fusslo
2 days ago
I'm not sure if the following has any point, really.
First, my father worked as an industrial mechanic in an amazon distribution hub. But he couldn't touch any of the automation. Amazon would bring in German contractors for months at a time to work on the robots, conveyor belts, automation hardware. They made 2.5-3x my father, had 6 weeks vacation, didn't pay for lodging in the US. To me, Amazon's idea of US jobs were the backbreaking labor 'pickers' and 'sorters'.
Second, half my professional career has been in office/factory configurations. Where the engineering offices are glued onto some factory. We're HEAVILY invested in automation. The factory workers are barebones crew designated by union minimums. We have a team of 2-5 people (really, 2 engineers, 3 technicians) who design, build, program, and maintain automated stations. Ranging from a robotic arm picking different components in the correct amounts and putting them in a box, heavy forklift-like robots moving product around, and robotic arms performing some manufacturing task.
What happens when those 2 engineers get sick? or retire? One guy who built half the factory is in his 50s. the line could go down with no backup.
Why haven't we hired like 3 junior people to apprentice with the senior guys? They make machines that make money! The new investment in people is happening in Germany, Poland, Scandinavia
Maybe I'm wayyyy off the mark, but investing in "US Manufacturing" by importing automation (whether it's from the EU or Asia or anywhere else) probably won't end well and seems like marketing.
leoedin
2 days ago
This is basically how the rest of the world feels with US tech giants.
It's not necessarily a bad thing if there's balance to it. Maybe it's OK if Germans are great at industrial automation and Americans are great at writing word processors. But I'm not sure there's a nice balance to it. Especially if you're in a developing country which is good at neither of those things.
schnitzelstoat
2 days ago
Engineering salaries in the EU are far lower than in the US though.
They probably just used the Germans because they are cheaper.
tw04
2 days 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/
larnon
2 days ago
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)
aktenlage
2 days ago
> half that money goes to taxes
That is a misguided simplification. Please correct this, before anyone starts to believe it for real.
alberto-m
2 days ago
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.
sva_
2 days ago
I think you should also mention the ~17k Euro social contributions that your employer pays on top, which could otherwise be part of your salary. Then it is actually pretty much 50%
alberto-m
2 days ago
Correct: if one takes as basis not the Bruttolohn but the total cost for the company, the sum of taxes and mandatory social contribution can very well reach the half of the income. The method of splitting employer-side and employee-side deductions seems just there to hide this fact.
aktenlage
2 days ago
Most taxes are deducted when money is transferred between two parties. The view that one party pays it all (Brutto-Netto and VAT) seems wrong to me.
I anyway doubt that the wages would be at the same standard if there wouldn't be any deductions (from the beginning). Wages in expensive cities are higher because the cost of living must be matched. Similarly salary negotiations account for deductions. Nobody wants a job that doesn't pay the bills.
preg_match
a day ago
To be fair this is the case in the US, too. Your employer has to pay a bunch of taxes on your behalf.
People think the US has a low tax burden, it does not. Even in "low tax" states like Texas. And even more so when you consider "unofficial" taxes.
My health insurance surely costs my employer ~1500 dollars a month. That's quite a big chunk of paycheck that I don't get to see. But that's how it works in the US. And that's just my employers part. I, of course, have a deductible, copays, premiums and all.
overfeed
a day ago
> Even in "low tax" states like Texas. And even more so when you consider "unofficial" taxes.
"Low tax" states just shift their tax base from income to something else - usually property or energy.
KellyCriterion
2 days ago
There are two terms in German salary:
"visible" and "invisble" Brutto. The one is without "contributions from employer", which is a lie anyway since an employer makes a total comp perspective and he for sure includes his "contribution" into that
vel0city
2 days ago
US also has federal employer-paid payroll taxes the employee usually doesn't see or think about.
For a $110k salary the federal employer paid payroll taxes would be almost $8,500, or ~7.69%. They would also pay some amount to unemployment insurance, but that rate depends a lot state by state.
I realize that's less than the Euro taxes, just wanted to share so everyone is aware of these often forgotten US taxes when compared.
ethbr1
a day ago
A US employer also generally provides health insurance and retirement, of which they pay a large piece.
Kirby64
a day ago
> A US employer also generally provides health insurance and retirement, of which they pay a large piece.
Health insurance yes, retirement… no, not really. They may offer a 401k plan and some might even offer a match, but most companies offer at most a 4% salary match (dollar for dollar, or sometimes 50c per dollar).
So, it’s a vehicle to invest retirement funds with some tax advantages, but it’s not really “providing” it like you would subsidized healthcare.
vel0city
a day ago
For a role like that, they'd likely cover a decent chunk of the premium cost. Its not always the full cost though, FWIW. People earning such a wage paying for the rest of their family often still spend hundreds of dollars a month for their premiums, along with also needing to stash a few hundred dollars a month towards healthcare savings whether in an HSA or an FSA.
I do agree though, such a thing should also be considered when thinking about total cost of the compensation. Things definitely start getting a bit fuzzier though. You then also get stuff like HSA matching, 401k matching, etc.
ethbr1
a day ago
US employer health care is typically ~65% employer paid, 35% employee paid. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ebs2.t04.htm
sajithdilshan
2 days ago
Don’t forget the mandatory radio broadcast fee every household has to pay even if you don’t read or watch any of those propaganda channels
f1shy
2 days ago
And if we are comparing USA vs Germany, taxes to gas (car fuel) which is much more expensive in the EU, because of taxes.
account42
20 hours ago
A horrible regressive tax that should be abolished, as should be the "news" and entertainment it pays for, but it's not very relevant cost for someone one who makes close to 100k.
aktenlage
a day ago
Is there any news source you wouldn't call propaganda?
account42
20 hours ago
Yes, one I could choose to not financially support when its clearly acting against my interests.
sajithdilshan
a day ago
Not really, there are certain very well researched and written articles which present the facts as they are and letting the audience to use their own judgment and form an opinion in few news outlets. But most of the time every news outlet is just pushing their own political, cultural or doomsday agenda.
The German public broadcasters, especially the Tagesschau, are the worst. Also this is a really good video that explains how crazily the public broadcasters are creating the propaganda in a subtle manner to push their own agenda rather than being neutral. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46MP_G8CKFA)
aktenlage
a day ago
I watched the first minutes of the video, but the narration is pretty cringe, I couldn't bear it. It didn't say anything about subtle propaganda, seemed to be mostly Schadenfreude.
em-bee
a day ago
the key criticism seems to be that they interviewed people on the street that turned out to be either known political activists or their own employees or contractors. in other words instead of asking random people they picked people they knew.
one criticism i didn't get towards the end is that one particular politician would always give the same response to the same question. that confused me because why wouldn't she? why is that poor? doesn't make any sense to me. but that's unrelated to the criticism of the TV reporting.
sajithdilshan
a day ago
Check the timestamp from 4:00-5:10 and 5:50-6:30. One would actually think that those were just random people on the street and their opinion, but they were strategically placed insiders.
ethbr1
a day ago
The solution to this is making sure to watch news from opposing viewpoints, not avoiding news though.
encom
2 days ago
Same in Denmark, and it really boils my piss. DR (Danmarks Radio) is 80% trash. If I was dictator in Denmark I would abolish it on the spot. I won't deny that DR produces things that are not trash or only mildly trash, but I have no interest in it. People who want it can fund it themselves. State financed reality TV is an abomination.
aktenlage
a day ago
It doesn't seem to be the same then as in Germany. German public broadcast is arguably fine, when compared to private TV and radio broadcasters, many private newspapers and probably all social media platforms.
I don't know how bad it is in Denmark, but keep in mind that journalism that is not subject to profit seeking and independent on whatever billionaire owns the outlet, is not only valuable because you personally consume it, but also because it shapes the public discourse and thus indirectly may have influence on political decisions.
em-bee
a day ago
i agree that the private TV is no better, and the public TV has some good stuff. but what confuses me every time is that the law in germany expressly forbids the public funding of printed newspapers because it could be used as a propaganda tool but the same law does allow the funding of radio and TV and internet publications (the last is now really weird of you consider that printed newspapers are now online too)
account42
20 hours ago
No the ÖRR are not fine. Making students pay so talkshow millionaires can live luxurious lifestyles is not fine. Forcing people to fincance propagande against their own interests is not fine. Giving completely one sided reporting such a special platform is not fine.
encom
a day ago
But a state financed news outlet is no better, because it invariably ends up being government propaganda, since that's the hand that feeds it.
aktenlage
a day ago
There is no perfect world, and so it isn't perfect, but the separation between financing and content selection is there.
IMO it doesn't need to be perfectly neutral and independent to be valuable for the population and the democracy. I'd love for it to be without the flaws the system has, I just think it is hard to install the perfect system, given the incentives of the involved decision-makers.
account42
20 hours ago
So then you can choose to pay for it but don't force those of us who vehemently disagree to pay as well.
aktenlage
13 hours ago
That is such a lame demand. Everybody being forced to pay for public broadcast is just the same as for every tax and the mandatory social security. People not reading books pay taxes that go to public libraries. People rich enough to send their children to private schools still have to pay taxes that go to public schools. People very much opposed to nuclear energy have payed taxes that went into nuclear power plants. People much opposed to the closure of the nuclear power plants payed taxes that were used to close down those power plants. That's how the system works, for better or worse.
aktenlage
2 days ago
Thank you.
I think it is important to be (at least a bit) precise in this debate.
I dislike the wording "social contribution", as these are (mandatory) insurances that benefit the insured person in case of sickness, retirement, loss of employment, etc. Discussion about the cost efficiency and fairness of the system are warranted, of course. Anyway, the current generation of retirees benefit greatly from it, so for them at least it was worth paying.
Since you are accounting all those taxes, including the VAT on the citizen's side, companies only pay the Arbeitgeberanteil (you didn't mention) and the taxes on profit?
account42
20 hours ago
> I dislike the wording "social contribution", as these are (mandatory) insurances that benefit the insured person in case of sickness, retirement, loss of employment, etc.
They benefit some insured persons. If everyone benefited equally insurance would not be needed as you could just take the money and pay the doctor directly. But even the expected benefit if you average out unpredictable health issues is far from equal as what you pay doesn't depend on your risk factors. That's what makes it a social contribution. And since you are forced to pay it it's a tax.
> Anyway, the current generation of retirees benefit greatly from it, so for them at least it was worth paying.
You mean the last generation of retirees. The current generatin of "retirees" is forced to slave away the remainder of their lives in the super market checkout and other demeaning jobs. Absolutely despicable outcome considering how much money the state sucks up.
kuerbel
2 days ago
>One of the most regressive precepts of the German system.
If you mean the existence of two-tier private/public insurance, yes. The two-tier system was abolished in most of Europe for good reason. Either they abolished substitutive private insurance, restricted it, or transformed private insurers into regulated providers of universal basic coverage, e.g. very recently in the Netherlands.
usewik
2 days ago
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.
chmod775
2 days ago
If you make 90k in Germany, you pay around 36k to mandatory (varying degrees) insurance/pension plus taxes if you're single. About 19.5k of that are actual taxes. If you're married/have children that total can drop to ~30k and will include health insurance for your entire family unit.
criddell
2 days ago
If these people are to be believed, tax freedom day (the day you stop paying taxes and start paying yourself) in Germany is July 11 so just over 50%.
chmod775
2 days ago
I just gave you the actual numbers. The same numbers you will quickly get by using any of the many available net income calculators for Germany[0].
If you have a different idea, feel free to break the 90k down yourself. Don't lazily push the work on other people, asking them to puzzle together where some neglected Wikipedia articles' table of magic numbers actually comes from. Hint: It's a number made up by an interest group called the "German Taxpayers Federation", representing mostly entrepreneurs and wealthy taxpayers. The number being opaque is intentional, because its purpose is to mislead and support their advocacy for tax cuts.
But by all means, don't let me stand in the way of your right to blindly believe whatever someone else wants you to. God forbid we input a five digit number into a calculator.
What will it take? A notarially certified copy of tax returns mailed to your address?
[0] First Google result: https://www.brutto-netto-rechner.info/gehalt/gross_net_calcu...
criddell
2 days ago
You have to add in all the other taxes as well. For example VAT, gasoline, and property taxes are significant. That's generally what tax freedom day is meant to mean - when an average citizen is done paying all taxes.
Edit: I was curious what the answer might be and couldn't find much. One source calculates the tax burden to be about 53% of income.
chmod775
2 days ago
> https://www.steuerzahler.de/belastungs-check/?L=0
The link you provided is the web page of the interest group I mentioned. They will literally try any trick in the book to get that number up, including adding a bunch of things that aren't even taxes, a boatload of things they call "quasi-taxes" with numbers presumably pulled from their ass, and adding expenses your employer incurs only to subtract them again immediately. Anything to get that percentage number up.
But even they don't even call the resulting number "tax burden" - that'd be transparently stupid. They more generally call it a "burden ratio" (Belastungsquote).
Just to give you an idea of how ridiculous their calculations are: If my wages are 90k in Germany, they do their calculations as if I earned ~105k just so they can immediately subtract the entire 15k again and call it a burden (for expenses my employer pays on my behalf). Does this still sound like something you can easily compare one country to the next and draw useful conclusions from? Of course not. In the next country it might come from an interest group with a different goal, a government calculation, or a Fox News writer.
> You have to add in all the other taxes as well. For example VAT, gasoline, and property taxes are significant. That's generally what tax freedom day is meant to mean - when an average citizen is done paying all taxes.
What you're trying to get at - hopefully because the alternative is a nonsense number with no purpose other than being a fun fact supporting a discussion about degrees of individual autonomy in modern societies - is called discretionary income, and it's only meaningful when adjusted for cost of living and compared across similar living situations.
kakacik
2 days ago
> If my wages are 90k in Germany, they do their calculations as if I earned ~105k just so they can immediately subtract the entire 15k again and call it a burden (for expenses my employer pays on my behalf).
Aren't you talking about social contributions that your employer is forced by law to pay on your behalf? You realize that if this was not in place, those money would go directly to you since your salary is whole sum your employer is paying towards your employment? Doesn't seem you grok it fully from your words.
I am not claiming if its good or bad (dramatic global financial changes will test viability of all these systems rather well in upcoming years, I'd expect many people will be unhappy when their naive views hit reality of numbers). I am outside of such system, in mostly private social system in Switzerland (aka I save for myself, mostly) and wouldn't want it any other way.
chmod775
2 days ago
If that's the real wage, it should be used when comparing wages internationally. It's however not used as such, because trying to figure out what should and shouldn't be included in that number for each country will result in an even bigger headache. Do we add the average cost of employer-provided health insurance to US wages to keep the number comparable? What about those who self-insure?
In any case, the resulting individual "burden" is meaningless if you don't also quantify individual benefit. As an extreme example, imagine a country in which your income taxes pay for things such as transportation credits usable on gas, public transport and roads, while the neighboring country has mostly private toll roads and low taxes. Another example is health insurance. In Germany it is pretty nearly mandatory with most having some form of insurance, and total spending per citizen is around $9,000. In the US more than 90% are insured and spending is higher, but within the same ballpark.
What does the raw tax/burden tell you here in an international comparison? Fuck all. It's at best usable as a prompt for a philosophical discussion about autonomy, but often merely used for masturbation or making dishonest arguments designed to go over well in establishments specializing in alcoholic beverages - like those of a certain interest group.
fc417fc802
a day ago
> Do we add the average cost of employer-provided health insurance to US wages to keep the number comparable? What about those who self-insure?
Obviously yes, and obviously no. Just as we don't add the price of groceries or rent to wages unless the employer subsidizes those in which case obviously yes we must.
> What does the raw tax/burden tell you here in an international comparison?
It tells you how expensive it is to live there, relatively speaking. Obviously (as you note) that's only half of the discussion just as an expensive appliance might or might not be worth the premium to any particular individual. But you're wrong to dismiss it out of hand as you do. Just as it's disingenuous to dismiss the benefits of (for example) universal healthcare it is also disingenuous to attempt to derail discussion that focuses directly on total cost or effective tax burden or what have you.
What you are dismissing as a "nonsense number" of an "interest group" I would consider one of the most accurate and easily understood quantifications of total cost.
ethbr1
a day ago
Imho, parent's point about attempting to quantify costs without balancing them against benefits is valid.
It's meaningless to say "Germans pay X, Americans pay Y" if the two receive completely different benefits in exchange for those rates.
Furthermore, the point that the German system would be paying to individuals if not to the government is somewhat disingenuous. There are a few options.
1. The government doesn't do it, so private options do at some cost
2. There's some government-private hybrid
3. It's not done at all
fc417fc802
a day ago
Yes, as I acknowledged it is only half of the story. Certainly you need more information to make an informed decision about anything. But that doesn't make it meaningless. And generally where people level such dismissals there is conversational context being conveniently ignored (such as happened earlier in this thread).
I'm not sure what point you were trying to make with parental leave as an example. I completely agree with what you wrote but don't see it being at odds with anything said previously.
I think we all know that Germans enjoy substantially more free at point of service public services than those in the US let alone those living in a developing country. Obviously that costs something. Yet when someone brings up the price tag you get a bunch of partisan screeching about how prices are meaningless.
Prices _aren't_ meaningless. The US military (for example) is absurdly expensive. There are lots of things received as a result of that expenditure. Regardless, the relative cost is high and that's not meaningless to point out given that everyone involved in the discussion has at least some conception that there are important differences in the downstream impact.
ajmurmann
2 days ago
Don't forget VAT
chmod775
2 days ago
I can spend that in whichever tax jurisdiction I want and the VAT rate might be whatever depending on what one buys. If you want to go that route you'd then also have to adjust for cost/quality of living to stay intellectually honest, which means you'd then have to come up with some statistical consumer basket. It's a stupid idea to even start down that route in what fits into HN comments.
account42
20 hours ago
3€ fee on every line item for imports says no you cant'.
Yes the exact cost will differ depending on what you buy but that doesn't remove the cost, it just obscures it - which is the point of having so many different taxes.
rowanG077
a day ago
You always have to cost/quality of living if you go that route. Because that's literally what taxes are for. Anyway I don't think it's fair to not include VAT. For every euro you want to utilize(modulo some exceptions) you have to pay it.
kakacik
2 days ago
Do you pay VAT on almost anything? It affects how much your actual disposable income is and thus literally how much you can purchase.
Nobody said its going to be trivial to calculate, reality doesn't care about that.
aktenlage
13 hours ago
Don't forget that rent is VAT-free
60pfennig
21 hours ago
Just want to add that you also just can't compare the netto value on your bank account. In Germany the state takes responsibility for much more things like education (Kindergarten, School, University), public transport, cultural events ... . They are heavily subsidiced and give value back where you don't have to pay extra.
account42
20 hours ago
> education (Kindergarten, School, University)
Other governments including US also pays a lot for these.
> public transport
Which is so famously reliable that Switzerland no longer allows their trains on their tracks to avoid messing up their schedule as well. And of course its run as private companies so execs can pocket large portions of those state subsidies.
> cultural events
No thanks, I don't want my government deciding what culture should be supported.
chmod775
2 days ago
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.
pembrook
2 days ago
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.
aktenlage
12 hours ago
> Are you counting in VAT on everything OP spends that money on? ...
No, I just assumed he spends all his money on rent, which is VAT-free ;-). I also didn't account for his Kindergeld and Elterngeld, Rente, Invalidenrente, Witwenrente, Pension and whatever else that person could have. He didn't share all that information.
> Are you counting the taxes paid by the employer for his role (which defacto come out of his pay, just before he gets it)?
You may have to decide whether the payer or the payee pays the taxes, otherwise you are double-counting it.
pembrook
8 hours ago
I hire people remotely throughout Europe. When we budget for a hire we look at the all-in labor expense, not the persons salary. If the German government didn’t charge us before we even pay the employee, we would just pay it all to the employee.
So it’s a tax he pays whether you want to “brand” it that way or not. Who gets the money changes nothing about our budget for the role.
account42
20 hours ago
It is more than real if you include all taxes.
aktenlage
13 hours ago
Not for me. But feel free to show your calculations.
bbmatryoshka
2 days ago
49% of that money goes to taxes
greenavocado
2 days ago
Germany has a progressive income tax system (Einkommensteuer) based on your taxable income:
Tax-Free Allowance (Grundfreibetrag): The first 12,348 you earn is completely tax-free.
Progressive Zone: Income between 12,349 and 69,878 is taxed at a smoothly increasing marginal rate from 14% to 42%.
Top Tax Rate (Spitzensteuersatz): Income from 69,879 to 277,825 is taxed at a flat 42%.
Wealth Tax (Reichensteuer): Income above 277,825 is taxed at 45%.
On top of income tax, mandatory social security contributions will consume roughly 20% to 21% of your gross salary (capped at specific income ceilings):
Pension Insurance: 9.3%
Public Health Insurance: ~8.2% to 8.75% (depending on your provider's supplemental rate)
Unemployment Insurance: 1.3%
Long-Term Care Insurance: 2.3% to 2.9% (includes a 0.6% surcharge if you are over age 23 and childless)
To see how these deductions interact, here is an estimate for a single individual (Tax Class I) living in Frankfurt, earning a gross salary of €60,000 per year without church tax:
Category Annual Amount Percentage of Gross
Gross Salary 60,000 100%
Pension Insurance (9.3%) -5,580 9.3%
Health Insurance (~8.75%) -5,250 8.8%
Unemployment Insurance (1.3%) -780 1.3%
Long-Term Care Insurance -1,440 2.4%
Income Tax -8,786 14.6%
Net Take-Home Pay 38,164 ~63.6%
aktenlage
13 hours ago
Yeah, but social security insurance isn't the same as taxes. A few years ago I was unemployed for a few month and got money from the insurance. My parents are retired and get their pension. When I go to the doctor the insurance pays for it (in most cases). I am sure, I paid more than I got out, but that is true for all my other insurances as well.
greenavocado
12 hours ago
I was unemployed a few years ago, and when I applied to the state for unemployment I was denied because I earned too much. So it is effectively a tax I will never get anything out of it as long as the prior year's Form 1040 shows above a certain level.
flohofwoe
2 days ago
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.
groundzeros2015
2 days ago
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.
bcrosby95
2 days ago
How do you define good/bad? People mostly seem to talk about wait time for socialized health care, but where we live in US there's plenty of specialists that you gotta book months ahead of time. When my mom needed a pacemaker it was a 4 month process. My wife's OBGYN is booked a year out - god help you if you miss an appointment. Anyone working in pediatrics look like zombies.
Urgent care clinics have been big in our region. The primary system is obviously overloaded, and 2 of these have popped up in the last 3 years. It's more expensive per visit than our primary physician, but cheaper than an ER visit, which could easily take half a day anyways.
groundzeros2015
a day ago
What you’re describing is that in response to a resource being rationed you are able to use money to raise its urgency at your will. That seems like a powerful option to have when your health is on the line (that I acknowledge is not available to everyone).
I don’t have metrics for good/bad. I’m just going off of them telling me it’s bad.
fc417fc802
a day ago
To be clear, that's in the US where we have private health care thus it generally isn't rationed provided you're willing to pay. However what we have is a guild system that in effect tightly constrains the total supply. Depending on the state one of the ways that urgent care commonly gets around this is with ever controversial nurse practitioners. Which is to say that quite a few state legislatures appear to be pushing back against the guild.
ethbr1
a day ago
To tease apart above for non-US readers, to the best of my understanding.
The US government funds most of the resident slots through which the path to become a doctor runs.
The AMA generally (but not always) lobbies against increasing slots too much, reasoning it would decrease the premium doctors (its members) could charge.
As a result, most of the time the US has too low of a supply of doctors, especially in general, highly-demanded areas (family medicine, internal medicine, psychiatry).
groundzeros2015
14 hours ago
Yes. And I think it’s good you have more options including options with less credentials.
flohofwoe
2 days ago
Complaining about the service quality for public health insurance customers in Germany is pretty much the definition of "first world problem" though. FWIW I never switched over to private insurance even though my income would allow it, also once you get above a certain age you can't switch back and that's when the private insurers really start to rip you off ;)
groundzeros2015
2 days ago
And despite that they are willing to pay, because if you are out of poverty your health is a high priority!
So yes, Americans love consuming healthcare. Is there any category they aren’t a high consumer of? You can’t measure efficiency only looking at the input side.
flohofwoe
2 days ago
I think the main reason why high income Germans switch to private health insurance is less about service quality, but because they may actually pay less than public insurance (at least until they get near pension age). Can't talk for US citizens of course.
ethbr1
a day ago
US health care is screwy, because one of the equitable things it tries to create is equal price regardless of age/sickness.
As a consequence, insurance companies generally try to sign up mixed-pool, younger, healthier (read: employee plans) over older, sicker, opt-in insurance (read: ACA).
There are ways they can and can't legally do that, but it's always the goal. In the same way that retail order flow is targeted by HFTs.
preg_match
a day ago
The only reason the private health insurance is usable at all in Germany is because the public one exists. When you're competing with that, you have to actually try.
Private insurance sucks ass in the US, period. It's just bad, which makes sense because all the insurers are completely uncontested. You don't even get to choose your policy, your employer does.
usewik
2 days ago
Who is making this 'health care argument' you are responding to?
flohofwoe
2 days ago
Maybe fully read the comment I'm responding to? The implication is that European countries (and especially Germany) spend an extraordinary amount of tax money on health care and that's why taxes are so high. This is basically wrong from start to finish. You also don't pay half of your wage in taxes in Germany. The chunk that's removed from your gross wage before pay out includes your mandatory employee insurances (health-, pension- and unemployment-insurances), and that's how you end up "losing" about 30% to 45% of your gross salary before pay out (the actual "tax part" is somewhere between 10 and 25% depending on income, marriage status etc...)
legulere
2 days ago
Median automation engineer in Germany made 78 840 € in 2025, according to government statistics
spiderfarmer
2 days ago
Now do per working hour, including benefits.
mstaoru
2 days ago
Per working hour would be €157,680.
21asdffdsa12
2 days ago
German Ex-Automation engineer here - was more like 120€ - don't forget they usually sub-contract that out..
froh
2 days ago
> €157,680
outside germany the `,` reads as thousands-separator. may I offer you a `.` in exchange?
also that's gross, not net (Brutto/Netto) which is _painfully_ lower.
alberto-m
2 days ago
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.
schnitzelstoat
2 days ago
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.
lionkor
2 days ago
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.
hobo123
2 days ago
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.
lionkor
a day ago
Yes, I agree fully. And yet I can go to a doctor and get meds and I will pay no more than 15 bucks on a really bad day for some meds.
KellyCriterion
2 days ago
Exactly!
tw04
2 days ago
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.
goosejuice
2 days ago
> 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
lotsofpulp
2 days ago
>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.
stingraycharles
2 days ago
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.
roarcher
2 days ago
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.
stingraycharles
a day ago
https://www.secondtalent.com/resources/countries-with-highes...
(based on stack overflow 2025 survey)
US median developer compensation is $155k vs $80k-85k in Germany; 85% of US earn > $100k vs 27% in Germany.
_the_inflator
2 days ago
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.
KellyCriterion
2 days ago
> 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.
fock
2 days ago
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...)
ph4rsikal
2 days ago
Maybe the engineer makes 90K, but there are still thousands in social contributions. Can be up to 15K.
torginus
a day ago
My guess would be that big German companies like to sell and insure their industrial equipment wholesale. For example, if you buy stuff from Siemens, everything in the factory must be as per how the applications engineer described it - which is to mean you have to buy everything from them and set it up exactly as they want - otherwise there goes your insurance/warranty.
This isn't exactly cheap, it's worth it for the big players, but needless to say, I'm not exactly enamored with the practice.
skylurk
2 days ago
Globe-trotting contractors are probably well-paid specialists. GP is probably not commenting on the German labor market.
sajithdilshan
a day ago
> They probably just used the Germans because they are cheaper.
German engineering salaries are definitely not cheaper. If you want cheaper then hire people from Poland, Romania or even Spain, Portugal.
eigenspace
a day ago
They were probably thinking of German *software* engineer salaries which are noticably lower than the USA.
mohamedkoubaa
2 days ago
They make less money as salary but aren't cheaper overall when you take into account all the other expenses and regulations.
ToucanLoucan
2 days ago
> They probably just used the Germans because they are cheaper.
I think a more pressing question is why businesses all over, but especially in America, are so obsessed with cost-cutting to the exclusion of everything else that they're openly, predictably setting up said business to implode once the wrong people leave.
Like I dunno, being a pink-haired lesbian communist I am, I'm somewhat suspect of my own opinions, but that said, I personally have no problem seeing that investing in your employees is probably a good idea if you want your business to remain sustainable for the long-haul. But nowadays all corporate leadership is fixated on the next handful of quarters at most. The less-skilled only on the next quarter and no further. I don't personally think capitalism and corporations are good ideas in general, but they also seem to be failing quite spectacularly at their own stated advantages at this point which I don't think gets brought up enough.
kubb
2 days ago
It’s weird that people are celebrating the end of Europe here every day because they „killed themselves with regulations” but one German company does well and it’s a mass freak out?
ofrzeta
a day ago
Because it's always extremes in the media? One day Germany is on the brink of collapse because so called economic scientists (in Germany we have a group of them working for the government that are colloquially called "sages" https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sachverst%C3%A4ndigenrat_zur_B...) predict zero growth. Next week suddenly it's a boom because other so called economic scientists predict a GDP growth of 0.2%
ed_balls
2 days ago
> The new investment in people is happening in Germany, Poland, Scandinavia
These are shitty job tbh. Friend of a friend worked on designing and testing windscreen wiper motors in Poland. Company did a round of layoffs and there are zero jobs in the country. There is one job in US - nobody will sponsor a visa. He doesn't know the language to work in Asia.
He switched to software.
ghostly_s
2 days ago
OP made clear they were talking about automation engineers, not test or design jobs.
cavisne
a day ago
The manufacturing is more important than the automation, that’s how Midea was able to buy KUKA.
Being in the loop of using the tools gives you the power.
Best to have both, but if we can keep the toolmaking in Europe and Japan instead of China and move manufacturing back in to the US we are in a much better position.
sleepyguy
2 days ago
>What happens when those 2 engineers get sick? or retire? One guy who built half the factory is in his 50s. the line could go down with no backup.
A lifetime of working in mission critical environments taught me one thing. When people leave, nothing happens. People come and go, and everyone is replaceable, even those who believe the company will fail without them. Most departures barely make a ripple. With today's advances in technology, it's only becoming more likely that none of us will be needed down the road.
pjc50
17 hours ago
Sometimes things do fall apart when someone leaves, but the remaining employees are always made to paper over the gap.
I believe Napoleon once said "the graveyards are full of indispensable men"
ambicapter
2 days ago
> I'm not sure if the following has any point, really.
A tell-tale sign that you're touching the third rail.
Forgeties79
2 days ago
> Amazon would bring in German contractors for months at a time to work on the robots, conveyor belts, automation hardware. They made 2.5-3x my father, had 6 weeks vacation, didn't pay for lodging in the US. To me, Amazon's idea of US jobs were the backbreaking labor 'pickers' and 'sorters'.
Saw a major brewery that operated like this too. Flew in Belgian technicians to do the really valuable work.
spiderfarmer
2 days ago
Invest in proper education first. The USA has been dropping the ball consistently over the last decades.
jandrewrogers
2 days ago
The US government spends $1.4T on education. They already invest more than anyone else. That spending may not be productive but no one can credibly say the US hasn't spent enough money on education.
estearum
2 days ago
The US on a PPP-adjusted per capita basis is on the upper end of OECD but 1) not the top in the world, and 2) not even uniquely high among what Americans would call their "peer countries" (Denmark, Germany, Australia, Canada, etc)
And education is unfortunately one of those things with diseconomies of scale. The US has worse wealth disparities, health disparities, nutrition disparities, and greater cultural variation than all of our peers.
The US isn't spending more than everyone else, but you really would expect them to have to do so to reach parity with others.
groundzeros2015
2 days ago
I think we spend about half of state budgets on education actually.
tsss
a day ago
You must be insane to think that investment is happening in Germany. We have negative real economic growth, by far the worst of all EU countries.
Your contractors made so much not because they are from Germany but because they were freelancers. And if they weren't, they probably had less take-home pay after taxes than your father had, despite the company paying 3 times as much. I'm an engineer with 10 years experience and I make 65k _before_ taxes. Barely over 3k net per month. Many others would be happy to even have a job in the current economic climate. And before you Americans come with "muh free health care": I wait 9 months for an appointment and paid almost 10k last year out of pocket for orthopedic work.
shevy-java
2 days ago
This just shows you how evil and greedy companies such as Amazon are.
And how much they lie, too. After all Trump promised to bring jobs to the USA. Well, he lied. And so did Amazon etc...