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Salaries in the US are pre-payroll taxes, post in EU. Also not included in US salaries: daycare, healthcare, college savings. Is see this trope all the time, b
by fastbeef 7y ago
Salaries in the US are pre-payroll taxes, post in EU. Also not included in US salaries: daycare, healthcare, college savings.
Is see this trope all the time, but it’s an illusion. Compare apples to apples.
Edit: Payroll tax != income tax. Most people aren’t even aware the employer is paying this. It’s the light blue bar in the chart in this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payroll_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payroll_tax
- aserafini 7y agoI’ve never seen European salaries quoted post tax. In which countries is this true?
- toyg 7y agoAfaik, in Italy, Spain, France and Netherlands, the convention is largely to talk about salaries post-tax. In UK it’s pre-tax.
- aserafini 7y agoTIL. Germany is also always pre-tax.
- alexgmcm 7y agoI live in Spain and have only ever seen pre-tax numbers discussed. Certainly in professional jobs. By tax, I mean income tax. I've only ever seen "salario bruto" in my contracts, in job adverts etc.
- arcturus17 7y agoI'm Spanish and can corroborate this. Maybe sometimes with friends and family you'll talk about neto but otherwise everywhere else it's bruto.
- fastbeef 7y agoNot income tax, payroll tax, the tax the employer pays for having employees. Most people are not even aware of this existing. It the one marked “Employer” in this table: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payroll_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payroll_tax
- beberlei 7y agoIts not a tax in Europe, but usually the companies share of social insurance. That is why the word payroll tax is confusing to us Europeans :-) In Germany the company share of social insurance is another ~20% on top of the employees pre-tax salary. It is not nearly enough to explain the wage disparity between SF/US and European salaries.
- fastbeef 7y agoExactly. 20% ON TOP of your salary. It’s baked in to the US salary. Sure, it doesn’t account for the whole delta but it’s not nothing.
- foldr 7y agoIt's fairly cold comfort to know that your employer is paying some taxes associated with your position that don't come out of your notional pre-tax salary. What most people are interested in is how much of their pay is take-home pay. In the US, the take-home fraction of your pay will typically be somewhat higher. It's certainly not the case that software engineers in the US are getting bigger notional salaries but then paying a larger fraction in paycheck deductions than their European counterparts.
- C1sc0cat 7y agoErm not sure what your talking about those us salaries don't have the employer side taxes either.
- egman_ekki 7y agoSo e.g. in Denmark, Employer pays no tax for an employee, but still the salaries are nowhere near US.
- foldr 7y agoNo, these are double or more than pre-tax London salaries. I'm not sure about continetal Europe, but the convention in the UK is to report pre-tax salaries. Healthcare is complicated. Most cushy tech jobs in the US come with the premiums included. But in the US there is always a significant risk of large and unpredictable medical expenses. (Especially when you consider that there's no guarantee that you'll keep your job!) That one is difficult to put figures on. I don't personally care about daycare and college savings as I'm not planning to have kids.
- fastbeef 7y ago> I don't personally care about daycare and college savings as I'm not planning to have kids Right. But you ARE going to get old and sick and someone else’s children are going to take care of you. You probably want them educated and doing stupid mistakes because they’re overworked.
- foldr 7y agoMore people to to college in the US than in the UK.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- rsynnott 7y agoWhile that was the case, it doesn't seem to be anymore (for instance see the age cohorts here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_education_attainment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_... ). Two year non-degree courses also seem to be much more common in the US than elsewhere, which skews things a bit.
- foldr 7y agoFair enough. It's not a big gap.
- 7y ago
- pkaye 7y agoBut software engineer jobs will nearly always include employer provided health insurance.
- fastbeef 7y agoNot up to speed on the specifics, but don’t the insurances always have $x000 copayments?
- mercutio2 7y agoNo.
- CalRobert 7y agoMy copays are virtually 0. At the hospital where my child was born in Ireland there was a sign on the wall apologizing for the fact that if you didn't have your insurance card or medical card (public insurance basically) and you went to the emergency room they would have to charge you.... one hundred euro. My mom was amused when I texted her the photo, in a sad way.
- pkaye 7y agoSoftware engineers have access to higher quality insurance plans. My current plan I pay mostly in the $10-$30 range per visit. I've had better plans than that. When at the last company, I was hospitalized for 2 weeks and my plan had $0 copay.