Comment by tw04
10 hours ago
Based on what data? A quick google search says the average automation engineer in Germany makes 90k euro to $107k in the US.
And the German has universal healthcare, clocks out at 5 and can’t be bothered, and gets real vacation time.
https://www.salaryexpert.com/salary/job/automation-engineer/
You can't trust a quick google search nowadays for anything. I work in Germany. Any engineer making that much money has to be a senior at a higher position with loads of responsibilities (which means the average is nowhere near), plus living in a city that is considered expensive. Also, half that money goes to taxes. (someone has to pay for the universal healthcare afterall)
> half that money goes to taxes
That is a misguided simplification. Please correct this, before anyone starts to believe it for real.
More precisely, given a salary of 85'000€, about 17'500 (20.5%) goes into income tax and about 16'800 (19.7%) goes into social contributions, though one can reduce the latter by taking a private health insurance*. The remaining 60% (Nettolohn) can be used to purchase things, usually paying 19% of VAT on them (though rent is exempt and food has a lower tax).
So, “half goes away in taxes” is an exaggeration, but I can totally sympathize with the feeling. Especially since the quality of healthcare is declining and the pay-as-you-go pension system is only built to benefit the current generation of pensioners.
* note that, if one is earning less than 77'000€ today or less than 84'150€ in 2027, one is prohibited to switch to a private insurance. One of the most regressive precepts of the German system.
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Having worked in another EU country, I can attest that I paid as much as 56% in taxes, so I believe a guy who says that he works in Germany and pays half in taxes. If you have other data, you are welcome to present it.
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You however have to admire getting things that wrong in the same paragraph that tells one to not trust what one sees in Google searches. Though I suppose HN comments would show in Google searches... maybe their humor just went over my head.
49% of that money goes to taxes
Sorry, you’re the one who is misguided here.
Government spending as a % of GDP in Germany is exactly 50%. So definitionally half of all money goes to taxes.
Are you counting in VAT on everything OP spends that money on? Are you counting capital gains taxes OP pays when investing that money? Are you counting the taxes paid by the employer for his role (which defacto come out of his pay, just before he gets it)? The property taxes he pays to live?
The employer doesn’t look at the employees salary as the only cost. Employers look at things rationally, using the all-in cost to employ someone (the combined total of all salary and government mandated taxes and benefits contributions). In many European countries this is 2X the persons salary or more.
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That "health care argument" is getting a bit tiring tbh. The US government spends much more than any European country per capita on health care (the US system is simply less efficient), and the chunk of your wage that goes into your health insurance isn't a tax either.
US consumers also have high standards for healthcare.
I interact with a lot of engineers moving from Europe and US and it’s never how US politics portray it. German friends talk about paying for private insurance because the public one is so bad.
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Who is making this 'health care argument' you are responding to?
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Median automation engineer in Germany made 78 840 € in 2025, according to government statistics
https://web.arbeitsagentur.de/entgeltatlas/beruf/59351
Now do per working hour, including benefits.
Per working hour would be €157,680.
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The German value seems very suspect. Glassdoor, for the same job role, says €53,000 to €80,000 per year which is probably lower than the truth (Glassdoor overweighs junior roles) but looks much more realistic to me.
It’s really not a disputed fact at all that engineering jobs in the US pay more than in Europe, but that European jobs have more benefits such as vacation and social security, and US generally has higher cost of living.
I am surprised that this suddenly is a “based on what data?” discussion.
It has always been an apples / oranges comparison.
You're surprised that people want evidence instead of blindly trusting (supposedly) common knowledge?
If it's true it should be trivial to provide said evidence.
The vacation time is genuinely better, yeah.
The universal healthcare is hard to quantify - because most decent companies include health insurance in the US and the quality of the public healthcare provision in Europe can be quite patchy (i.e. location-dependent)
Remember that you are comparing gross salaries too, and taxes are much higher in Germany so the engineer ends up with much less take-home pay.
That makes it easier to quantify. If I need to work a decent job at a decent company to have good healthcare, then a large number of people don't have good healthcare.
This is not acceptable. Healthcare should be a basic right, and a lot of European countries treat it as such (e.g. in Germany, everyone is insured, no matter their employment status, and its mandatory and equal for everyone regardless of their job).
People also can't be fired for being sick.
In theory yes, but they're really running the German healthcare system into the ground. Many doctors leave the country after graduating from University. Doctors cannot freely open a practice, they have to bend over for some central commie committee. And they will only receive a fixed amount of pay per quarter per patient depending on the disease. And of they have "too many" patients, at some point they have to treat them for free (payment is limited).
The whole thing is a scam run by our politicians, who of course are all private insured.
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I hate to break it to you, healthcare in the US is extremely patchy and location dependent.
I can also tell you working in tech for a very long time, if you aren’t working for a Silicon Valley company you might have health insurance options, but that doesn’t mean they’re any good. Especially if you have a preexisting condition.
> working for a Silicon Valley company you might have health insurance options, but that doesn’t mean they’re any good
I'd love to hear about people working in 'tech' who don't have decent health insurance options. If that's you, where do you work and what do you do?
> preexisting condition
Not with ACA compliant plans
>Especially if you have a preexisting condition.
What does this mean?
https://www.healthcare.gov/coverage/pre-existing-conditions/
https://www.hhs.gov/healthcare/about-the-aca/pre-existing-co...
> Health insurance companies cannot refuse coverage or charge you more just because you have a “pre-existing condition” — that is, a health problem you had before the date that new health coverage starts.
>Health insurers can no longer charge more or deny coverage to you or your child because of a pre-existing health condition like asthma, diabetes, or cancer, as well as pregnancy.
>They cannot limit benefits for that condition either. Once you have insurance, they can't refuse to cover treatment for your pre-existing condition.
This has been in effect since 2014 due to the Affordable Care Act.
Former member of the Senior Management for a huge global bank operating in Germany.
1. These averages are an average. Rarely are they paid. I don't know where these numbers are from but the these numbers are for top earners in good paying industries.
There are junior, normal and senior devs, sometimes above is a lead dev. Business maybe has 2-3 leads that govern a head count of dozens, and many working off-shore.
It is called blended average. People who rank in 107k are paid including bonuses. And rarely make any further wage jumps. The dev who is paid 200k fixed in Germany is a myth, not even close to 120k.
Germany hates IT and devs. Business comes first, and anything and everything regarding IT is considered a cost factor, a necessary burden.
2. Freelancers
Freelancers rake in more money due to tax deductions. So a day rate of 800-1000EUR per month is a pay off and freelancers have to take care of the taxes etc.
Companies on the other hand can deduct those "investments" and roughly pay half the price in the end. So, this is the problem with employment: you are a cost factor and you are a liability from the beginning due to worker rights etc.
Germany punishes workers as well as freelancers. But I could not raise payment as I saw fit. Germany means yearly total times 1,25 = total cost for a company ("employers' part of the tax" as sugar coating for taxes above 60%).
100 workers with a yearly raise of 2-5% in payments amount exponentially and are a risk factor especially considering the fact that productivity rarely increases as well as value to the company on average. So ever increased payments over a span of 10-20 years.
That is the problem with the system: socialism favors keeping you poor. Don't steal people and companies their hard earned money, lower taxes, allow for higher payments at will not by "number comparison and increase to all" and let companies workers decide where they spend their bucks.
3. Conclusion You might wonder how much the guys really perceive on their bank account in the end. It may be lower than you think. Rule of fist: if you do not immediately make the switch to stay in the US you have lots of cuts along the way: company share, taxes.
Before I went to Senior Management I was totally on your page. Now knowing both sides I see the matrix so to say. I am still on your side however business doesn't benefit from all the taxes.
> Freelancers rake in more money due to tax deductions <
Until now - the freelancer thingy is heavy under fire ("Scheinselbständigkeit") and its quite to difficult to have only one or two clients; also 1-person-GmbHs are heavy under fire from the public pension scheme.
I know a lot of devs paid 120k€ before socialism over here. Also: The 25% "employers part of the tax" isn't a tax but masking the burgeoning costs of (non-tax...) social security systems - benefit receiver are also the only people getting those regular 2-5% raises tbh. (and ofc. every capitalist earns these too I understand by looking at a bank's business model...)
Maybe the engineer makes 90K, but there are still thousands in social contributions. Can be up to 15K.
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That is not "fucked up" it is called the solidarity principle. You contribute when you have the capacity to contribute, and society protects you when you happen to need more than you can afford. Netflix is a consumer product, and health insurance is risk pooling. You're treating health insurance as if you're buying healthcare services. You're not. You're buying protection against an uncertain financial risk.
Also you forgot the contribution assessment ceiling at €69,750/year.
However, Germany has a legitimate problem when contribution levels, service quality, and access aren't aligned with what people feel they're paying. That is a different discussion which needs much more nuance and intimate knowledge of the German healthcare system.
The fucked up part is the forced solidarity and high barrier to exit the so called solidarity principle. You need 77,400€ annual salary to switch to private insurance in 2026 and in 2027 it will be increased to 84,150€.
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It would be solidarity, if there was not a heavy anti-solidarity side to it. You can import millions into this system that dont pay a dime, do not contribute to it (in fact need subsidys to make a living wage) but also consume the services in equal amounts.
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As the main reason for my expatriation out fo a similar system I'd happily stay and pay if the service was good and the providence state was not collapsing.
As it stands its just an extraction machine to the boomer benefit and it wont survive by the time i will need it
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That's what universal healthcare fundamentally is; everyone pays for it regardless of whether they use it or not, and regardless of the quality of service they receive in return.
What, did you think universal healthcare meant everything would be free? That's not possible; doctors and nurses don't work for free.
No it’s not. The universal healthcare is everyone contributing to it equally. That’s not the case in Germany. Private health insurance holders doesn’t contribute to it at all and a certain professions like government workers, doctors, etc. have their own health insurance schemes and doesn’t pay into the statutory health insurance.
Even the people that has to pay for the statutory health insurance pays different amounts and also there’s a group of people that benefits from it even without paying a single euro for it. So it’s not universal at all. Only a certain group pays for the majority and takes on the burden
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You can’t opt out from it
This is the part that makes it universal.
> Everyone pays for it as a mandatory percentage from their salaries every month as a health insurance fee. .... the higher your salary you end up paying more money to receive the same service
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this sounds exactly how almost all income taxes work.
> 5$ for Netflix and other paying 50$ to watch the same shows with no change in service offering.
Counterpoint -- you pay taxes to get the full benefits that a stable society provides, which includes your ability to make any income at all. The more income you earn, the more benefit you're literally getting.
> you’re young and single, you will be punished
Don't worry, it's impossible to stay young and single forever.
> I would say Germany is a good place if you’re married and have kids. Then you get a lot of subsidies from the government and it’s relatively cheap to raise children in Germany.
The number of newborns in germany last year was lowest since WW2. Seems like most germans don't agree with this assessment.
It’s not just financials. Young people just don’t want to have that responsibility and burden and restriction of freedom that comes with having children.
You have to be optimistic about the future, to have kids. And Germans lately are targeted with propaganda, algorithmic and amplified bad news. Every kind of german-speaking media and social media is full of dread, how the country is in a "freefall", etc. I saw the same in UK pre-brexit.
Because cheap healthcare only is not a parameter for having kids (-:
My siblings have covered most of your points, but I think one gets overlooked easily:
> Think of it as one paying 5$ for Netflix and other paying 50$ to watch the same shows with no change in service offering.
This used to be the norm before department stores made fixed price popular. People would haggle, and more wealthy people usually paid more because they couldn't be bothered to haggle as much.
> The fucked up part is that the higher your salary you end up paying more money to receive the same service as someone paying way less with a lowers salary.
That's basically how all progressive taxation works?
I hate to break it to you, but you have to wait for a specialist in US as well. Months is also a quite typical wait time.
And even if you're on a princely healthcare plan - you're still out several thousand dollars for an ER visit.
But the funny thing in Germany is that if you are on private health insurance, then you can get an appointment with a specialist like tomorrow or at most within a week.
The months waiting time only applies to statutory health insurance payees and ironically they are the ones most of the time that pays a higher premium