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>Now compare your cousin’s yearly salary in Belgium with the average salary of a US employee doing the same job.

Take home is about the same after including health insurance and all the myriad taxes that US employees are subject to.

No, that's not true. Most companies offer at least HDHP plans either fully covered or at minimal cost. HDHP plans, by nature, have high deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums, but usually well under $10k per year. So for a typical case, unless there's some catastrophic expense not covered by any insurance, the difference can't be more than $10k per year. The difference between typical compensation for a seasoned SW engineer is much more than that, even before taking options & stock into account. In the US $150-200k is pretty common for a seasoned engineer. In Belgium, you'd look at around E100-110k from what I could find online. And I don't think Belgium has lower tax burden overall. So the health insurance alone doesn't come close to covering the gap.

>So the health insurance alone doesn't come close to covering the gap.

You're right - I was also including all the other taxes - SS/Medicare/Unemployment/State/city etc. For ex: someone living in NYC, with 150-200k would be paying a total effective rate of about 35% (breakdown of 24% Fed, 6% SS, 1.5% Medicare, 9% NYS + 3% NYC). Add in health insurance of around 6% and you're close to what EU employee would take home.

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