Hacker News Reader

Comment by seanmcdirmid | Hacker News Reader

I don’t think Danes are making $50/hour at an Aarhus McDonald’s.

It's difficult to do apples to apples. Looks like $22/h with six weeks paid vacation was widely quoted in 2021. After social redistributions your probably in the ballpark of $40/h US equivalent.

For what is worth, looks like a big Mac meal is 99kr, ~$15

I don’t think you can count social redistributions because they aren’t job related. You can look at the employer payroll tax side and add that up though, both the USA and Denmark have that.

$22 is slightly more than what a McDonald’s worker earns here in Seattle, if we are comparing Aarhus (I’ve never visited any other cities in Denmark). And probably no vacation.

$22 in Seattle would give you plenty of cash for a visit to REI headquarters to buy a real nice ultralight tent and dry down sleeping bag that will fit into a small enough backpack that people might not figure out you're homeless.

Drug addicts are the visible homeless in Seattle, they aren’t going to make rent at any price, let alone hold a job (so why not drift to HCOL cities with more generous social services and less enforcement for shop lifting). Functional unhoused who are either crashing on couches, or sleeping in vans or cars. Most people holding jobs, even at $20/hour, actually have housing. It’s not impossible to get at that wage if you aren’t supporting a family at the same time.

I ended up under a tarp at that wage. Then I worked a rotation on a fishing boat and afterwords hitchiked to Eugene where I could actually rent a room from full time labor.

The US also has social redistribution for workers in that earning range. Are you double counting?

It really is difficult to compare apples to apple. But I think if the average person were to make an informed choice between a life with a job earning $22/h job in Denmark or the US, most would choose Denmark.

FWIW, I grew up in Australia, live in the Bay Area, and lived 4 years in Denmark. I have friends on both sides in that income bracket.

> But I think if the average person were to make an informed choice between a life with a job earning $22/h job in Denmark or the US, most would choose Denmark.

Sure, but the average person isn’t planning to make $22/hour for their entire life. This is also why we have a lot of Danes here in the Seattle area (working in tech making lots of money), they have the highest CS graduate degree rate per capita so it makes sense.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com