Hacker News Reader

Comment by GhostVII | Hacker News Reader

I suspect the vast majority of people on HN are in the top 1% globally. People don't realise how high incomes in the US are relative to the rest of the world.

View on HN

> People don't realise how high incomes in the US are relative to the rest of the world.

Gross definitely, but net (after taxes, healthcare, housing and other fixed costs)... not so sure. High CoL - seriously even as someone who lives in Munich, US housing prices are utterly incomprehensible, just how the fuck do y'all even manage to survive?! -, high costs for transportation, the utter madness that is US healthcare, hundreds of dollars for cable TV, having to save for your pension or student loans.

I'd wager that even after accounting for taxes, most Europeans have more money in their pocket than Americans working in the same field.

(And obviously, all of us have it vastly better than 99% of people in Africa)

If I had a dollar for every American I've seen working at the same companies that was spending $800+ a month for healthcare insurance coverage for themselves, their spouse, their two kids... And then over the course of a year probably a few-thousand in "co-pays" for doctors visits and minor things where the insurance doesn't pay 100% of the doctor visits. And then they still would have a $8,000+ deductible for many categories of expensive medical costs per year, if they ever have to use it, before full coverage kicks in.

I am fortunate enough that my spouse has her own very good medical coverage and we do not have kids, so our monthly outlays are somewhat less.

If you consider that $800 to be equivalent to a tax, the person's take home net income was actually less than if they were an equivalent-of-a-W2 employee in Canada or another place with a social healthcare system.

This tax just comes with no guarantees - you're out of the job means all that you've spent is gone. In contrast a decent healthcare system will take care of you even when you're out of a job. A hospital in UK or Germany won't leave you on the street, even if they know you don't have insurance.

In Germany, it's even better: if you're out sick for longer than 6 weeks, health insurance takes over paying your wages, although at a reduced rate (~70% or such, got changed two years or so ago).

I keep trying to make this point to people when these topics come up, and it never quite seems to sink in. The whole "don't mess why my private insurance! We all love it!" sort of defense... Employer-provided insurance only benefits people who are in employment. Get fired? You're hosed. Need to move someplace and have to leave the employer? You're hosed. Get sick and can't work? Eventually, you'll be terminated from the employer and then... you're hosed.

The tax rate for $100,000USD/yr is roughly the same between California and British Columbia. But you only get healthcare in one of those.

Exactly, although healthcare and taxes aside, the market ratio of gross salary (as measured in USD) for a certain position relative to cost of real estate and cost of living is a lot higher in many places in California than in BC. The same job might pay the equivalent of $130k USD/year in a big city in CA but would be $105k CAD/year (equivalent to $87k USD/year) in Vancouver.

Not that housing costs in many big cities in CA aren't also ridiculous - but BC seems to be setting new records in unaffordability.

Jobs paying $100k in California generally come with health insurance though.

They do but what happens when life happens and you have to quit or you get divorced and you’re a stay at home parent. Lots of edge cases, although of course there are a lot more jobs paying >=$100,000USD in CA than BC or much of Canada.

> Gross definitely, but net (after taxes, healthcare, housing and other fixed costs)... not so sure.

Actually, EU individual tax rates are on average similar to those of US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates

And yes, we also pay for healthcare one way or another.

Tax rates might be similar but income is way higher. It is relatively common to earn 6 digits in tech in USA. In Western Europe, not so much. Besides cost of living, which might be higher in US, finding 1000 for a new iPhone is way easier there.

Median disposable income (after healthcare, taxes, housing, etc.) in the US is the highest in the world aside from Norway I believe.

Curious, does the "after healthcare" allow for future, average healthcare claims?

I imagine it's easy to have high disposable income today, if not allowing for the cancer treatment you may pay for tomorrow.

As said, this is a question. I understand only some people in the USA have full health insurance.

Actually it looks like the calculation goes the opposite direction, basically disposable income is calculated by adding your income in dollars to other benefits you get (healthcare, food stamps, etc.), and subtracting taxes. So that is kind of accounted for, since in countries other than the US their healthcare benefits year-over-year will be added to their measured income.

For the average person though there isn't much risk of having to pay tens of thousands of dollars for cancer treatment. The vast majority of Americans have health insurance, and your costs are limited by the out of pocket maximum.

> your costs are limited by the out of pocket maximum.

“Limited”, ha, ha, ha, to $8k for an individual/$16k for a family. (Very generous of them to assume a family has two wage earners making equally as much.)

Better hope your cancer treatment doesn’t span two calendar years.

> I'd wager that even after accounting for taxes, most Europeans have more money in their pocket than Americans working in the same field.

Having worked in SF and Berlin... SF was definitely better paid overall and I made enough money to buy a nice apartment in Berlin, something which seems unachievable by working in Berlin all your life.

It's easy to live beneath your means on a SF salary and squirrel away tons of cash. Not so easy on normal US incomes.

I can’t speak for other fields but tech scene in Germany and EU is a joke and there is no way one’s compensation matches US. I had a job offer in Munich and considering how low the quality of housing is you end up still paying more than €1300 for a 1 bed flat. (This was my market search back in 2018)

What the fuck, were you searching at Marienplatz in the city center? I mean, I'm a born and raised Munich dude, 1300€ for a 1BR sounds like someone attempted to rip you off - or you were on the hunt for a fully furnished apartment which is ... a questionable decision in itself.

"Globally" does a lot of the work here, though. 1% of world's population is a mid-sized country's worth of people.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com