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Comment by batmansmk | Hacker News Reader

Average salary in SV is 115k, 22k in France. USA live off its neo-colonial digital empire, not through the exploitation of blue collars. When any digital company out there pay 30% of what they earn in tarifs on cloud, ads, servers, licenses, app revenue, patent litigation, …

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So, you compare the averge of France, a cpuntey not known for high salaries, as a cpuntey to one of the highest paid regions in the world? SV =|= blue collar, the rust belt and Detroit are blue collar.

You change to median in the whole USA and median in the whole Europe then? Still the same conclusion. SV tech engineers arent rich because someone's is flipping their burgers. Someone is flipping an engineer's burger in France, in Detroit, In Tehran. So blue collar exploitation exists everywhere and cannot explain the outrageous salaries in SV.

Ok let's do a fairer comparison. Avg annual income across EU was 33,500 Euro in 2022[1]. For the USA, that was 60,500USD [2]

[1] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/w/d...

[2] https://www.sofi.com/learn/content/average-salary-in-us/

And yet you do not hear of normal people in the EU going bancrupt over medical expenses or not taking an ambulance because they cannot afford it. Funny, isn't it?

But you do hear a lot of them complaining in different ways about how they are oppressed. I won't even give citation apart from [1]. So nope, not funny.

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=protests+by+poor+people+in+e...

Man, the French have been rioting for weeks over raising the retirement age from 62 to 64, after raising it from 60 to 62 and incurring similar riots about twelve years ago.

In comparison, when the French Fifth Republic was founded in 1958, the life expectancy was about twenty-two years shorter than it is now. One would think it's reasonable to raise the retirement age a little to fit that.

Exactly, and my wife and I spend easily tens of thousands a year out of pocket for things that would be "free" or close to free in the EU. Things like healthcare, transportation, childcare, etc. Its not uncommon for health plans have a 10k deductible per year, 20k for the family.

Why does SV pay so much? Can't we just cut pay down to what Europe pays? Why are our companies so charitable?

It's the cost of living. The cost of living in the SF baybarea is 79% above the national average. A living wage is simply more here because it costs more to live here.

If all the major employers in the area cut wages down to $80k, wouldn't the cost of housing be forced down too? Who can buy a house for 2.2 million when making $80k. And on a side note, there are many companies in the area that pay $80k and less, oil change mechanics for example. So it's not like you MUST pay that SV wages because cost of living is high.

I have a feeling it is due to high demand for those workers.

It doesn't work that way, you can't control markets from the top down. You are right, it's a supply demand thing. A company needs to hire 100 engineers with a specific skillset in x number of months, so they come here where there are enough engineers to hire in that skillset in the local talent pool, then they make offers to engineers until they get enough engineers, if they don't get enough they need to increase their offers. It's a simple market like any other. It's simple, yes the cost of living on the middle of nowhere Ohio is less, but you can't hire 100 engineers with specific skillsets and experiences, you need to move them there, or build them from students. So a person living here wouldn't accept an offer that doesn't allow them to live and thrive near their workplace. If the cost of living were less they would be more willing to overlook the compensation for other factors, but for most tech workers who are not independently wealthy because the cost of living is so high, it forces us to expect compensation that is aligned with that high cost of living.

Also, SF is already over 60% rent controlled housing, so the cost of living for over 60% of the population is already being artificially reduced beneath the market. It's also interesting to note that the income level to qualify for rent controlled/stabilized housing is 77-160k a year depending on household size.

It's astonishingly expensive to live here compared to much of the rest of the country

Let's agree to say 'and'.

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