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I moved to the Pacific Northwest from the Netherlands, and I'm obviously observing the world around me with similar questions.

First, you need to factor a cost of living adjustment. Oregon seems a bit more expensive than the Netherlands. Bay Area is a lot more expensive than Oregon.

I think the big kicker is still the bigger range of salaries. People in the proverbial mail room make a lot less here than they do in the Netherlands. CEOs and board members make many times more here than they do in the Netherlands. Software folk are probably on a similar relative position on that spectrum between here and the Netherlands. Hence making more here than in the Netherlands.

Since you're still looking at the people below and above you in similar ways, you don't always perceive the difference with the mother country much. But I do get self-conscious when talking to some of the people "back home".

[cco]

>First, you need to factor a cost of living adjustment. Oregon seems a bit more expensive than the Netherlands. Bay Area is a lot more expensive than Oregon.

This doesn't gel with my experience at all and the numbers don't bear that out either[1]. Cost of living in Portland is significantly cheaper than the Amsterdam, granted that San Francisco is quite a bit more expensive than Amsterdam.

From my experience it's still no comparison, you get paid much more in the US than anywhere in Europe, so much so in fact that sometimes I balk when I hear salaries from Europe. Huge perk you guys get is vacation time, you get much more guaranteed time off than even most highly compensated people in the US. Some better benefits too, e.g. maternity/paternity leave, but you have significantly lower salaries even before taking into account taxes.

[1]https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...

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I didn't live in Amsterdam. Unfortunately that site doesn't let me take the average for the Netherlands. Amsterdam is the capital, perhaps fairer to compare it with New York. If you compare Eindhoven with Portland, the numbers seem more in support of what I was saying. But I should have specified that better. Nice site, I'll be using that in the future. "Anecdotally", it's attractive to compare Eindhoven and Portland, because they're both "small big cities" (relevant in their own right, without being the large token cities that define their respective countries).