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> Europe is a big region I'm aware, particularly given that I live there. Post-tax, post-essentials income comparisons are absurdly complicated and always depend on the individual. For example, dual-income families in Germany can tick slightly ahead of similar families in the USA because of how much more expensive it is to raise children in the US and how many (cash and societal) benefits you get from the social support system in Germany. But even this is a can and not will; that will also depend on your specific tax situation, and a whole host of other things. And whether the discrepancies in income levels are balanced out by different standards of living is also something you can really only evaluate on a case-by-case basis, because it's different for every job. For example, the income differential in software engineering is way higher between NA and Europe than it is for, for example, healthcare workers. In my specific case, when I moved from the US to DE, my gross decreased by 2/3 and my post-tax, post-essentials decreased by 1/2 -- and by post-essentials, I'm including things like massively higher rents in the US. > a lot of European countries welcome skilled migration like Germany I'm an immigrant to Germany and I would absolutely *not* consider it welcoming to immigration, skilled or otherwise. And given the results of the past few elections here (and elsewhere in Europe), which have been dominated by extremely negative discussions of immigration (with the notable exception of most/all of the Scandinavian countries), I don't really think your comment is painting an accurate picture. I've never lived in Canada and have no experience with immigration there, so I can't speak to Canadian immigration policy beyond what I've already said -- that the current government is very pro-immigration and has policies in place specifically meant to compete with the US on skilled workers. What I can say though, is that much of what you're saying is very contrary to both my lived experience as an immigrant to Europe, as well as much of my experience with several very close friends who've been through the H1B -> green card lottery in the USA. Also, from an economic perspective, I would neither describe US immigration policy as "smarter", nor "better" than Canada's. And I would absolutely *not* describe it as a "strong procedure". |