With an American tech salary of $200k/yr, I can pay for all of that (health insurance, student loans, etc.) and still sock away $100k/yr in savings. That $100k is more than enough to build up a massive nest egg which will provide for me better than any pension or unemployment insurance would.
If you play your cards right, you can be financially independent after about a decade of working in the US tech industry. Your entire working career could be only 10 years. That would be insane to imagine in Europe, yet you think France has better quality of live?
You mention having more vacation. I know plenty of people who switched to contracting in the US so they could have more time to focus on startups and hobbies. They only work maybe half the year, yet still make more than developers do in Europe.
European developers are underpaid. Full stop. You could dramatically improve your financial circumstances by getting a job at a US tech company (though the visa situation makes that challenging).
Well, that means you're part of the "1%". In that case, you obviously don't have (m)any real problems. So, if you're thinking for the "1%", then your logic holds up.
If on the other hand you believe to be part of the "1%" soon, then this quote may be of interest to you:
“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” - Ronald Wright, A Short History of Progress
More importantly, I'm not making some grand proclamation on morality of French governance vs American governances. I'm just affirming that as a developer, you are much better off in the US (particularly NYC/SV) where such salaries are fairly achievable and common.
Not quite right. What you are thinking of is household income where $400k is about the 99th percentile - usually achieved by two high earning individuals.
For individual incomes, $288k makes you a 1%er, and $200k is in the top 2.5%. [1]
Me neither. The point I was making is:
Due to content in our media/movies (and general culture), most of us tend to think that we will be millionaires in the future, which will lead us to sacrifice some important things and aspects. However, most of us do not end up being millionaires. More precisely: The $200k/yr only holds true for a certain lucky elite.
If you mean most developers, I disagree. I think most developers can make $200k/yr if they want.
I got a friend and atm he works in a top bank at the highest position a dev can acquire. He makes £120k a year without his bonuses etc. Thing is he is living in London and houses are so expensive in London and generally the cost of life and the taxes are drilling him. Am not gonna say he is not comfortable, he definitely is alright, although he has been trying to get transferred to Singapore or USA because after his research he found out he would be 2 times better off working there.
So yes I think devs working outside of the EU are doing better for themselves.
I was transferred to SF about 2 years ago. I got a nice pay increase to $250k, live in a lovely neighbourhood, bought 2 cars (1 new, 1 nearly new), 2 motorcycles (1 new, 1 nearly new), have already saved 100k USD and now planning on getting my sweet wife a great boob job.
Never looked back!
This quote is by John Steinbeck not by Ronald Wright. Ronald Wright merely quoted Steinbeck.
The way Steinbeck actually said it (and the way you're implying it) is different than how Americans perceive this. To Americans, being a 'millionaire' is a goal to aspire to, it's like to every school kid who dreams of being Harry Potter who fights evil, is a goal to aspire to. But to Steinbeck (a self-described socialist) and to you, these goals are delusions.
America IS proudly the nation of temporarily embarrassed millionaires. To Americans them becoming a millionaire is what might happen, whereas to you, that's not what did happen.
The reason why European countries are not the nation of temporarily embarrassed millionaires because anyone aspiring that goal would rather move to America (that's also the reason why Europe does not have a real right wing). So what you're left with is people with a different kind of aspiration.
Even if you can pay for it, doesn't mean you can get it. Pre-ACA, I knew people who had the levels of income you're talking about (and higher) who couldn't buy health insurance on their own at any price.
Some of them could get insurance through employer groups, assuming they didn't want to retire, assuming a given employer wanted to hire them, and assuming a given employer wanted them in a given risk pool. What they couldn't do was buy insurance on the individual market.
We're apparently about to return to those days.
See:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/20/opinion/20Dubinsky.html
http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/2012/03/pre_existing_conditions_the_real_reason_insurers_won_t_cover_people_who_are_already_sick_.html
More importantly, health insurances do not at all sufficiently explain the differences in salaries. Google will hire you here and give you great health insurance, even though they're also paying very well.
Also, the notion that it requires really high taxes to implement single payer is simply not true. Singapore, for example, has a robust public health system while also having some of the lowest taxes in the world. After all, companies are already paying for insurance here. If we socialized it, I wouldn't expect tech salaries to drop.
- A functioning public transportation system (I was living in a city of 100k people and could get around by bus decently. The worst bus lines still came once every 20 minutes).
- almost free access to culture
- Being able to get your passport done in a week, not six. Maybe not the nicest people, but things happen a bit faster
But I think the core reason you don't see super-high salaries is because the system makes offering absurdly high salaries very costly, instead preferring for more people to make reasonable salaries. You have things like the fortune tax so that even if you don't have a salary, if you have too much money you'll get an extra tax.
It's a feature of the system, not a bug. The glib explanation is France hates rich people. Not everyone likes it but at least everyone gets 6 weeks vacation. And if you don't have a job you can still have a place to live and not live under constant fear of eviction.
France hates lots of things but it sure loves red tape.
And for culture, apart from some museums when you're under 26, public libraries and cultural festival, you have to pay for the rest (theatre, concert, expositions...), even if they are subsidized.
I have the Market Secure plan. I'm not pretending it's terrific insurance, but it'll cover me if disaster strikes and avoids the penalty.
2. Quality of live is definitly higher in some parts of europe. There are public statistics for that
[1] https://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/rankings_by_country.j...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report
[3] http://www.businessinsider.com/happiest-countries-best-quali...
There is really no reason to argue that, more money does not mean more quality of life. Especially its very different if you look below to the IT bubble.
I went to the US last summer and found most people in awe when I told them I was there for the whole month, and it was not even my first vacation that year.
The misunderstanding here, is that some believe 100k$ equals better life no matter what. In France the fact that most people have a decent life makes mine better as well.
Also, I'd like to point out that universal, guaranteed, un-gameable health insurance is VERY different from any insurance you could ever buy from a company.
I never even thought about the fact that something could go wrong to me and I would not have access to the best possible care for any reason whatsoever until I found out about Americans and I remember thinking that was really savage. Then I realized my luck.
To me, the problem is not in the concept, it's about tax evasion.
I am based in Switzerland so my health care money also goes to private companies. But these are heavily regulated.
However i can only agree with that statement. I always went to a private clinic because it was near my home and had less people there. It was not special or anything, it was just convenient.
Whatever happens i knew i get help and if i get a bill it some bullshit small costs i can easily pay anyway. The highest bill i ever got was $500 but only because i wanted a lot of random blood tests that no reasonable health care would cover.
That being said, if Republicans actually follow through on repealing the ACA it could get a whole lot more precarious.
Are you sure you're counting it as 200k and not a higher number? With taxes in the bay area, at least 70k of that is gone and surviving on 30k/year is kind of tough if you want to save a full 100k.
Yes, I'm quite sure. This is based on my personal life. The trick is to do your saving it tax-advantage accounts and to take any deductions you can.
Still, the taxes are the primary reason I'm not based in SV.
So what tax advantaged account are you using to stash away the other $77500/year?
Plus, as a small business owner I can deduct a lot of my expenses.
Whether employed or self-employed, you're still financially much better off in the US.
1. Your not an immigrant, so you can structure things as a business.
2. You live in a place with a far lower cost of living than NYC or the bay area that would normally give you that kind of income.
My life plan is to continue building my startup mostly remotely while enjoying the high rate I can charge as an American consultant.
> Most developers don't make that much - I don't even think they do in SV.
$200k is quite standard for a mid-level engineer in SV. If you're not reaching that in total comp, you're probably being underpaid (or being paid in funny money ie. equity).
The point is that, from an individual financial perspective, you're much worse off in the EU. I'm not making a normative judgement, just a financial one.
You don't seem to understand what a normative judgement is. I'm not saying whether socialism is good or bad, just that it objectively does not balance out with the less compensation. The OP literally framed it as you getting "these benefits" in compensation for the lower salary and they are simply wrong.
> I certainly don't expect a tech visa in France to hope to attract people whose life goal is to retire in 10 years, so on that we probably agree.
If France isn't hoping to attract people who are hoping to make enough money to retire in 10 years, I question how they'll get any good founders. Successful founders are almost always in a position to retire within 10 years.
It sounds like you're arguing that a socialist state will have trouble attracting capitalists. On that I agree. I don't really see how you imagine startups being built without capitalists though.
Some individuals will fare better in the US, but on average, you'll fare better in France.
Now I agree with you, financially as a tech engineer, you'll come out with more money working in the US.
I disagree that the extra money will lead to a better quality of life, but QOL is very personal. Some people find pleasure in life from very different things.
For any given engineer, they are definitely financially worse off in the EU.
I'm sympathetic to QOL arguments. Personally, I really don't like SV. NYC is fairly nice though. Plus, the real secret is that after working here for a few years you can switch to remote work in an even higher QOL city.
Doubt that. Contracting in London is very profitable. That's possibly the easiest money on the continent.
Also, if you're talking about contracting then all the supposed benefits of a better work-life balance or vacation time are out the window.
Most people, even most developers, are not comparing such a high salary against Europe because most of us don't have a salary like yours.
One Quora article claims that the average compensation of tech employees at these companies is above $200K. This is partly why areas that employ many tech workers are facing housing price crises: after covering their costs of living, the surplus compensation often goes into housing. Since housing is seen as "safe" and as a form of investment, it can soak up considerable amounts of surplus income, and since there's only so much of it in a given area, the competition for housing is intense.
In terms of straight dollars, you can easily earn $200k+/yr doing contracting.
> In terms of straight dollars, you can easily earn $200k+/yr doing contracting.
But.. is contracting really ever easy? I mean it's hard work getting clients and how many people are qualified enough?
But I disagree that there are many options to save on tax, etc though. I wasn't too bad, but there was no way I could've saved 50% of that (esp if not locked away like 401k). Just my rent for 1 bed in a average apartment was >50k a year.
If your chosen standard is that software developers must be financially independent demi-gods after ten years, then yes, by that standard, European developers are underpaid. It's not clear that that's really the correct standard, though.
* Cheap nursery.
* Quality public schools.
* Quality food for kids in public education.
My bigger cost right now in London is my son. Nursery alone is way more than my rent and the price of renting in London is stupid even compared to Paris.
The problem is the limited number of places. All the persons around me struggle to find a place in nursery for their childrens.
> * Quality public schools.
It is highly dependent on which school. In lot of public school, it's shit.
Social charges really crush the ability for French companies to compete. Then with CDIs making it almost impossible to fire anyone, it results in a far less liquid job market. Now there's even talk of actually forcing men to take paternity leave in the name of reducing inequality between men and women in the workplace. I live in France and love it for the most part, but other than my tiny hotel business on the side, I would never consider starting a company here. Even filing the paperwork to form an SAS is arduous. I can incorporate in the US in less than a day and have a bank account opened the next day. In France, even something as simple as getting business-class internet requires a SIRET number for no logical reason. I could offer to pay €1000 per month and without some piece of paper saying you're a business, you can't even get a business phone line.
However one really important area that ought not be missed is the amazing pre-k (free or nearly free) childcare. If I were in the US, that would amount to $20k+ per year (I have 3 kids.) That is definitely a plus.
In France, you have less disposable income than you would in the US (even after benefits are counted,) however, France does have a great lifestyle if you can afford it. Though I can't say much for Paris -- expensive, somewhat dirty, a dreadful public transport system (try taking kids with strollers on the metro,) along with a very high cost of living and you have a pretty bad place to raise a family. Toulouse, Grenoble, Lyon, Avignon on the other hand -- really great places!
> $130k in the US [...] vs. $50k
Just no, a $130k salary in the US would be at least 70k€ in Paris. In others city it would probably be less but the cost of living would be much less too.
> there's even talk of actually forcing men to take paternity leave
Just because one organization (OFCE) ask for it 3 days ago doesn't make it a reality.
> even something as simple as getting business-class internet requires a SIRET number
I pay 30€/month for 1Gbits/250Mbs. If you need more than that, you're already a business and have a SIRET. Same for the phone line. I don't know about incorporation paperwork in the US but I did it alone in France and it was really not that hard. It took me a week max to get everything.
> Paris -- expensive, somewhat dirty, a dreadful public transport system
It's 73€/month, and half is paid by your employer for unlimited access to all transport in Île-de-France. Do you really find this expensive? Paris also provide the "best access to public transport in the world" according to some recent article. http://www.thelocal.fr/20161011/parisians-have-best-access-t... Yes some place are dirty but isn't that the case all over the world?
That said Paris is far from my favorite city in France. And as you said the job market is probably far less liquid than in the US because of the CDI. Even if I personally think that this is a good thing. In software development/operations there is still more jobs than applicant at least in Paris.
In regard to this, I think what needs to be mentioned is the number of $130,000/year jobs in the US for developers/engineers, even outside of NYC/Boston/SF.
I live in the Great Lakes Region in the US. The starting salary for most engineers that I see is $50,000-$60,000k and then those companies also have health insurance benefits and the like. The salaries for experienced engineers that I've seen are closer to $100,000 (~5-7 years experience), and you can probably nearly double that for NYC/Boston/SF. I'm not sure of the cost of living differences between Paris and those cities, but I think US engineers are unequivocally paid better, even if you account for all of the great social benefits that France has (and many areas in the US desperately need).
There's nothing in the world to complain about aside from that.
Because you are closer to paying the real price of the ticket than in Paris where transportation is heavily subsidized by the state. In Japan most train companies have now become fully private.
Meanwhile here my nearest Caltrain station has some car repair places and a mystery fondue restaurant that never seems to open. I think it's a money laundering scheme.
Well look at Paris' metro and its lack of elevators and escalators. Most stations have none! Good luck if you are in your seventies and your legs don't carry you anymore...
And at half the density. The median neighborhood of the Toyko metro area is 150 while central Paris is 300 and outlying neighborhoods—not as well served by transit as Tokyo's—are over 200.
And better quality transport too.
That's largely a matter of serving Japanese passengers. In my experience, no one else matches the consistent care and respect that even young and rowdy Japanese people actively apply to public space.
Density is a little bit bullshit, because density only takes in account the people living in a particular place, not the folks who actually commute every single day to work to go into offices where nobody lives.
Actually the rail network in Tokyo transports far more people than the RER/Metro in Paris, every single day.
Here: http://www.uitp.org/sites/default/files/cck-focus-papers-fil...
Tokyo is busiest rail network in the world. Paris is far, far behind.
> That's largely a matter of serving Japanese passengers
No, even the stations, the network, the trains themselves are of better quality that the ones in Paris, and have much higher passenger capacity too. Well, Paris' network is pretty old so you can't blame them for everything, but they have stopped investing heavily in transportation for a long time. The metro trains are still ancient in Paris.
Tokyo's metro population is 35 million. Paris's is 11 million. Each of them is served by multiple commuter and underground subway train networks. Comparing raw passenger numbers is ridiculous.
Density is a little bit [obscenity],
Density over the built up parts of a metro area, including offices, homes, parks, industrial and commercial areas, and roadways, tells us quite a lot about the basis of transit dynamics. Paris consistently packs a lot more people in the same land area than Tokyo.
No, even the stations, the network, the trains themselves are of better quality that the ones in Paris
Paris spends enormous amount compensating for its more difficult passenger base with space, maintenance, security, cleaning personnel, and more. That doesn't even begin to address the different demands for municipal investment and corruption in governance. Many collective projects that succeed in Japan could never do so in nations where citizens are less committed to cooperation.
This myth has to stop. It's almost impossible to fire anyone on the spot. You can't tell them "go home, and I don't want to hear from you again". You have to give them up to 3 months notice (depending on the contract, for engineers, it's going to be 3 months).
But you can still have them go home and never come back, as long as those 3 months are paid.
Edit: BTW, it works both ways. You can't quit on a whim either. You need to give the same amount of notice.
For a French contract (CDI = permanent), it's not possible to terminate the employee unilaterally.
I don't know what anyone's contract says, but the law in the USA is clear. Notice (and cause) are strictly optional. People offer two weeks notice when leaving by convention, but it is not required nor rewarded.
You can be asked to leave at any time with no warning nor compensation nor explanation.
It is possible. It just doesn't happen on a day for the next.
For example "almost impossible to fire anyone" : the up to 1 year trial period is pretty much hire-and-fire at will. After that, it's never too hard to fire a single employee. It's true that mass firings are quite heavily regulated though.
In some companies you get even more weeks ("RTTs") to compensate for the hours you do over 35hrs/week. The company I work for gives me the usual 5 weeks plus 3 weeks of RTTs which brings the total to 8 weeks, i.e. almost 2 months per year (!)
I remember very well when French employers forced me to get more holidays, which destroyed the income I needed to actually afford any holidays at all.
All the holidays are time not working over the year. So, yes, it is definitely lowering your pay.
In the same vein, this deal means that because the person works [35+x] hours per week, they get 2 weeks extra later on (where I assume x*48 = 70 or so) to take off without losing any pay. I don't see how you claim that they lose pay considering the work the same number of total hours for the same amount of pay, they just take 2 weeks' of work time, chop it up, and sprinkle it over the other 46.
If your employer considers you worth $120K, then with 2 months of holidays, he will simply pay you $100K spread over 12 months.
In other words, paid or unpaid doesn't mean anything (other than a lack of option to those who don't want these vacations) as long as the employer and employee are free to negotiate the salary.
If this were the law, would you not simply consider the cost of dining at a Restaurant to have gone up by 10%? And if that were the case then your eating out behavior would change the same way if restaurants DID raise their prices by 10%.
Since waiters are getting 10% more from the customers, this means restaurant owners will reduce the wages of the waiters by 10% and reduce the prices of the food by 10% (so at the end the waiters end up getting the same amount of salary, it costs the same amount to you to eat at a restaurant and the profit margin of the restaurant owner remains the same).
The fact is, that a company does not (and cannot, even if they wanted to) differentiate between "vacation" part and "salary" part of the employee compensation package. At the end of the day, the vacation costs them money and paying employee salary also costs them money. So when a company decides what compensation package to offer to a candidate.
For instance, if an employee would bring a marginal productivity of $100K in a year, then either they can offer 10% time off (26.1 days off, assuming 261 working days) + 90% in cash, or they can offer 0% in time off and 100% of the salary it would be the same to them.
Technically as the number of vacation time goes up, the cost to the company goes up too (if you took 6 months off, then this means the company might have to get new employees to fill for the remaining six years, which could be expensive).
In your example, you're just valued that much more by your company than your friends are by their companies.
35 hours + 4 weeks of holidays = 37h per week + 4 weeks of holidays + 2.5 weeks of RTT.
The salary is averaged over the year and you're paid the same every month in both cases.
Someone who does 37h per week + 4 weeks of holidays + NO RTT, would be paid more over the year.
The hours are driven down and the yearly pay is driven down as well, because of the 35h and the RTT. It's subtle but it's happening.
Note that in theory, you can have the choice to not take the RTT and work instead. In practise, all employers force you to take the holidays so you don't get a choice.
The GP mentioned 5 weeks vacation + public holidays. To make my example easier, let's say that I worked in France and decided to take the month of July off (using the 5 weeks vacation). Would I get paid for that vacation? Or is the 5 weeks vacation unpaid??
In Canada, my vacation is paid, so if I take an entire month off, I collect my pay cheques as usual.
Perhaps you were a contractor? In that case you would not be paid when you're not working.
If you are not working for 2 months a year, then you're getting paid for only 10 months of what you could have gotten over 12 months.
In other words, there ain't no such thing as 'paid vacation' when the employer can simply account for that 'paid vacation' when making you an offer.
I was able to charge 90kEUR/year at the time for a mid-level Java programmer. They loved the idea that they could fire the devs at any given time and having Canadian engineers helped them get funding from local VCs.
1st update: Included mobile phone + Internet
2nd update: Huge update, completly forgot about one tax on the salary..
-----------------------
I'm French, I can give you some more details.
I'm a full stack Ruby Developer, and I work at https://www.talent.io, the first recruitment platform for developers in Europe. (If you're looking to relocate in Paris, London or Berlin, you know where to look. )
I usually don't comment a lot on HN, but if it can gives people the desire to move in France / Europe to work, this is great for my country / continent.
I'm gonna speak with raw cold numbers, for me it speaks more than some random "headlines".
Here in Paris, developers are paid between 40K and 90K (there are developers that are far better paid - and unfortunately far less paid-), but this is a large "common" fork I'm giving to you. Those numbers are raw, meaning that you have to remove the tax. Here my own numbers, hoping it can help you imaginate with your current own situation.
Note : I'm living with my GF, so I'm gonna divide all "common" expenses. We have equivalent salaries.
-----------------------
Salary + flat
-----------------------
My raw income last year was appx 45K euros. When you remove the first tax each month, I have 34600 left. I paid appx 2600 to the state in taxes, only for the salary. It's a quite good salary for a junior / mid developer here. (22 years old, 2 years of professionnal experiences in Fullstack Ruby / Rails developer). In Paris, for a 35m2 (365 ft2) with furnitures (meaning full equiped, from the Kitchen to the Bed to the sofa and desks), I paid 1K2 / month, so 14 400 for a year. (Living with my GF, so dividing it by 2 : 650 euros / month / person, so 7800 euros / year / person) You have to add the taxes, which was approximately a half month of rent : 650 (dividing by 2: 325 euros). So in total, I paid to the state for my flate + income taxes 5500 euros. Total net income : 32000 euros / year
-----------------------
Common expenses - Insurances - Transportations - Food
-----------------------
* Healthcare insurance ~ 40 euros / month, the company pays half for it. (240 / year)
-----
This is not the best insurance ever, I could have go for a better one at greater prices. It covers for the basics. I'm young and in good health, I take care of my glasses and my dentition, so To give you an idea, I have to change my glasses every 1.5 year / 2years, the total price of my last bill was 322 euros, my glasses were full covered (with full treatment on lenses), I had to pay from my pocket 50 euros for the spectacle frame. I also had to replace a tooth because it broke at sport, on a 600 euros cost, I only paid 47 euros (going to a private clinic - not public hospital.). From a basic surgery, cost was appx 1000 euros, I didn't paid anything (public hospital) - bad note is that I waited 3 months for the surgery - it was not urgent at all -. Public healthcare in France is overbooked, but it's good.
-----
* House insurance ~ 20 euros / month. Nothing to say. (120 euros / year /person)
-----
* Transportation (Only counting public transportation, not Uber etc...)
here we have the subway, bus, bike, tramway (and soon a boat :o), it costs 75 euros / month, the company pays half for it. (450 euros / year)
-----
* Electricity
nothing much to say, we pay appx 70 euros / month, so 35 euros / person / month, so 420 euros / person / year I won't talk much about food, because it REALLY depends your habits, if you live alone / with a family. Here for 2, we approximately pay 600 euros / month - We love food. We could have reduced it a little, but we try to eat locally / bio, it costs much more. Per year per person, it's appx 3600 euros / person.
-----
* Mobile phone + internet
It's quite cheap here.
Mobile phone, unlimited phone calls in France (Even in europe I believe) + unlimited text + "unlimited" Internet (4GO / month of data 4G then caped) at "Sosh", I pay 25 euros / month (300 euros / months)
Home internet, provider is called "Orange" + television, fiber 500 MBits fully unlimited, I pay 50 euros / month (600 euros / year, 300 euros / year / person) (And it works damn well).
-----
total (tl;dr) : In total, last year, I earned 39500 euros, taxes deducted. I paid 3600 (food) + 450 (transportation) + 240 (health insurance) + 120 (house insurance) + 300 (mobile phone) + 300 (Home internet) + 420 (electricity) = 26570 euros net of income after all "life mandatory" stuff.
-----
Please please please, do note that I did NOT included all restaurants, clubs, travels, clothings and all "fun" stuff. It really depends on your lifestyle, and I don't even know how much I paid for it.
-----------------------
Education
It's true, public education is almost free. It costs less than 1K euros / child / year to go to high school (I even think it's way less than that, but IDK since I went to a private school). You can even lower those costs because we do have a lot of helps from the state. When my brother went to a historian school, he paid nothing, and even more, the French state paid him 10K a year to go study (Because he was a damn good student) For my private computer science school (the "42" school of Xavier Niel is a perfect copycat of mine, but free - unfortunately it did not exists at that time), I paid (my parents did) 50K, and this is only for the school (5 years, so appx 10K a year)
About the other bullet points @renaudg talked about, I don't have much to say, It's pretty self explanatory.
I hope it does help people better evaluate the "cost" of life in France, if I forgot something / you want more informations, please do not hesitate to ask :).
For the benefit of non-French readers, let's clarify that the kind of 40€/month health insurance you're talking about is called "mutuelle", which is optional extra private insurance that covers the remaining third or so of each medical bill, after mandatory state insurance ("sécurité sociale") took care of the first two thirds (slightly oversimplified explanation : the coverage ratio varies and you might sometimes still be out of pocket slightly)
In other words, France has a hybrid paying system which gets a lot of criticism, but I think is actually the best of both worlds : it means patients get almost complete freedom in choosing their private doctor/hospital, but most of the bill is still footed by state insurance. You don't have to attend a specific surgery as in most public systems (UK NHS), and there are no mandatory "provider networks" like with most US/UK private health insurance.
The drawback for the very poor, is that it's not entirely free (but there's special help available to get on a "mutuelle")
In the UK where I live, on the other hand, the National Health Service is almost completely free for patients and often has great staff, but is chronically subject to government cuts, unavailability of "non-essential" treatments, and unacceptable waiting times.
So, most people in the UK who can afford it buy private insurance (if they don't get denied because of "preexisting conditions", a notion that doesn't exist in France) and go to completely different doctors / hospitals than the NHS. It's a two-speed system which doesn't feel right when you're used to the French one.
Last year, my son (30 months old) spent a week in the hospital, underwent surgery, and had to keep a cast on for six weeks. The remaining costs, after the sécurité sociale paid its share, were 17€. Covered by the mutuelle.
Employee Taxes on the "Raw" salary are approx ~23% usually, that does not match your 5k. Are you talking about the yearly "income taxes"? But then your 45K were not "raw" in the French sense?
According to: http://www.salaire-brut-en-net.fr/ The after-employer-tax, he should get: 34650k
From which he still need to substract the income tax which is paid directly by employee. It is roughly a month of after tax salary -> 2880.
In total, I would say that a 45k gross income becomes 31k after tax.
Edit : I've updated it, thanks for spotting that one. I should have talked about "net" revenue when doing my calculations !
South East USA. All numbers in USD.
Gross earnings = 104000 / year Bonus + Stocks = ~12000 / year
Income tax = 31986 (27.5%) (Fed + State + Social security + Medicare)
Earnings after taxes = 84014
Expenses : -----------
Rent : 1 BR in the city = 800/month or 9600/year (Living by myself)
Utilities = 150 / mont or 1800 / year (Phone + Internet + Electricity)
401K contributions = 628/month or 7545 /year (My only retirement savings. I don't think there'd be anything in Social security in my time of need)
Car payments - 500/ month or 6000/year
Gas/fuel = 110 / month or 1320/year
Car Insurance = 150 / month or 1800 /year
Restaurants/bars = 600 / month or 7200 / year
Misc expenses = 3600 / year
Balance = 45149
I have a personal family commitment expense of 7200/year.
Employer provides health insurance and also 800 per year as seed money into my HSA(which I can use to meet deductible for the insurance).
Even after all this, I'm a dumbass who didn't save that much.
I think I'm at the best situation in terms of making money.
Plot twist : I'd most likely move to Denmark or Netherlands later this year because my GF is needing to be there. I'm taking the leap saying, new experiences and crafting a family life is better than saving money.
Just a tip... check out the application process for a work visa now. Work visas anywhere always take way longer than the applicant wants.
Getting married before you leave will change the type of visa you need... and might shorten the time required (but probably by not as much as you'd hope).
Good luck.
Denmark is amazing in the sense that my GF's future employer(an University) says they will employ her partner(me) for an year according to my skills at market rate and also help us settle in with local culture and even help find jobs after the one year ends...
Brutto salary is €40k w/o bonuses; There’s flat 10% income tax and after maxing out fully the pension and health insurance payments the take-home pay roughly €35k.
I’m living w/ my girlfriend as well, so below numbers are to be divided. The expenses are as follow.
Rent
€250,00/mo for 70m2 / 1 bedroom apartment, fully equiped w/ new furniture in a nice and quiet neighbourhood.
Utilities
€30,00/mo electricity, €10,00/mo phone, €10,00/mo internet
Transportation
I’ve recently bought VW Golf 1.6TDI 2013’ in cash, so no car payments. Taxes and insurance are roughly €170,00/year. I’ve budgeted about €100,00/mo for fuel. Public transportation is fine, but we don’t use it.
Other
We don’t go to bars/restaurants and normally cook daily at home. About €250,00 are going for food, as this is mostly organic and local produced food w/ paleo-ish eating habits.
Total expenses are about ~€600/mo, which is 20% of my take-home pay; the rest is going to a generic savings account at the moment.
So, if you get approximately like 30k free every year, how much time would it take you to buy your own flat and car?
Great question.
For a flat, in Paris, for a 50m2, the price greatly vary between 300K (with a bunch of work to do) to 700K and more (I don't know very well the market, I can't give you much details). Right now, the loan interest are very interesting and I could buy immediately something (With a 25K contribution and pay for it for the next 20 / 30 years depending on the rate).
Since I don't own a car, I think you have for all prices. You can get a second hand for 10-25K, and a first hand for 18K - 30K (And more obviously)
Again, the 30K free at the end of the year are without all the "fun" part, with the strict bare minimum. I didn't included bars, friends, travels etc...), unfortunately I don't have 30K after all of that :P
Let's say a flat is 500k. I hate to disappoint you but you'll never afford to buy a flat.
US salaries are a different story entirely. (We can't even get there because of VISA anyway).
Please. Let's leave Europe to European and USA to the USA. No cross continent comparison.
I can live in London, ALONE, and still get more savings than that at the end of the year, just sayin'.
* 30€/mo unlimited fiber internet access (TV, unlimited calls included)
* 20€/mo mobile (4G, 50GB data, unlimited calls/SMS)
24000€ of gross (the company pay ~0.30 * 24000 = 31200€). 18360€ (1530€/month) is my income but on that i pay ~1000€ of taxes (salary tax) and ~400€ of city tax(this vary from city to city).
My rent is 360€/month for 60 square meters, sure i live in the middle of nowhere regarding jobs.
After all the mandatories costs of life i can save ~550€/month ~6600/year.
So, France could be great to be an employee, but it's horrible for entrepreneurs.
This would only be of note if you plan to retire in your original country of origin, in your case France.
There is an agreement between France and several countries including Canada. Once you will retire, if you have worked 10 years in Canada and 30 years in France, then you will get 3/4 of your money from the French Pension plan, and 1/4 from the Canadian one.
This agreement works whether you are French or Canadian.
But, that said you can put a lot of money into TFSAs and RRSPs.
I came to the same conclusion unfortunately. Would gladly pay to contribute to CPP on the assumption that I'll (probably) be retiring back home. Unsure how it is in France, but in Canada (for now), I believe future CPP payouts are based on contributions made today (i.e. supposedly we are paying our future retired selves). This is unlike the US social system where current payouts are based on contributions made with today's generation of workers.
>>But, that said you can put a lot of money into TFSAs and RRSPs.
I'm not an accountant or a lawyer, but my understanding is that unless you have contribution room left for your TFSA or RRSP prior to your departure from Canada, there's little point to contribute since the "contributions" will not be recognized as such and hence the tax "benefits" in both cases will also go unrecognized. I think the only exception is for Canadian income (e.g. rental property).
Transferring funds into Canadian TFSA/RRSP accounts may be possible, but the CRA will eventually ask for a reckoning unless your friends are willing to roll the dice. Based on personal experience, penalties and interest per year add up quickly.
I think you're conflating the basis for calculating the payouts you will receive, and the sources of payouts. I. e. most government pension schemes are use today's payments for today's pensioners, but will still give you a higher pension if you paid more/longer into the system.
These engineers may find once migrated (especially after a few years, ie slightly older) that the option of having children not to be burden in such a system, might find the safety net of not worrying about health and insurance increase their ability to focus on being productive instance of simple grinders, especially if well educated and motivated.
Anyway, you will benefit as your friends, colleagues, neighbors and especially your own children will not be burdened with the debt, and more likely to be well educated.
For example in the UK , education is about 1/6. Where as over 50% is NHS, welfare and pensions. (and only 0.3% is spent on unemployment)
https://yougov.co.uk/news/2014/11/09/public-attitudes-tax-di...
In exchange, employees get as standard :
* a top notch, virtually free healthcare system with no concept of exclusions or "pre-conditions"
* Usually no student loans to repay because their higher education was free, unless they went for a private business/engineering school but that's still an order of magnitude cheaper than a US university.
* a comfortable (unsustainable ?) state pension later on.
* unemployment insurance that covers around 70% pay for months.
* 5 weeks holiday + public holidays
* Non San Francisco / London / NYC renting costs (although Paris is quite bad by French standards, and much worse than Berlin)
If you're US-based, think about your monthly budget and what goes towards healthcare/co-pay, student loans, kids college fund, 401k, and building an emergency fund in case you get laid off / severely ill. None of that is strictly required in France (although some of it is available as extra private coverage, and a good idea)
This is why cross-border salary comparisons are pointless, it's really apples & oranges.
I'm French and living in London, and I'd personally rather have the freedom to have a higher take-home pay and contribute towards the above items myself as I see fit. But I'm not fooling myself thinking that because my take-home pay is twice as high each month, the math is as simple as that. I know that I'm so much more on my own here than at home...