I spent 3 months as a research assistant in Australia and used savings from that period to travel in South-East Asia and South America for 6 months or so. Shortly after graduating, having saved a bit as a student (again - Europe, I managed without student debt, having done web development next to my studies), I went to a conference in Taiwan with my MSc thesis and traveled back home over land. Then after working a little bit on my first job again I traveled, hitchhiking to/through the Middle East and Russia.
It's all very doable if you don't spend a lot - during many of these trips I spent $400-$1000/month.
Highly recommend it, traveling in Turkey/Iran/Oman/Georgia/Russia/Ukraine definitely shaped my perspective on the world.
Yeah, for Americans it means buying health insurance which is quite a lot more expensive than what you get from your employer.
That said, I've only purchased travel insurance maybe a half-dozen times out of probably hundreds of trips.
And trust me, you want a private hospital in some of those countries. Even the locals wouldn’t go to a public hospital if they had a choice.
And the whole meme that a 65% tax rate +25% vat on most products on top of it (I am in Sweden) is somehow worth it financially because "fReE HeAlThCaRe" is laughable.
With regards to insurance:
- in some countries (UK, Sweden) - the insurance is contingent on having a social security number, so the coverage is pretty much universal for residents, but people coming from other EU countries will still need to work or register as unemployed to get it.
- in other countries, you generally need to be working or looking for work (i.e. answer phones / invitations from job centre and attend any interviews/courses they send you to) to be covered.
Some countries (Poland for example, I'm Polish) allow you to buy insurance if you are neither working nor looking for work. But as of December 2020, about 1.5 mln Poles are not insured at all. [1]
[1] https://tvn24.pl/polska/szczepionka-na-koronawirusa-czy-osob...
I agree, although I think the ignorance extends to Europeans as well. Europeans are often surprised to hear that American software professional salaries are ~60% higher than European salaries even after adjusting for taxes, healthcare, vacation, etc. Some will argue that the US cost of living is more expensive, but they're almost always comparing some major US metropolis with some European village or perhaps an Eastern European city. I've seen other arguments that the cost of housing in the US is comparable or more expensive, but they're typically comparing some relatively tiny European apartment with a much larger American home. Europeans seem to fixate on medical bankruptcies, as though these are commonplace for upper-middleclass Americans.
This was all a surprise to me, an American, who has tried earnestly to live in Western Europe for a few years, but found that I can either live in Europe or I can travel in Europe but trying to do both would likely be economically infeasible (even if I can find gainful work as a software professional, it would specifically be difficult for my wife who isn't in a hot field). Fortunately, now that remote work is catching on, it seems likely that my wife and I will be able to do more frequent 1-3 month stints in Europe while remaining employed by our American companies.
To be clear, I think the United States healthcare system should be reformed, because it doesn't serve the poorest Americans very well. However, the US healthcare system works pretty well for the upper middle class (if not the whole of the middle class) and above, contrary to perceptions I frequently hear from some Americans and Europeans.
This depends on the state; Medicaid expansion is doing good things for the poorest people in states where it exists.
The US benefit system is tilted towards the poor, old, and people with children (distant 3rd.) It has some bad welfare cliffs for disabled people, and is the worst for middle class self-employed who aren't on their parents' insurance.
Unfortunately this last group includes all online writers and popular social media users, which is why they pretend it doesn't exist for anyone.
Why do you believe those salaries are the result of the American healthcare system? Per-capita, Americans pay more than anyone for healthcare, just in a very unbalanced way that dramatically favors those with a job over those without.
Regarding comparing tax rates, those six figure job numbers don't include the substantial amount the employer is paying to the healthcare company.
Bitterness about the salary gap is understandable, but it's misguided to say that the fucked-up parts of the US system are what has produced the high-revenue/high-profit companies that are driving the compensation levels.
It doesn't really matter whether or not the salary difference is caused by healthcare or indeed that Americans pay more for healthcare. The only thing that matters is the post-healthcare take-home pay; if that figure is larger in American than Sweden for a given individual, then that individual is economically better off in America pretty much tautologically.
As long as that seems to be true, you'll see people complaining about it, and they'll have a valid reason for their complaints.
Personally, I think we should have a single payer system if only for the fact that it likely better serves poorer Americans.
> Regarding comparing tax rates, those six figure job numbers don't include the substantial amount the employer is paying to the healthcare company.
To be fair, in many European countries - and certainly for Sweden - there's substantial payroll taxes paid by employers as well. Though to end up at 65% in Sweden even with employers payroll taxes tacked on, you're already earning a multiple of an average salary.
The easiest way to afford it is to have a job. However, if you are willing to pay more (still much less than equivalent US health insurance, e.g. in Germany around 180€/mo) you can buy it directly. Or, you can participate in that country's social safety net which, yes, usually requires you to actively seek a job (often for some loose definition of "actively.")
The only way you could end up paying more is if you previously made an average amount of money, have a lot of savings, but now make nothing. Normally this is called "retirement" and if you didn't save enough for it, you don't do it.
I'm not sure it is! It's not in the UK, certainly.
My family of 4 pays about 1800 SEK/month for private insurance to actually have a chance to see a competent doctor.
This has the second-order effect that _I_ won’t have to worry about _someone dear to me_ will be personally bankrupted by a medical condition. It saves me having to decide whether or not I should indebt myself to pay for their treatment.
Not having to raise fundraisers for my family members cancer treatment is worth a whole lot of disposable income for me.
It is hard to overstate how bad US healthcare is for the typical American. If you are wealthy, you have access to some of the best doctors in the world, but for the rest of us we are entirely dependent on our employer for access to reasonable health care.
Someone who is single with no child earning 167% of an average wage pays ~35% income tax and social security contributions [1].
The effective VAT also for most ends up far lower as a proportion of income, as most people don't spend anywhere near their whole income on VAT-rated products. For starters, you can't spend what you've already paid in tax. As such the VAT rate has a relatively low impact on total tax paid - the difference between the UK vat rate when I moved here (at the time 17.5%) and the Norwegian VAT rate of 25% added up to only about 1 percentage point difference in total taxation for me.
[1] Source: OECD Taxing Wages 2021
First of all, the OP is including the social security tax in the 65% figure. But more importantly, arguing that "the average Swede doesn't pay that much in tax" isn't very consoling for the American who would have to (1) take a salary hit to live in Sweden and (2) have to pay that higher tax rate. Universal healthcare doesn't remotely make up the difference in take-home pay.
As a reference point, taxes, retirement/pension/social-security, and healthcare account for ~30% of my gross salary in the U.S. If I moved to just about any Western European country (not sure about Sweden in particular), my take-home pay would likely fall by 40% (conservatively) while taxes and cost of living would likely rise.
Of course, the tradeoff for the Swedish system is that you have a stronger social safety net, which is certainly worth something. But the issue at hand is the notion that the European systems are better than the American system for professional employees.
And yes, there are people who will end up paying more, and it sucks for them.
The point is there's always this scaremongering about tax rates when it comes to Europe, and most of the time the tax rates that comes up are marginal rates that are not at all representative.
As an American, I find the tax rates much less scary than the raw differences in salary. If I could keep my US salary, healthcare, tax rates, etc and move to Europe for a few years, I would do so in a heartbeat.
Tax rates also depends greatly on which locations you're comparing. Between e.g. California and the UK the difference was small enough when I looked into it that it'd be easily eaten up by healthcare.
For my part, I spend about $5k/month total on living costs including sending a kid to private school and mortgage on a 3 bedroom house in London, and ordering food in most days, and I'm being hugely wasteful and could make do with far less of I had to.
The rest goes into investments.
How does that work? Presumably if the median salary for a given field is 40% lower, then the jobs which pay at my well-above-the-median salary are going to be much fewer and farther between with more competition. Add to that laws that (understandably) favor EU citizens and it seems like it would be quite difficult to get one's hands on those positions?
> Tax rates also depends greatly on which locations you're comparing. Between e.g. California and the UK the difference was small enough when I looked into it that it'd be easily eaten up by healthcare.
Yeah, like I said, I'm less concerned about tax rates. No surprise that California tax rates are comparable to London tax rates though; California is notoriously expensive and many Californians seem eager to move to other parts of the country.
The point is that it's meaningless to make blanket statements about whole continents when the differences are so substantial within them, and mobility within them is much less than you might expect. E.g. consider the number of Eastern European developers who could significantly increase their salaries by moving to higher paid locations in Europe, but you instead stay and e.g. work for local agencies. As such, you're not competing against all of Europe if you go to the highest paid locations in Europe any more than you're competing against all of the US in Silicon Valley.
Apologies if I'm dense, but I still don't understand. You can have a lot of variance in Europe and the US, but if the median is 40% lower in the Europe than in the US, doesn't it still suggest that any given American moving to Europe would have a dramatically harder time keeping his American salary?
> E.g. consider the number of Eastern European developers who could significantly increase their salaries by moving to higher paid locations in Europe, but you instead stay and e.g. work for local agencies
Fair enough--I wouldn't be competing against all of Europe, but there are far fewer jobs that pay $200K in Paris than, say, Chicago and the number of developers competing for those jobs is probably pretty comparable. I suspect it would be a lot harder for me to make $200K in Paris, but I would love to be wrong.
I don't know. That would also depend on what the distribution around the median are in the respective locations. And again, a blanket comparison isn't really useful because you're unlikely to be looking to move to the lower paid places. If the distribution was the same, and you had to move, you'd have a point. But you don't have to move, and so you'll inherently discard a whole lot of places that doesn't fit what you want.
For my skillset and levels, all I know is the number of places in the US where I can earn more than I do in London is fairly small. They exist, and Silicon Valley is one of them, but it's not like there are a lot. So I'd likewise instantly disregard most of the US.
But last time I considered it (I worked for a Palo Alto based startup, and flew over every 6-8 weeks for a couple of years, and I do love the Bay Area - to visit anyway), the costs of living just didn't add up for me. If I'd wanted to, I could have made it work, certainly, but it was not like the financials looked attractive enough to sway me much (either direction).
Things like food were cheaper, but even compared to my house in London, housing in the Bay Area is insane. E.g. I just checked on Zillow again now, and to put it this way: I'd need a fairly massive raise to afford a house similar in size and standards within a similar distance to downtown SF as I am to the centre of London today just to break even on a move. It's likely doable, but it's not all that obvious I'd come out ahead.
[this is while disregarding the complicating factor that I've never had a need to take a drivers license, because I've always lived places where public transport is good enough]
But your mileage may vary - it'll depend greatly on what specifically you value, what niche skills you have, and what type of areas you'd like to live in - all of it greatly affect the financials.
(My point was not to dismiss that you might well pay a very high tax rate, by the way, because the rate you gave is certainly possible, but to point out that paying a rate that high is highly unusually high, even in Sweden)
Or your partner has health insurance. Or you are studying (even if you take gap year at university). Or you happen to have farming land. Etc, etc - lots of exceptions.
Or you pay for it yourself from your savings (under 100 USD a month last I've checked).
Not the case in France (at least for the past 20 years), and I doubt it's the case in most other European countries.
Nope, your parent is right, in Austria you also don't get healthcare if you don't work or are looking for work via your local job center.
Maybe France is an exception due to having stronger social system that heavily favors the workers (insert memes about strikes) while in Austria the system is very rigid, designed to favor businesses and the government rather than the workers and to discourage abuse.
I know to a European this might sound like the only two options, but pre-Obamacare, and very possibly again if the US can't get its shit together, it was impossible to buy health insurance no matter how much money you had for a large number of unemployed or self-employed people.
If there are different pricing tiers based on employment status, then the healthcare system is contingent on employment by definition. It's commendable that the American and European healthcare systems aren't contingent on pre-existing conditions, but that's a distinct issue.
Now, yes insurance is expensive, but anyone can get it for about 2x what most people who get healthcare as a benefit are paying into an employer's health care plan.
Maybe it's more lax in the more worker friendly socialist regions like France or Scandinavia but in Austria you only get healthcare coverage if you work or are unemployed and registered as a job seeker which means staying in the country and proving to your local job center on a regular basis that you are looking for work.
Traveling abroad for leisure while unemployed automatically disqualifies you from receiving any healthcare coverage and unemployment benefits until you return.
Doesn't mean there aren't people cheating the system and taking vacations abroad while receiving unemployment but the rules are strict and being caught cheating is really bad for you.
Also doing courses on your own dime during unemployment, that are not on the job center's curriculum, like a boot camp in data science, automatically disqualifies you from unemployment benefits during that period. I tried explaining to my case worker at the job center that a data science certification gives me the opportunity for a better paid job afterwards and I need the unemployment benefits for that period and her response was "sorry sir, that's the law".
Yeah, the system is extremely stupid and archaic in some cases here and if you're an ambitious high achiever it can screw you over sometimes more than it helps you.
With some historical context it can be made to make some sense, but when dealing with it the first time it is prima facie absurd.
It's automatic in those situations you've described, but you can buy into the system otherwise.
At today's exchange rate if you'd like to benefit from the healthcare system, for a year, you'd have to make a 271 EUR contribution, with no other criteria required.
As a Romanian I can say you'd be surprised how many things the Romanian system gets right in favor of the workers in comparison to some western countries. At least on paper.
You're not guaranteed to be covered for 6 months. If you leave permanently and settle within Canada, BC will cover you for the remainder of the month plus two months (enough time to establish residency in the destination and get coverage). If you leave the country, you are covered for the remainder of the month.
If it's a temporary leave, however, several of the provinces do cover you outside of the province, and many will extend your coverage for quite a long time depending on the circumstances. BC allows you to retain coverage for a 2 year trip during every 5 year period. They also (like many provinces) will extend your coverage as long as you're in school full time in another location.
BC does not cover care outside of Canada (assuming that’s what you meant by “2 year trip”) with the exception of emergency care at a max of $75 per day.
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/health/health-drug-covera...
Still, yeah, very different than how US health insurance works, agreed.
In some countries, individuals often don't qualify for bankruptcy. In others you might be able to restructure your debts, but they might not be discharged. In some, you may need to give up significant possessions to pay for your debts.
The US, for all of its healthcare issues, actually has a relatively progressive and accessible bankruptcy system. The majority of people in the US who file Chapter 7 have all of their assets exempted from liquidation by law. For these people, bankruptcy is literally as simple as a matter of trading all of their debt for 10 years of a bad mark on their credit report.
(Recommendations (in German): https://www.finanztip.de/krankenversicherung/auslandsreisekr... )
> As of 2013, Medicaid is a program intended for those with low income, but a low income is not the only requirement to enroll in the program. Eligibility is categorical—that is, to enroll one must be a member of a category defined by statute; some of these categories are: low-income children below a certain wage, pregnant women, parents of Medicaid-eligible children who meet certain income requirements, low-income disabled people who receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and/or Social Security Disability (SSD), and low-income seniors 65 and older.
This makes it seem like it's not just "low income", but also membership in one of those other categories.
I also didn't see anything on the page that indicated what share of expenses were covered by medicaid, but perhaps I missed it.
In eastern Europe it's normal for your degree to take anywhere from 1-3 year longer than it should have for various reasons including "taking a year off to chill", but actual, planned gap years where you're not in education are basically unheard of. Let alone gap years where you travel around and spend money.
I know a few people who signed up for master degrees in say Germany and found that almost everyone in the program is a few years older then them.
Is that because of gap years, or an interest in actually getting industry experience before continuing academic education? I think I was about 6 years into my career before I thought I could really squeeze a lot of value out of a graduate program. (I didn't ever go back for one, though.)
Edit - Sorry, see all the peer comments made the same point.
Generally, I think family does. Some families have more money than others. It also depends how much the parents are willing and able to sacrifice, of course.
The same way you might scratch your head wondering how some fellow students pay for rentals you can't imagine affording, and alcohol binges you can't imagine affording. Students from poorer families rarely go on gap years. But even some poorer parents will sacrifice a lot, if they can find a way, to pay for their children to travel.
That said, the costs aren't outrageous. Travelling around Europe or Australia is fairly cheap for a young person (or at least used to be). There are schemes to allow travelling costs to be lower for young people, visas tend to be cheaper and easier to get, and people do local, temporary work e.g. in bars in kitchens to supplement the money they brought with them, to make it last longer.
I went to university in the UK a long time ago. And I struggled to understand how people afforded gap years (or rent) then, too. I never had a gap year, and it makes me a little sad. But as I couldn't even afford to eat regular meals, and certainly couldn't join people for socialising when they went out to places like Pizza Hut (too expensive), it was the right decision not to take a gap year :/
I had my moments, worrying about a friend's finances and professional decisions, only to learn later that, well, there was clearly nothing to worry about.
You're on a discussion board filled with software developers and tech employees generally. The vast majority of such workers make a lot of money. If you're working in tech and you can't bank enough to take 6m-1yr off, you're doing your finances wrong. It doesn't require a trust fund to avoid the hedonic treadmill and save up.
Why would you assume to know what other people's financial situations are, let alone their wage scale in an industry where not everyone is a US-based SWE?
There's a balance to find between saving for retirement and not spending your entire adulthood just working towards it.
You may not be able to windsurf anywhere in your 50s...
EDIT: Obviously (from the voting) I hit a raw nerve with that original comment. Who knew “save for retirement” was such controversial advice. I personally plan to ensure I do not have to eat dog food when I’m 80 because I partied in my 20s but I guess to each their own. Given the average American’s retirement savings rate, my plan is clearly unpopular!
That means you're either not living on a budget at all, or you're doing something ridiculous like paying out of pocket for prescription medication without using the ACA.
I took off 3 years in my 20’s. 34 now, and back on track to retire in my early 40’s. Saving for retirement and enjoying life today are not mutually exclusive.
Do you really think all these folks want to do is fill their Instagram with pictures of windsurfing in Ibiza?
That misses the entire point of travel. It isn't to show off on instagram (although that can be a fun component, it isn't the driver for 99% of people); it isn't to tell other people you did it.
It is to have this amazing experience with a foreign culture and place. And that is very hard to value.
Yes, planning for retirement is important. But you may also be dead before you get there. It takes balance.
So I take a year of now and then, if I feel like it.
I am not the same person you asked the question to, but I guess if you work on a couple of hobby projects and actually release those in your break year, you won't have holes in your CV.
But if you leave enough coworkers who want to work with you again at each job, you can always find jobs through them.
Having a family is partially a financial decision. People should make the decision with eyes wide open, having planned for it. Achieving a financial position above sustenance before having the expensive family is generally a good idea. Same as buying the house and cars.
You can have a family, a house be sustainable but not earning enough to be able to pay for a year off of work. Which is the lot of 99.99% of people on this planet.
But, you can go on road trips, go camping, you can take a cruise, or find an all inclusive resorts. You won't have as much time for yourself like you did in your youth, but you can still travel and you'll make memories with your family, and show them new things about the world.
I think we have different definitions of "sustainable", then.
What you're describing sounds one step up from living paycheck to paycheck. And the fact that "most people are in that position!" doesn't make it a good position to be in, or a necessary one.
I did take a year off 2 years later.
I've met people who do it on a 6-months basis - 6 months travelling, 6 months earning. They don't make much, their career is somewhat stalled, it would have probably ended when/if they had a kid, but they did it. They were conscious that they were sacrificing something (money, comforts) in exchange for this lifestyle.
Bit harder now post Brexit though
Almost all of the people I knew who did gap years before or after university went to either Australia or New Zealand (from the UK) following a three teaching-year degree with an extra industrial placement year - Australia in particular have (had?) a scheme where someone can live and work for a year with few restrictions provided they are under 30, and could extend that to two years if working in a rural area for some of that time.
I've moved to the US and can see how things are very different culturally with regard to travel. Others have mentioned that the US is not into backpacking. I think it's less about that, and more about travel being a prize for retirement.
I've seen this changing a bit in my time in the US, but it's still the norm for a lot of people who then end up being unable to travel. The US has many more people who are skilled and equipped for a backpacking lifestyle than I found in the UK.
I assume "backpacking" in this context tends to mean riding trains around Europe, staying in hostels/couchsurfing/etc.
The US has a fair bit of backpacking and camping in National Parks/Forests/long-distance trails although it's not necessarily a fully mainstream activity. But much less of the "European-style" backpacking.
I think it's partly a difference of scale and ability to get around without a car once you get out of a handful of (mostly expensive) cities.
My understanding is that workers get a year of maternity leave, a few weeks of paternity leave, and there is some sort of sharing arrangement whereby maternity leave can be used to extend paternity leave.
When maternity/paternity leave ends, the worker must be given their job back.
I'd expect that at many employers they can't just have the work that someone on leave would have done go undone so they are going to have to bring on someone else to do it--someone who knows that they will only be needed until the person they are filling in for comes back from leave.
Thus, I'd expect there to be a need across nearly all industries and at nearly all skill levels for people who want to fill a 6 month to a year opening.
Compare to the US (Federal 12 weeks maternity leave if your company has 50 people, no legally required maternity leave otherwise--individual states sometimes add more), where openings for people to work a temporary job for a few months tend to either be low end jobs or very specialized consulting jobs. The former don't pay enough to afford a 6 on/6 off lifestyle, and the latter are out of reach of most people. There aren't many good middle-class jobs to support 6 on/6 off.
Most the advice is quite the opposite (and I would agree with them). To me, this really shows just how toxic the control is across the labor force. Job mobility is about the only vote or voice you have if you're in the labor force and if empty positions can be readily filled, you have no voice. The only reason things are interesting now is because the mass layoffs and turnover haven't been well stagged due to the pandemic so labor has more leverage. When true unemployment returns to norms, positions are largely re-filled, and attrition begins to follow traditional rates, the voice of the labor market voting will their feet will again fall on deaf ears and your voice will again disappear in the noise. It would take another global catastrophe to change this balance and give labor a voice again.
We all know that once old, the amount of money earned/saved will mean absolutely nothing in terms of happiness/achievement. Work achievements for office type jobs mean mean even less. The life lived well will mean everything. So some act accordingly when/if possible.
I haven't done gap year myself, but did a shorter variant - 2 times 3 months backpacking around India and Nepal. Remote Himalaya in the north, swimming in coral reefs on Amdamans, Thar desert in the west, and thousands of years of history, culture and people to meet everywhere in between. I still barely scratched the surface of what this place can offer.
Literally the best decision in my life. It changed me for the better. It motivated me to make changes in my career, go for consulting, move to Switzerland etc.
Have met tons of people from all over the world who were like this - traveling like this for 3-24 months, and then continuing work/study/beginning someplace else.
These trips I've done when having a pretty high mortgage and very little savings, and they both meant losing at least 2 salaries each time while expenses mounted. No rich family to cover for me anyhow if I would hit the financial wall. Still well worth the risk. If one doesn't have kids yet, there is practically nothing to lose with doing this, just gain.
I dont think this is true at all. Money in retirement means the difference between mostly maintaining your standard of living after work an “choosing between medicine and food each week”. I think a lot of people saving up and then spending all their savings to party every 5 years are in for a shock when they are 60 and their joints are sore and their knees don’t work and they can no longer make a salary.
I'm not sure that's a fair characterization of people taking a gap year, especially people in tech. The industry pays well relatively early and there is a surplus of jobs. If you keep your expenses low relative to your salary, don't let your lifestyle inflate beyond your means, and are fortunate enough not to be burdened with debt, health problems, or other large expenses, a gap year seems completely doable.
I think failure to save money is by far the most likely reason sabbaticals are uncommon, though I've been told by hiring managers they're more common in tech than you'd think. There's also probably some stigma against being unemployed, especially in professional circles, as well as fear of the dreaded "resume gap." As far as I can tell, that concern is fairly overblown for those in tech as well.
I think option for this is required by law in some countries, though I've never taken it so I'm not exactly sure.
My former company allowed this after two years of continuous employment to let employees try their wings with building their own product. I thought this was pretty cool, and definitely a recruitment carrot. On the downside (for the company) lots of those colleagues ended up leaving after their sabbatical was up, but I figure that those people would have left soonish anyway. It's not like they would've had a problem getting a new job.
While I did figure out I didn't love single handing a sailboat long term I don't regret any part of that year. I came back significantly happier than I was.
It used to be that it was more a thing for women, but that probably changed since draft was abandoned (before that the gap year for men would usually have been military service or alternative civilian service)
Higher-middle and upper class more likely? Kids which need to earn their money usually go straight into apprenticeship or university and earn money promptly.
In the UK "upper class" is used almost exclusively for aristocrats. No matter how rich you are, unless there is a viable way for you to hold a title (e.g. Earl), you will not be considered upper class.
Middle class is basically anyone who does knowledge work and has aspirations of home ownership.
Your description of "Kids which need to earn their money usually go straight into apprenticeship or university and earn money promptly" would be very likely to be working class kids in the UK i.e. unlikely to be middle class.
Its a bit more complex in the UK ABc1 is middle but their are social distinctions dependant on job not income.
For example A Plumber Miner or train driver might make more than an engineer but would be working class.
Basically what sort of honour would you get for doing charity work is a good marker
Obviously it's easier with rich parents, but it doesn't really require as much cash as you're imagining. It's pretty common to work a little first then use all the cash to travel later for example, or to work while you travel, e.g. by teaching English (TEFL - https://www.tefl.org/blog/why-tefl-on-your-gap-year/).
The point is though - you don’t get anything at all until you actually attend classes. So taking a gap year means having to fund it yourself, or have generous parents but what this comments author describes is closer to ‘normal’ - a large number, not necessarily a majority, of 18year olds will plan out a gap year contingent on taking a part time job at some point and then using that to fund travel or something - before taking up a place on a course (and hence receiving the money)
If you have luck/motivation/connections/skillset - you might find a job related to your (future) degree too. I knew several people on my CS course who worked IT support at a local office for a few months whilst living with their parents - then set off on a backpacking trip somewhere exotic.
Everybody can have a loan for the full cost if they want one, people from poorer families get outright grants instead.
Certainly not perfect, but my impression is it hasn't significantly hindered uptake from lower income students and its not a major financial burden in practice.
Basically the GP is using the former definition and the person you're replying to is using the latter definition.
Crap on the Marxists all you want but they do at least have a fairly unambiguous taxonomy for these distinctions.
This is why any of these definitions get really murky, fast.
I think it is deeper than that, the country just has a confused relationship with the entire concept of class by both rejecting and embracing it.
On the other hand, someone who is worth, say, $10M or $20M is obviously still quite wealthy. But not necessarily in the doesn't need to think twice about hopping on a private plane or owning a private island category.
I actually oriented myself more on the numbers for Germany. Which means middle class is a single household with about 2000€ net income per month. That includes a lot of trade workers. It is perfectly possible to finance a gap year without or just minor parental support.
What you can't do is continue to have an expensive quality of life if you're no longer producing income.
I was really burnt out. But I'm not sure that taking the time did anything for me. I was a little stressed about the "unknown" the whole time and I mostly wish I had left that money in my savings.
Your mileage may vary.
There are other cultures like this. I’ve seen kids from Europe doing a gap year staying in hostels for very little (they sometimes do some light work for the hostel to get a free place to stay)
It's sad really. As a young person this is the time to be able to do it. Often as you get older life gets in the way. I've been wanting to do it ever since I found out about it but every time something else has gotten in the way. If you're young and reading this, and everything has aligned for you, take a gap year or two.
When I finished university, I had a few weeks between graduation and my start date at a well known Midwestern embedded electronics company. I had a $7k signing bonus and I found a $500 round trip ticket to Rome, so I went to Rome. While I was there, I learned about the world of backpacking and hostels. I ended up spending 6 weeks in Europe before returning home. During that time I decided that travel was something I wanted to pursue in my life.
The salary at my entry level SWE job was $58k, which was pretty modest. I didn’t buy a new car. I didn’t buy a new house. I cooked most meals at home and I brought lunch to work. I tracked my expenses and budget using Mint, and set a goal to save $30k so I could leave and travel in SE Asia where I calculated the daily burn rate should be around $30/day. After three years I hit my savings goal and bought a one way ticket to Hawaii, then from Hawaii to Thailand. I ended up spending over a year outside of the country and returned home with a $10k cushion to get back on my feet.
The biggest leg up I had was graduating with $2000 in student loan debt, but that was made possible mostly through merit based scholarships. No trust fund.
I inspired a friend to do the same thing, except with a destination of Australia on a working holiday visa. Also no trust fund, just living below his means and saving over time.
My advice to you is to find a way to do the things you want to do instead of limiting yourself with beliefs that only the ultra-rich can take time off from work to pursue personal passions.
In my industry, and the one my wife works in, if you have a gap year it's a red flag that makes potential employers wonder if you got fired from your last job and just aren't listing it, or did time in prison, or are simply unreliable.
It's great that in the tech bubble people don't think much about gap years. But in the real world, they can doom your chances of getting a new job.
Especially since these days you don't get to explain the gap since your application is vetted, filtered, and ranked by a computer and not a person.
Anyway, I took a gap time at age 36 for a 3 months trip in South America. And this allowed me to take an turn in my career when I came back.
You hear a heck of a lot more about it on HN than happens in reality.
Maybe I don't hang out with the trust fund crowd enough but I don't know ANYONE who's taken a "gap year" where they weren't doing something for ~40hr/wk in order to make a buck. I know a few people who didn't jump right into career stuff after college but even they did low pay large applicant pool type jobs at least tangentially related to their careers (e.g. working as basically unskilled labor on tourist fishing charters in Miami before getting a real entry level job on a container ship). Heck, even the people who took a year off before college were doing stuff tangentially related to their career/skillset in that time (e.g. working for geek squad prior to going to school for CE). I know a couple people who went from full time to part time or to less demanding jobs in their field prior to retirement. I know a couple people who did jobs not related to their vocational training for less than a year after they got out of the military but that was more of a stopgap to keep a roof over their head. I don't know anyone who's gone from full time to part time or less unless it's part of a career transition or approach to retirement. I'm sure there's someone somewhere who's managed to pay their rent by waiting tables and stripping for a grand total of 15hr/wk and spent the rest of the time doing art or writing a book or something. I'm sure there's someone who's banked a ton of money and taken a year off in the middle of their career. I don't know anyone who's pulled something like that off.