[creed]

Hi, I'm a CS student in Europe and about to finish my MSc. I haven't got a clue about what to expect salary wise once I leave university.

Looking at the spreadsheet I noticed, that all the jobs in the US easily make twice the money then the european ones. Since according to Google 1$ is about 0.9€, if you make 100k in the US this should roughly translate to 80-90k €.

Now I do get that in the US you have to take care of all kinds of insurances yourself, but it can't possibly be as much as double the salary or am I wrong?

So if someone could roughly sketch why the huge salary difference that would be great.

[ricleal]

Brief summary. Taxes in the US are generally lower. In some European countries they are higher but you have a lot of bang for the buck. You usually benefit if you are married with kids though.... For someone married with 2 or 3 kids, the 1/2 salary in Europe gives you better life quality, not only in terms of free quality education, health care, but also in terms of paid vacations. Countries like France only work 35h/week and it's forbidden to check your work email from home :)

[creed]

Okay, so let me get this straight.

Here in Europe we have decided to build a society in which we don't get as much money to spend on our own but rather collect a big portion of that money and invest it back into our society, so that we can send our kids to school without directly paying a fortune for it. But I'm also paying a tiny bit of everybody elses kid's education.

Where as in the US you get most of the money you earned and are free to spend it any way you like. Which means you gotta for pay for eeeeeverything but at least it's your choice but if you don't have the money you're f*ked?

Is that it?