Comment by warkdarrior
6 months ago
Software developers are already too expensive in US, so this applies some downward pressure on those salaries. Frankly the economy will be much better off when tech salaries equalize across geos, thus avoiding the deep whole US manufacturing is in (for example, manufacturing wages in Vietname are one tenth of US manufacturing wages, and thus it is better to open new plants there).
If you want equalized poverty, feel free to move to the EU. Say goodbye to owning a nice house, or building any kind of wealth - that's reserved for the old money class.
In the US, software is one of the few remaining ways to achieve the American dream. I came to this country to work hard and earn money.
Weird, I live in the USA make $180k yet still can’t own a house and building wealth is extremely hard.
EU has better societal benefits than the US (access to healthcare, education, mandated vacation time (often starting at 3-4 weeks).
The vast majority of people care about living a life without suffering. In the US this is only reserved for the rich it seems.
What part of the country and what is your take home? Monthly expenses? $180k can be a lot depending on your location.
Exceptions are HCOL tech hubs, but comp in those places is much higher.
1 reply →
I don't think we share the same definition of poverty.
I'm in the EU. You have no idea what you're talking about.
Yeah, make everybody equally poor. That'll solve things.
If you look at happiness and indexes versus taxation rates - yes, making everybody poorer does tend to solve things. Not too soon in the growth curve - but certainly not never.
Those two scenarios are only comparable if you isolate happiness and taxation and completely ignore things like social services and inequality.
I think you're referring to Nordic countries which consistently rank as the happiest countries and also have relatively high tax rates (4 of 5 Nordic countries rank in the top 11 tax rates globally. Norway has oil.) The high taxes that "make everybody poorer" also fund extensive social services that contribute to happiness.
However, this conversation is about making (a class of) workers poorer by using tax policy that puts downward pressure on their salaries. Tax revenues will stay the same, so social services will not be increased. Economic inequality increases because the workers became poorer, the C-Suite and Board Members don't.
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