zlacker

My understanding is that yes, they generally do. The pay gap is too large. Levels.fyi says my role at the same company makes 360k USD total comp here vs 224k USD total comp in Germany, and that's with somewhat lower taxes.

Of course, the societal benefit of strong social systems though aren't really comparable to an individual's benefits in my opinion if we're just asking where someone will be better off. Individually, I'm not sure what it's worth to me either, although there is some level of private equivalents through disability insurance etc., though it's certainly not as comprehensive I imagine. I don't know how the pension works exactly, but my impression is that it's something like a 401K retirement plan in the US, where you put in some portion and your employer also matches some contribution amount.

So I'm not sure the different in benefits makes up for the 136k gap.