[inglor_cz]

$$$$$ > €€€ or ££

With a few exceptions like Switzerland, American levels of compensation for highly qualified people just can't be matched anywhere in the Western world.

Saudi Arabia or UAE maybe, but these don't even try to pretend to be socially and politically liberal.

[jltsiren]

Academic salaries are lower in the US relative to industry salaries than in most other countries. While the nominal sums are high, the salaries are low relative to housing costs. Particularly because good universities tend to be in expensive areas. When you compare two academics in similar positions in the US and Europe, the European is more likely a homeowner.

[asdff]

Yeah, but you can pull some coin in R01 grants here in a way that you simply cannot in other countries. Shared facilities is another factor. Schools will throw down for a new cryo EM. Might be fully funded by a couple donors along with an entire building around it for the cost of putting up a brass sign with their name by the door. Other nations might be still using soviet equipment.

[jltsiren]

NIH grants are pretty good, but they have not kept up with inflation. ERC grants are better, unless you are in a country with particularly high salaries. NSF grants are not that special.

Europe spends more on academic research than the US, both in absolute terms and as a fraction of GDP. (The US spends more on R&D in general.) European academics are also less dependent on government funding. While European old money has long found it prestigious to fund arts and sciences, US donors are more likely to fund education or buildings.

European academics have continued to immigrate to the US, mostly because there is less competition for resources. It's easier to get a faculty position or a grant in the US, because you are competing against fewer people. Because academic jobs are worse in the US relative to the alternatives, fewer Americans are willing to pursue an academic career. That leaves opportunities for immigrants who have already chosen the academia and are willing relocate.

[mschuster91]

> With a few exceptions like Switzerland, American levels of compensation for highly qualified people just can't be matched anywhere in the Western world.

Gross compensation yes. But if you begin deducting stuff like the absurd American housing costs, private healthcare, saving up for deductibles, the need to own, insure, fuel and maintain a car to do everything because almost nothing is accessible by public transport, retirement savings, everyday stuff such as restaurants being made much more expensive than what's on the paper because of mandatory tipping, saving up for your children's academic degree while paying off your own student debt, hell saving up for having a child (just the birth will be 20k out of pocket [1]), saving up for times of un(der)employment... suddenly most of Europe becomes pretty affordable if you are not on FAANG levels of compensation.

[1] https://www.investopedia.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-have-a...

[yieldcrv]

I've done that math too and the other reality is that most of those costs are optional in the US.

It is 100% possible for me to have a high salary in the US and save most of it while temporarily exposing myself to larger risks. And it is far more useful for me to be able to say and show that I have a high salary, for access to credit and resources, private investments that give me the best shot of escaping a permanent underclass.

Of course, I don't want to budget, nobody wants to given the choice, so I pay for the conveniences and assurances that I can afford.

But even if the margins are smaller, the absolute numbers are great. If you aren't living paycheck to paycheck due to debt and lifestyle inflation, then you are really saving thousands of dollars a month. potentially many thousands. a single one of those is enough to travel around the world, it's just the irony that we have to come back to the US very soon in order to continue making that money. its enough to attempt to make a homerun in our capital markets on a equity name.

So, sorry commonwealth and Europe, you really don't compete on that front for people that don't already have capital. The wages are just too low.

In fact, the wages are ironically sooooo low that their main selling point - social welfare - is at parity to Americans on welfare! Who do have healthcare without premiums in some states, subsidized higher education in some cities, and more. So the systems aren't really as different as billed. Saying it another way, a European/Commonwealth citizen making their same salary in USD would get the same benefits in some parts of US, just losing all of their social standing in the process.

And finally, when Americans do earn their freedom back, with unlimited sums of money, Europe and Commonwealth countries once again become uncompelling, because the US has a more expensive, larger, funner version of everything those countries have to offer, while our US Gentry experience a different form of social welfare supporting themselves.

The incentives to really exit the US system aren't quite there. As another person mentioned, Switzerland is closest. Switzerland and schengen access is pretty appealing to me as well.

[jjav]

> I've done that math too and the other reality is that most of those costs are optional in the US.

If you're very young, single and childless, sort of. You can pick the lowest tier of health coverage from your employer which is often fully covered by the employer and have no other major costs. If you're young and single and healthy this can work out. Of course, if you have some kind of accident or medical emergency, expect to be bankrupted, which is not how it works in other countries.

But once you have to cover childcare and school and university, and the lack of time off for parents (add expensive babysitters on top of daycare and school) and pay for good medical coverage for a whole family and of course contribute maximums towards retirement because social security won't be there and so on. Suddenly that large gross salary is mostly gone and what little is left over isn't very different from what may be left over from a much smaller salary in a different country.

And of course here in the US we get to work our nice 60 to 80 hour weeks instead of a regular 40 hours and disconnect from work. And we might two weeks vacation, if you can afford to take it, instead of 4 to 6 weeks.

[handle584]

>in the US we get to work our nice 60 to 80 hour weeks

That is hardly the norm, if you work in the hottest AI startup or some field of quant then sure, but average SWE do work the same 40 hour week. Lack of paid vacation is true tho.

[yieldcrv]

yes you’re right, the single and child free person is in the best position to relocate to Europe yet can take the chance at more in the US during that time while the family is definitely not taking that chance, which is my point. The incentives are off.

European companies could offer higher salaries with a wholesale structural adjustment in their culture, and the US could offer healthcare higher education and child care in a wholesale structural adjustment

But right now the wrong things are different to really be compelling to tale advantage

[mschuster91]

> It is 100% possible for me to have a high salary in the US and save most of it while temporarily exposing myself to larger risks.

That's the thing. Temporarily. Sure, you can save on healthcare with a high deductible and in-network-only plan. But then, all it needs to wipe you out is a bad traffic accident - say, you run a red light by accident, get t-boned at high velocity and airlifted to the next hospital. You're at fault, the hospital is out of network, the HEMS ride isn't covered anyway. Your car is toast, you're out of work for months and fired sooner than later.

In Germany? HEMS is covered by your health insurance. You get full pay for 6 weeks (and 70% afterwards) while out sick. Your boss can't (realistically) fire you without an insane lot of effort that most don't bother. All in all, you only have to eat the cost of the totaled car.

[quickthrowman]

> I've done that math too and the other reality is that most of those costs are optional in the US.

It really depends on your situation. I am living alone in an apartment that costs 60% of the median rent in my metro area and my generous healthcare plan ($1500 deductible, $3000 max OOP) is fully paid by my employer, short and long term disability insurance paid for by my employer, and my car will be paid off in 3 months. I am able to save around half of my income, but my sister and BIL have three kids and a house and they spend almost all of their money. Their combined income is probably 2.5-3x of what I make, but by myself I have a higher net worth than them. They’ll probably surpass me in net worth once they can stop paying for daycare and get their student loans cleared, they just have a lot of expenses I don’t.

[inglor_cz]

Still, until Trump started his latest round of madness, we had a huge brain drain from the EU to US and not vice versa. Were they all stupid?

They weren't. Our highly taxed and relatively stagnant economies are more affordable & attractive for poorer people, but the well-paid professional class was simply better off in the US. Especially with some optimizations, such as: get your professional degree for free in Germany, then move to the US for its high salaries without a debt to pay.

[mschuster91]

> until Trump started his latest round of madness, we had a huge brain drain from the EU to US and not vice versa.

Well, now with Trump and his madness, suddenly Europe or Canada become a lot more attractive. It simply is not worth it any more to stay in the US, and if the Democrats don't make a landslide in the midterms... get the fuck out as long as you still can.

[lII1lIlI11ll]

Can you provide some calculations of being able to afford anything at all for a, say, software developer earning 80k per-year in Paris, Berlin or Amsterdam and compare that to 280k in the Valley? Some of those are completely terrible (SWEs I know who work in Paris can't even afford to rent in the city itself and there is no realistic way for them to ever buy anything in there), others are okayish but definitely not great. And most of those supposed benefits you listed are payed by outrageous taxes on so-called "middle" class, which (surprise!) are exactly those SWEs (others you just disingenuously omitted like retirement contributions which would be close to 20% of your salary in Munich while simultaneously highlighting 401k).

[mschuster91]

> Can you provide some calculations of being able to afford anything at all for a, say, software developer earning 80k per-year in Paris, Berlin or Amsterdam and compare that to 280k in the Valley?

I did just that in a sibling comment. 80k is upper class in Germany, solid middle class can be achieved at 60k.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48340349

[lII1lIlI11ll]

Does achieving "solid middle class" in Munich on 60k somehow involve inheriting an apartment from your late grandma?

[mschuster91]

It does not. Source: did that until last year when we had to move for the new job of my wife. Rented a 60 m² apartment.

[lII1lIlI11ll]

So you conveniently omitted that your wife was also contributing? Is being "solid middle class" in Germany assumes to ever be able to buy your own apartment (preferably not a a 60m^2 shoe-box)?

[Redoubts]

I mean the salary difference is a few hundred k, so this all just reads like cope.

[mschuster91]

> I mean the salary difference is a few hundred k

Yes, for FAANG during Covid and now AI.

But your average SWE? That's more like 130k in the US [1] vs 61k in Germany [2]. In Germany, that's about 3500€ net (after taxes, retirement and health insurance - that is deducted from gross wages here) per month, of which you spend about 1500-1800 on cost of living (in Munich, the most expensive city in Germany by far), so about 1700-2000 in disposable income. You don't need a car because everything is walkable and a flatrate for all public transit across Germany is about 63€ a month.

Let's do the math for the US, California. Net pay is 87k/y or 7250/mo [3]. Of that, subtract ~600$ for a PPO plan (it's still not as good as Germany's default which does not have anything comparable to "in network", but good enough) and ~200$ for an average 2400$/y deductible. A 10% contribution to a 401k, 725$ a month. 2500$ for a 1-br apartment [4]. Now add in 100$ a month for car insurance (VW Golf) and 399$ in leasing rates for that VW Golf, then you're at 2.700$ a month in disposable income. But since you still have to pay half a grand a month on your average student loan [5], whoops, 2.200€ a month in disposable income left.

And frankly, making 200-500$ a month more in disposable income? That is not that much of a difference, particularly once you begin factoring in the "soft factors". Here in Germany, you can't be fired at-will, you'll always have to be paid for at least three months, that's one huge uncertainty off my back. You don't have to fear your kid getting shot (12 children a day die in the US from gun violence), you don't have to fear surprise bills when dealing with medical emergencies, you don't have to fear ICE picking you up and deporting you, you don't have to save up for the privilege of your child attending university because that's free in Germany.

If you're lucky and/or well-connected enough to land a job at FAANG/AI? By all means, go for the US. But for everyone else? Come here to Europe. Life's better here. Especially if you or your children are LGBT - or, given the recent anti-abortion crusade that bans lifesaving healthcare in many states, if you carry an uterus.

[1] https://www.indeed.com/career/software-engineer/salaries

[2] https://www.kununu.com/de/gehalt/softwareentwickler-in-15019

[3] https://www.talent.com/tax-calculator?salary=130000&from=yea...

[4] https://sfist.com/2026/05/28/average-rent-for-san-francisco-...

[5] https://admissions.usf.edu/blog/how-much-college-debt-is-too...

[6] https://www.sandyhookpromise.org/resources/gun-violence-fact...

[slowking2]

Why would you use a PPO? The average SWE can be on an HMO. HMO's are fine. I have never once regretted choosing an HMO.

Additionally, you're using the average software engineer salary in the US but then picking California for rent. The article you linked says country wide you'd expect $1950 for renting a 1-bedroom not the $2500 number you are picking for a studio in the bay area.

So you're off by something like $1000 per month (edit: I admit I am simply looking at what I pay for HMO, it's possible that is somehow unrepresentative but I doubt it) by picking the most expensive health plan and mixing up national salaries vs very expensive areas.

The gun violence risk is vastly overblown. The page you are linking to cites a study where gun deaths are being accumulated for ages 1 to 24 years old. Gun deaths are highly non-random and concentrated in older ages and in very specific areas (largely related to gang activity). The average software engineer with family is not going to run into any of that unless they are in the habit of leaving loaded weapons around the house.

[wat10000]

Your US figures are using average pay for the whole country but cost of living for one of the most expensive parts of it.

[spwa4]

Also add that the German figures don't have student loans, while the US has a monthly cost for them.

Now that may be fair, but anyone looking to move either has or doesn't have student loans and that won't change.

[lII1lIlI11ll]

> 1500-1800 on cost of living (in Munich, the most expensive city in Germany by far)

Care to clarify how you came up with that budget? Rent an apartment, pay amenities and buy groceries for 1500 EUR in Munich? Like, the one which is in Bavaria (just in case you have some similarly named city located somewhere in ex-GDR)? I expect some hilarious mental gymnastics TBH...

[mschuster91]

> Care to clarify how you came up with that budget? Rent an apartment, pay amenities and buy groceries for 1500 EUR in Munich?

My US example only included housing as well, simply because I have zero idea how much Americans pay for food, phones and internet.

In any case, a quick search for apartments in Munich (where I lived until last year) shows you quite a bunch of options (way) below that price range [1].

[1] https://www.immobilienscout24.de/Suche/de/bayern/muenchen/wo...

[hawaiianbrah]

Most people giving birth have insurance, and $20k would not be their out of pocket cost.

[fakedang]

Middle class in Europe means unable to buy a family apartment in a Tier 1 city.

[quickthrowman]

My net worth is close to 1M in the US and I can’t afford a $3000/month mortgage payment (median $450k house with 10% down). Well I could afford it but I need to max out my 401k so I don’t starve when I retire, and stocks don’t need maintenance, insurance, and property tax payments.

[pjmlp]

Not everyone of us wants to live in tier 1 cities, and not all countries have apartment buying culture.