[ceejayoz]

My salary is decent, but our family paid $48k out-of-pocket for medical care last year, and our kids enter college soon; some colleges in the US are over $60k/year now. In Europe, my salary would be lower... but so would my medical and college costs.

[niij]

Sorry to hear that. How does a $48k bill happen with insurance after the No Surprises act?

[ceejayoz]

$2400/month premiums ($2800 this year), $4k in copays (capped), uncovered compounded medications, an out-of-network provider because the in-network ones have a year's wait, dental/braces/vision, etc. (Plus mileage/parking incurred with a medically complex family.)

[runeb]

And rent -- easily 2-4x in HCOL areas of US compared to Europe

[badpun]

Where is it 4x ? Most expensive area in US (Manhattan) is maybe 2x as expensive as most expensive area in Europe (Central-ish London).

[alephnerd]

If your base of comparison is Berlin, then Tier 1 metros in the US can come out to 3-4x as expensive, but Germany also has pretty bad wage stagnation so ymmv

[badpun]

Berlin is not a Tier 1 city in Europe, at least not when it comes to rental costs.

[alephnerd]

I agree (Munich, Hamburg, Frankfurt, and Cologne-Bonn take the cake in DE economically while Berlin is a relative newcomer), but when Americans talk about Europe, the image that comes to mind is going to either be Berlin or maybe Paris (yes Ireland+UK are Europe as well, but they aren't exactly treated as European in the American zeitgeist).

That said, Berlin is definetly much cheaper than other cities due to the Cold War. It's basically Western+Central Europe's Austin.