> Which is why you make 50% less by the way

They make 50% less. And they don't have to pay $1000 per head for private insurance, more for other insurance, $3000/month for being able to be a roommate in a 30 m2 apartment. Also they have disability, reasonable retirement, paid vacations and everything that are pretty much nonexistent for American employees.

If you use some extreme examples then sure living in the US can be very expensive. But for most of us the things are not this bad. I am a professor and even with the academic pay I save about 30% of my salary even after paying all the expenses. The key is to live in a lower cost US state where the salaries are still quite high compared to most of the world.

> But for most of us the things are not this bad. I am a professor

If you are a professor, you are not one of the 'most of us'. For most, things are really that bad.

https://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/13/americas-dirty-little-secret...

There are millions of working families where both parents and even children work and yet they still suffer hunger.

My comment unintentionally sounded like I was talking about all the other Americans. I meant to say most of us in the middle class. I am acutely aware that poverty in the US is real. When I talk to my academic friends in Europe and we compare salaries (it's quite common to do that because in the US our salaries are public if we work in state universities), we usually come out with the conclusion that in the US we have a lot more liquidity after accounting for pension, medical, housing, and other expenses.

> I meant to say most of us in the middle class

I know that you Americans use the word 'middle class' in place of 'working class'. No, a professor would not be 'working class'. Its lower upper class at the least. Both in Europe and the US.

Even for the public university case, the Europeans have benefits that you likely don't calculate. From getting state-subsidies per child to rent control to many different things. You shouldnt calculate the difference just over pension, medical and housing.

But isn't that a completely unfair comparison?

"Yeah, if you disregard all the poor people that struggle to stay alive, us rich people are generally much richer".

I think your exact statement is probably true. Because most European countries tries to distribute wealth in such a way that everyone gets to live, with food, healthcare, education and housing. And naturally that means that the 50% wealthiest in Europe are less wealthy than the 50% wealthiest in the US.

But the 50% poorest in Europe are much wealthier than the 50% poorest in the US.

Same, being DINKs we literally save 75% of our monthly cash flow while maxing out two IRAs, two employer matched 401ks, and two HSAs, and carry no debt.

We don’t even make that much by US coastal standards.

My retired grandparents have total monthly expenses of $3k but make $12k/mo from their pensions plus around a million in retirement accounts. Their entire careers they barely made more than the median household income and had kids.

The advantage of making a lot of money in expensive cities is you get an amazing deal when you pay “world rates” for things. But living in cheap medium size cities gives you an absolutely fucktonne of purchasing power.

Yeah, so we still come out about $1000/month behind after the salaries.

For a software engineer, I’m not sure if the Netherlands makes sense. For everyone else, I’m almost certain it does.

The median Dutch person makes more per working hour than the median American. They just work around 400hrs per year less.

Depends, America is a good place for the upper middle class and a paradise for millionaires. The rest of society-the majority lest we forget- is not so well off.

It's about the bottom 10th percentile in the US that's worse off. The American middle class (median household) is better off than almost any other country, and that's including healthcare costs. We're so rich it makes up for all our other problems!

https://twitter.com/CPopeHC/status/1466794872648650752

https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:best,fl_pr...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OECD_Better_Life_Index#2020

I think a more interesting point is that people in the UK and Japan specifically are poorer than you'd think they are. And they don't have working clothes dryers either.