[GuthL]

Bear in mind you might not have the same way to report salaries. In France, for instance, when employees report salary, they don't include the tax the company pays for them. AFAIK, in the US, salaries are reported including them. I still have a very hard time making apple to apple comparisons. If anyone has a good methodology, please ping

[Digory]

In the US, salaries are not usually described including tax, are they?

When someone in the US says they make $100,000 per year, that is usually exclusive of any tax paid by the company. It is also exclusive of other benefits paid, with health insurance commonly being $10-20k paid by the company, if provided. The employee is responsible for their own income tax.

There’s confusion because in the gig/entrepreneur/consultant world, people will say they “make” $200,000 in business income. But then they bear taxes and benefits out of that amount. So you may “make” more, but do worse than someone who is an employee of a bigger company. That is why it takes a substantial increase in income in the US to justify leaving a stable employer.

[dx034]

But this shouldn't make a difference relatively. In most of Europe (every country I know salary data of), manufacturing engineers tend to get paid at least the same if not more than programmers.

[bb123]

Yeah and there is also the ridiculous cost of living in a lot of the tech areas. A household earning $117k is on the poverty line in SF.

[mikorym]

In SA salary before tax is used. So you lose from there between 20%–45%.