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Comment by Algemarin | Hacker News Reader

It's very straightforward: they don't want poor or middle-class foreigners in their country. They want rich people. So that the rich people can live in expensive housing, eat at expensive restaurants, and pump their riches into Iceland's economy.

This is why the minimum barrier to entry into this program is having an income of ISK 1,000,000 per month, which means that you need a salary of over €80 000.

Additionally, they also don't want foreigners to actually settle in their country, which is why there is a 180-day ceiling. The purpose of this program is to have rich foreigners come for a spell, spend lots of money, then go away. They're being very transparent about this.

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Iceland is in Schengen, so foreigners living in a country which is also a member have the ability to move to Iceland and settle here. So foreigners are welcome here. So much so that 14% of all residents are foreign and that does obviously not count those who have received citizenship.

$80k/year is rich? That’s less than the median household income in a half-dozen states. 18% of Americans make over $100k/year.

> $80k/year is rich?

Yes.

> That’s less than the median household income in a half-dozen states.

That's nice. Can you guess how many states there are in the world?

The fact that you're using the claim that a minority percentage in a single country makes a large amount of money as an argument for the claim that an 80.000 salary is not rich, is a stereotypically American myopic outlook at the world.

>$80k/year is rich?

Yes, 80 thousand Euros per year wages is rich by most EU standards.

>18% of Americans make over $100k/year.

Wow, America, the richest country in the world, has many rich people. The more you learn.

> $80k/year is rich? That’s less than the median household income in a half-dozen states.

(1) EUR 80,000 > USD 80,000 (about USD 86,700)

(2) We’re discussing individual wages not household income of households where the average is >1 wage-earner.

(3) The highest US state median wage is a little over USD 80k, and less than EUR 80k.

(4) The US is a rich country, so, yes, median wage earners in the US as a whole (much less the median wage earner of the state scoring highest on that metric) are rich by any non-US-specific standard.

The US is a very, very rich country. That's why so many people want to move to it.

The top 18% of income earners are in the “rich” category, lol… what are you on about. Of course.

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