> provide no health insurance

I am so glad to live in Germany...

… where your full time job pays less than the GP's part time job

Minimum wage in Germany (12.82€) is almost double the US federal one ($7.25). And contrary to popular belief, no, taxes and fees are not massively higher.

[Ed.: actually, thanks to 'recent developments' causing the USD to depreciate, it's pretty exactly double.]

(Only the highest of the local minimum wage setups in the US are slightly higher than the German one, e.g. CA's $16.50)

In the states, part time jobs like 20/hr a week don't pay half as much. They pay closer to an 8th as much.

That's why everyone in the US works full-time if they have the choice. I would HAPPILY work 20/hr a week at half my rate. Such a job just does not exist. I would have to take a huge, huge paycut for that.

It's a bad deal as a developer. I receive 50% of the money but still provide 70-80% value to the company.

As someone who straddles two fields (CS and Healthcare) and has careers/degrees in both -- the grass isn't always greener on the other side.

This could be said about most jobs in the 21st century these days in any career field given. That's a culture shift and business management/organization practice change that isn't likely to happen anytime soon.

Oh I'm not saying we have it worse. But there are jobs where time spent is more proportional to productive output, so working half the time for half the money is a fair deal.