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by mschuster91
785 days ago
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Because we don't need to set away money for medical care, retirement, the education of our kids and a host of other expenses, the government takes care of that, and our housing costs are far lower than in the US. Oh and we have public transport that actually works and walkable cities, so at least in urban areas where you find the techies, we don't need a big-ass gas guzzling SUV to get to work or to go and grab some basic groceries. We go to work on the subway/streetcar, and we walk by foot or use a bike to go and shop groceries. Americans always boast about how much they earn compared to us (Western) Europeans, but IME when you make them break down their monthly budget, it usually turns out that after deducting fixed costs, we are roughly the same in purchasing power, and we're happier on top of that as we don't have to fear a random hospital visit might leave us with a 10k$ bill. |
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I grew up in a suburb of a relatively dense Western European city with ~250k people. The city has buses, but everyone I know gets to work by car. Horrible traffic - 15 mile highway commutes take 45 minutes in the morning. When I was growing up I went to school by car. Nowadays when my father needs groceries he drives for 5 minutes (rather than walk for 15).
Since moving to the US I haven't driven at all - though I live in New York, so it's obviously a special case. For healthcare, "a random hospital visit might leave us with a 10k$ bill" doesn't exist for tech workers - as anyone who's actually worked in tech in the US would know. It's true that the US healthcare has severe access problems for a large portion of the population. But those problems are non-existent for tech workers with employer insurance and bounded out-of-pocket costs.