[0] Europe gets more vacations than the U.S. Here are some reasons why. https://www.npr.org/2023/08/17/1194467863/europe-vacation-ho...
Maybe is not as bad as you think?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_companies_by_r...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per...
The big skewness (difference between the mean and the median) suggests that a lot of wealth is concentrated at the top and that many people are in fact worse off than Europeans.
https://www.rechtsindex.de/arbeitsrecht/490-jahresurlaub-mus...
[0] https://sfs.mit.edu/undergraduate-students/the-cost-of-atten...
A room costs minimum 350 Euros or may easily cost 1000.
Food and going out costs at least 100 Euros or healthy food 200-300.
The subway ticket at that time cost 70 per month.
There are some additional costs such as health insurance etc.
Tuition at that time was 500 per semester for me.
Spending a semester abroad as is common is usually far more expensive.
And by law your parents have to pay. You are not required to even work.
On average parents are required to finance housing and food with 930 per month.
Source: https://www.verbraucherzentrale.de/wissen/geld-versicherunge...
35.000-45.000 for the Bachelor alone.
https://www.verbraucherzentrale.de/wissen/geld-versicherunge... (Verbraucherzentrale, semi-public consumer protection agency)
10.000 per year:
https://m.faz.net/aktuell/finanzen/meine-finanzen/frag-den-m... (one of the top quality newspapers in Germany)
36.000 und 75.000 per child:
https://www.sparkasse.de/pk/ratgeber/bildung/studium/studien... (Sparkasse, pretty much the largest credit union)
Up to 133.000 (1851 per month):
https://www.studis-online.de/studienkosten/
But sure, believe what you want.
https://www.wirtschaftsforum.de/tipps/welche-anzahl-an-krank...
I studied at university and my parents paid nothing. Even as an adult student could I go back and get the grant part. In Sweden the state pays for you to study.
[1] https://www.csn.se/languages/english/student-grants-and-loan...
From what I know, I work for a very large insurance company, it's mostly healthcare department due to consequences of COVID. Which shouldn't have happened, but it id.
> This include Germany, the 'chosen child' every proponent points at in these discussions
I'm not German and I do not particularly trust Germany, in fact I think it's one of the worst Western European country to live and work.
> A few weeks off barely makes a dent
But it makes a difference, that's the point.
I was simply pointing out that paid vacation it's a tool that's very useful for companies too, as for the 70s and th 80s, I was there, it was much worse than today.
My parents worked for the national healthcare in my Country, in 12 hours shift, 5 consecutive nights. Now it's 8 hour shifts for a maximum of two consecutive nights and then you get mandatory 36 hours off and morning shifts for a week.
Try working 6 days a week for a month and then 5 days a week for a month and see how much those "only few days" make a dent in your well being.
> Surprise, that's the same culture that exists in most EU-countries. Just less hardcore.
I work 220 days/year and I'm off 145 days, it's pretty standard here if you have a standard contract, so no freelance, no contractor, no off the books, etc. (230 work days might be closer to the average, I got +10 days of holidays for thermal treatment, to cure my chronic sinusitis, yes, we have that too and the State also pays for the treatments)
Which is not exactly a "few weeks".
Could be better, but could be US style or Japan style.
p.s. the law in japan just forces employers out of work at least for a few days to counter their extreme workaholic culture, which is nothing like what we have here in Europe.
From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_b...)
Minimum mandatory paid vacation days, normalized for a five-day workweek:
Japan: 6–10 days
My Country: 23–28 days
Which causes companies to be very slow in hiring people, because if business turns they have less flexibility. European countries have some of the highest (youth) unemployment rates in the OECD:
* https://data.oecd.org/unemp/youth-unemployment-rate.htm
* https://www.oecd.org/employment/unemployment-rates-oecd-upda...
https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employment/employment-...
And that's selecting for a particularly senior role. Most people are what that site calls "computer programmers", whose median is $93k.
Even with reliable figures, you definitely cannot just "do the math yourself pretty fast". You are ignoring a whole bunch of things like cost of living differences, working hours, working environment, anything that comes on top of the "gross" like employer pension and insurance (not just health) contributions. For example, the average working hours in developed Europe is 10-20% lower than in the US[1].
Also, as others have mentioned, you can't really take one specific profession and extrapolate. The European labor market is definitely less free-market and by design slower to adapt to shifts. There is a cultural preference for more equitable pay even at the expense of the so-called meritocracy. Software developer salaries in the US have perhaps increased faster than other professions, and less so in Europe. Maybe that's unfair, but the inequality that results from allowing labor markets to move at market-speed causes its own problems.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_a...
Wait until you find out about Prop 13 and how that new 80 year old $1.5m house you bought costs 10x in taxes what everyone else on the block pays because they got there in the 70s and 80s.
I mean they have disposable income measures that account for all that as well as welfare programs. In the end disposable incomes in the US make half of the first world look like third world:
https://data.oecd.org/hha/household-disposable-income.htm (click table, and pick gross including transfers)
You can also see % of that spent on housing, US is lower than most EU countries
https://www.fdic.gov/regulations/safety/manual/section4-2.pd...
> Vacation Policies
> Banks should have a policy that requires all officers and employees to be absent from their duties for an uninterrupted period of not less than two consecutive weeks. Absence can be in the form of vacation, rotation of duties, or a combination of both activities. Such policies are highly effective in preventing embezzlements, which usually require a perpetrator’s ongoing presence to manipulate records, respond to inquiries, and otherwise prevent detection. The benefits of such policies are substantially, if not totally, eroded if the duties normally performed by an individual are not assumed by someone else.
> Where a bank’s policies do not conform to the two-week recommended absence, examiners should discuss the benefits of this control with senior management and the board of directors and encourage them to annually review and approve the bank’s actual policy and any exceptions. In cases where a two-week absent-from-duty policy is not in place, the institution should establish appropriate compensating controls that are strictly enforced. Any significant deficiencies in an institution's vacation policy or compensating controls should be discussed in the ROE and reflected in the Management component of the Uniform Financial Institutions Rating System (UFIRS). Note: Management should consider suspending or restricting an individual’s normal IT access rights during periods of prolonged absence, especially for employees with remote or high-level access rights. At a minimum, management should consider monitoring and reporting remote access during periods of prolonged absence.
https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/summary-latest-fe...
In New Zealand, about 12% of individuals pay about 50% of personal income tax, and the top 3% pay about a quarter. That doesn't take into account the amount they are taxed indirectly through GST or through company tax on companies they own shares in.
It’s progressive, from 0% to 45%. A rule of thumb is “a month of salary”