreme."

"While higher health care spending generally leads to better health outcomes, this is famously not the case in the United States. The country, which is one of the world's wealthiest, spends by far the most on health care. The United States spends around $8,700 per capita each year on health care, more than double the OECD average and well more than second place Switzerland.

"Despite the high spending, Americans are not anywhere near the world's healthiest. More than 35% of Americans are obese, one of the highest rate in the world, and exceptionally high compared with other countries spending the most on health. The United States is also the only top 10 country for health spending where the life expectancy does not exceed 80 years. Also, perhaps as a consequence of poor economic and social factors as well as the inefficient spending, adverse health outcomes such as infant mortality have increased in the United States. While in 2000, the incidence of infant mortality in the United States was lower than the OECD average, today it is higher."

> Have anything beyond hyperbole?

Out of all of the countries you listed as expensive, only the U.S. has a system where you can pay thousands a year in premiums and yet still get zero coverage for your first 10k in medical expenses.

It's not hyperbole. It's simply just a fact. Other countries might also have high healthcare costs per capita, but at least they get what they pay for, and at least you don't end up bankrupt due to unforeseen medical emergencies.

While you're being downvoted, as someone in the US, I have to let everyone know: He is right. If you buy your own insurance, and pay low premiums ($3600/yr in his case), you can expect to get deductibles of $10K.

And this is where it is unfair: If I am fairly wealthy (e.g. earning $150K/year in a not expensive city), then this is very affordable. However, someone earning $100K in the same city will pay the same premium - it'll hurt their wallet a lot more than mine. $100K will not get anyone government subsidies.

With tax-funded health care (as in Europe), the burden isn't on the poorer person, but on the richer one.

You wont have healthcare cost problems in London though.. for starters.

But other professions are comparable.

Cite ?

What are these healthcare cost problems? U.S. software companies pay for employee health insurance while still maintaining higher salaries. Perhaps the healthcare system in England is marginally better than in the U.S., but I'm not aware of any health care crisis among U.S. software professionals.

On the health costs specifically: You basically get your health insurance for life & as understood at the moment portable to other EU countries, what happens when you lose your job or if your startup folds in the US or your insurance provider wont honour? I don't want to sound like some troll or something but theres tonnes of articles that go through the differences.

> what happens when you lose your job or if your startup folds in the US or your insurance provider wont honour?

In the U.S., your insurance isn't terminated upon loss of employment. I don't know of any physical ailments whose treatments an insurer can legally opt out of insuring. I believe in the possibility of the odd exception here or there, but nothing as endemic as you suggest.

> I don't want to sound like some troll or something but theres tonnes of articles that go through the differences.

I'm a software developer in the U.S., my friends, colleagues, and other acquaintances aren't dropping dead around me for want of health insurance. Your extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Mention of "tons of articles" isn't particularly persuasive.

The company I work for offers amazing health insurance for me at no cost.

However, if I want to put my wife and child on company health insurance, even the worst plan costs within $100 of my monthly rent.

It's not breaking the bank, but it is certainly a major part of our budget.

Is that doing the dollar conversion at pre- or post-Brexit prices? It's now 20% worse than it used to be.

I'm not in London, but I'm seriously considering sniffing around for jobs which can be done with transatlantic remote working. Sadly that's a rare and oversubscribed option :(

Timezone issues are probably much of an impediment when it comes to remote employment (over the pond)

Since the eastern US is only five hours behind London, you could have free time during the day and work mostly in the evening? Matinée prices, lunch specials, and most importantly sunlight abound! Right now I work for all of the good parts of the day and have free time during the bad parts.

(My data point is it's not a problem if your boss is hands off and your peers are hands on online)

Depends how much of your social life is tied to the evening and how much they expect you to be reachable. I worked for a Bay Area startup for two years from London. It was tiring at times, but I got into a habit of working a bit in the morning, taking a long break early afternoon and then working again late evenings, and it worked quite well, so it's possible.

> Just look at salaries in London. Given the extraordinary cost of living, salaries are pitiful.

That certainly wasn't the case when I was working in London about 10 years ago. The going rate for a Java contractor with banking experience was about £600 per day (then $1,100).

Have things changed that much in 10 years?

This is FTE salaried positions you need to reduce that by 66% to compare it to a contrcator

I am not living there but I think salaries for generic Java/.net/Webapps etc is going down mainly due to high supply of tech workers.

In US our company offices are moving from major tech hub to smaller city. Initially most people decided to collect severance and find another job locally but now many are finding it difficult to find job with generic IT skills sets and reevaluating their initial decision.

It's more like 500 quid these days. In addition to that, the recent plunge of the pound has made it increasingly unattractive to be paid in pounds at all.

I used to do contracting in the UK in large part because salaries were pitiful compared to contracting rates and when contracting you ended up paying way less tax so got to keep much more of your already higher income.

But 600 pounds is now like $750. Assume 4 weeks vacation, public holidays, time between contracts and you should probably assume 200 paid days per year. That's 120k pounds/year or $150k/year. Not great.

Not sure what contracting rates are like now. It's been awhile. When I was doing it (more than 10 years ago), banking contract was often north of 500/day.

Thing is, those contracting in banking jobs can be hard to get. Typically you need experience in banking. If demand exceeds supply (as it did in the late 90s) then that's not a problem. When supply is relatively high (as it was in the early 2000s) then that's a huge barrier to entry.

If you're locked out of that field your rates are typically much lower (at the time more like ~300-350 a day).

My last non-banking contract rate was 750/day in London. It depends a lot based on whether or not you have experience from any "hot" niches, and also depends greatly on whether or not you develop relationships direct with clients or go via an agency.

E.g. direct with clients it's perfectly possible to get contracts at 1k/day+ in London for relatively normal development jobs outside of banking once you have relationships with the right companies and you approach them as a consultancy rather than presenting yourself as an individual developer.

It doesn't make sense to compare bank developer salaries in one market with all developer salaries in another. Further, what do you mean by "going rate"? Is that the net income or the cost of hiring one (with all the overhead that entails)?

Contract work is not the same as salaried work. I made about €640 per day on my last project, but I spend a lot more on tax, insurance, retirement fund and my financial buffer than a salaried employee. Salaries tend to be a lot lower than freelance rates. At least in Netherland.

Not sure what this is caused by but rates for freelance developers in London are lower than in many other parts of Europe with a significantly lower cost of living.

So, London might just be an outlier. Not taking Silicon Valley into account (which is another outlier, albeit in the opposite direction) in my experience US and EU rates for development work generally are quite similar

London is particularly expensive because of the massive banking industry. They rake in the high salaries and drive up the prices for everybody. But it's true, programmer salaries in the US are higher than in the EU, and sometimes a lot higher.

The point is: what are you going to do with all that money if you don't have the time to enjoy it? Even a cheap vacation can be more fun than slaving all year long and having only two weeks to do something with it.

For a humorous yet insightful comparison between life in and outside the US I recommend watching Michael Moore's Where to Invade Next.

Rat race is real and it's speeding up.

Less happy, certainly plausible. The only world superpower, definitely. While I don't have any evidence to back any of that up, it certainly appears the nation working the most, has the biggest economy/power. Obviously money/power isn't everything though.

>..it certainly appears the nation working the most, has the biggest economy/power

Mexico? Interesting, I'd never have thought it.

http://fortune.com/2015/11/11/chart-work-week-oecd/

I'm not entirely certain that a nation as a whole being a superpower is good for the people if the people living in it are miserable. "The economy" is not, in fact, a direct measure of how happy people are - it's an indicator which may have something to do with it in a broad sense, but can be gamed, especially once you get down to attempting to maximise arbitrary single numbers (GDP, stock market indicators, etc).

I really don't think the US as a whole is "miserable". Anyone living in this country certainly can not complain about how they lucked out. Sure it has its problems, but we don't have to worry about wars on our soil, widespread famine, warlords, human rights violations, etc. Are there better quality of life countries? Debatable. But there is a reason people are still trying to get into the country to make a better life for themselves.

There are demonstrably happier countries, sure.

It's called the American dream for a reason.

because it isn't real?

Americans live to work, Europeans work to live.

'Nuff said.

Bloomberg is terrible. If it's not a nearly baseless hatchet job on China, it's a nearly baseless hatchet job on Europe. Next up? Canada.

* 25% less efficient

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