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And in the EU it is probably why they have free healthcare, high minimum wage, work weeks of 34-38 hrs, welfare, 8 hour work days, overtime after, high proportion of part time workers, and highest productivity per hour in Germany.

But yeah, unions, hate what you gotta hate. I personally hate long hours for bullshit pay.



Free healthcare!

I pay 9% of my income in Poland for the public healthcare I couldn't use due to enormous queues. Therefore I pay subscription to the private medical provider, pay for dentistry, for all the medicine prescribed by any doctor(public as well).

What percentage of income typical software spends for medical insurance and bills?


In the US? Having to go to the hospital, having an illness etc can cost tens of thousands of dollars. Other countries pay more per paycheck, we pay a lot more per bill.

Going to the hospital would bankrupt me even as a relatively well off software engineer and even with my decent (work-tied) healthcare I still have months of wait time. In order to get into a doctor I made an appointment in February for a visit in September.


In US if you are a software engineer, what percentage of your salary would you spend for health insurance, medicine, copay etc?


If you're a software engineer, your employer would provide you with a plan that covers most, or even all of the cost.


Then it is actual free healthcare for US developer but expensive and useless "free" for me. What a joke!


Healthcare shouldn't be something only software engineers and other well off people can afford.


>free healthcare

i mean, i live in the netherlands, and i pay (and it's not that cheap) for my family's healthcare. and it's obligatory.


Well, it's not really free healthcare, at least not here in Finland. You're expected to spend at least an hour every day exercising with all the time we have off here to make sure you don't get super sick in the first place. In practice then we actually work 45 hours a week every week.


Would love a deeper explanation of this! Is it voluntary or required for all employers or what? There seems to be a Finnish program called Fit For Life originated in 1995 but I can’t tell if it’s compulsory and/or effective?


> You're expected to spend at least an hour every day exercising with all the time we have off here

I have absolutely no idea what you are on about, this is not as common as you seem to think. Who is expecting this of you?


Getting paid to exercise.. Nice!


GP implies that you’d just work longer to incorporate that hour of exercise?


US median income, even disposable income after all the medical/housing costs, is higher than all of the large EU countries (France, Germany, etc). So if anyone has bullshit pay, it’s the Europeans.


Show me those numbers!.

adjusting for cost of Living, healthcare, insurance, childrearing costs (free education) and taxes i betcha that statement is factually wrong


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per...

The list below represents a national accounts derived indicator for a country or territory's gross household disposable income per capita (including social transfers in kind). According to the OECD, 'household disposable income is income available to households such as wages and salaries, income from self-employment and unincorporated enterprises, income from pensions and other social benefits, and income from financial investments (less any payments of tax, social insurance contributions and interest on financial liabilities)…

This indicator also takes account of social transfers in kind 'such as health or education provided for free or at reduced prices by governments and not-for-profit organisations.'

The USA wallops even tiny, rich Luxembourg. There are some not-insignificant Covid-related distortions here, will be interesting to see the 2022 numbers.


This just strikes me as something Americans tell themselves to justify their living situation


The opposite is true in my experience. The stats are very clear but Europeans never seem to accept that maybe their perception is skewed, it's a weird form of nationalism.

(I'm not American, it's just something that I keep observing recently. Europeans have a much harder time reflecting on issues Europe has. It reminds me of Americans back in the early 2000s.)


This is certainly the case for tech workers that dominate this site. I’m not sure if it’s certain of the median US worker.



How come everyone is in debt then? What is median debt?


A lot of European countries have a higher household debt load than the US. Compared to Europe, especially the richer parts of Europe, the US compares favorably:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_househo...


Median household net worth (assets - liabilities, not including NPV of future cash flows from personal labor income) in the US is $192,900 according to the latest Fed data: https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/scfindex.htm


Citation needed





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