This was one of the major draws for me for moving to Europe in my early 20s (from the US). After working one year in the US and having one week of vacation, it was bordering on surreal to have 6.
That said, most Americans wouldn't like the European pay scales. While a developer gets 3-6 times the vacation in Germany, they make half as much money.
For me it was a great trade; I still had a middle class income and spent my 20s bouncing around the world visiting more than 30 countries on 5 continents, with zero gaps in my employment.
Now that I'm an employer, I still see it as a great trade: employees are a lot cheaper here, and seem to be happier. But again, while most American software developers would love to have more vacation, I've heard them also repeat ludicrous things about how they can "barely survive on $60k/year".
The reason American workers say they can barely survive on $60k a year is that they pay out of pocket for things German workers can take for granted:
* Comfortable retirement - 401k contributions. Yes America has social security but it's not a ton of money compared to other national pensions and if you're young you worry about it not being around at all by the time you need it.
* Unemployment - You should probably have ~6 months living expenses saved up, if not a year, in case you get laid off. U.S. unemployment benefits are fairly marginal (~700 per month cap when I used them in 2002, which you owe tax on), especially compared to Germany/France.
* Life insurance - If you have kids and/or a non working spouse you need to make sure they will be OK if you die, since we have such a weak social safety net.
* Education for your kids - 529 and educational IRA plans allow people to save for our increasingly expensive higher education even before the child is born (I-Bonds can be used this way). Cuts to public colleges have been harsh this year so don't think those will save you.
Yes many Americans blow their salaries on dumb consumerist crap, and tend to overinvest in things like real estate. But even the prudent ones will be trying to jack up their salaries because there are SO many things you are supposed to save for to be considered a responsible American adult.
You guys are doing it again -- idealizing the other side of the fence as if everything was all rainbows and unicorns in Europe.
In Germany and many European countries, you pay for healthcare and it costs a lot -- you simply don't have the option of not having healthcare and the cost is proportional to your income rather than your health condition. Also note that the employee caries the full cost of health insurance as opposed to the employer usually covering it in skilled professions in the US.
The social security model is also somewhat similar: you pay (high) social security taxes and get money back based your contributions.
Unemployment, also like in the US, is pretty sane if you're a full-time employee and are fired. You don't get it for several months if you quit on your own and if you haven't payed unemployment taxes, you get put on unemployment that's just at the edge of livable (housing costs + about $500/month).
And note, those taxes come after the lower salary. A pretty common take-home salary for a European software developer would be $3000-4000/month.
And really, how many 20-somethings that complain about the cost of living are doing it because they're stashing away too much in their retirement fund?
Public transit is a valid one, but then, the two highest paid areas for software developers in the US, New York and San Francisco, also have quite good public transit. (Not to mention that a one-month pass costs $100-200/month depending on the area.)
The truth is that I've heard people say that while they eat out every day, have a new car every couple years, live in swanky places and spend money on a constant stream of new gadgets. Americans also have a weird fetish that you don't find other places about buying homes in their 20s. While there are some valid reasons that make the total cost of living in Europe comparatively lower, I'm really not convinced that's the core of the difference. It's just that people quickly grow into their incomes and start seeing things as essential that aren't.
We're not idealizing: European take home less pay and pay more in taxes -- but get huge social benefits. If you're honestly trying to argue an equivalence in US and Europe in terms of such benefits, you're crazy. Europe is a big word as each country varies. That said...
In Germany and many European countries, you pay for healthcare and it costs a lot
But, from the studies I've seen, Europeans on average spend about half in terms of healthcare.
New York and San Francisco, also have quite good public transit
No, they simply have public transit -- it's not great by any means. You often have to supplement with taxi in both places. (The rates are high there because costs of living are very high in both places.)
Unemployment compensation in most European countries is vastly better. Free university systems? That's nice. My point is that we know it's not all rainbows and unicorns in Europe but you can't argue that you don't get a whole lot for those taxes.
"No, they simply have public transit -- it's not great by any means. You often have to supplement with taxi in both places."
Citation needed. 99.9% of the time I was lived in NY, I used public transit instead of taxis. London and France? Underground stops running close to one and so anytime I tried staying out late I needed to walk, take a night bus, or hail a cab (which is near impossible on a Friday night).
I think you should more carefully choose your battles: It's really no contest.
Bart closes at midnight and has four stops in the heart of SF. NY has an OK metro but if you want to go cross-town, better just walk. I've spent time in NYC and lived in SF, Zurich, Berlin, Prague and London. Europe destroys on this topic. A huge percentage of people in Europe, like myself, don't own cars simply because we don't have to.
Saying it's no contest is a huge exaggeration. I won't argue that BART/MUNI is better than other transit systems, but I still get around without a car.
That said, the fact that transit closes in London and Paris while New York doesn't is a major advantage. It's actually precisely the reason why I have been able to not take a taxi or have to walk home in the early morning. And in NYC, a lot of people don't own cars because they don't have to either.
BART and Muni beat most other transit systems in the US, but pale in comparison even to London, let alone Berlin or Frankfurt. If you're heading anywhere west of downtown SF, expect long waits for connecting buses...which often simply fail to appear, NextBus's predictions notwithstanding. As an earlier commenter mentioned, it's not uncommon for SF commuters to finish the last leg of their commute with a cab.
And a lot of people in NYC don't have cars simply because they can't afford to park them, not because available mass transit makes them unnecessary.
Can confirm that for Prague. I'm using bike mostly, sometimes combinded with metro, but whenever I fallback to public transport I feel grateful for how well it works. It's easy to get anywhere at any time, even at night. Last week it took me 40 mins at 4am to get from my home near the centre to the airport outside of city using bus lines that cross the city in 30mins intervals and meet together at hub stations.
On contrary, the bus lines in country were privatized and many useful (but probably not so profitable) lines were cut, and while it got better balanced in time, it's still suboptimal on many places/times and is a living example of where free market actually diverges from being a good public service.
I love BART, but it's a fairly unreliable system with very few stops in San Francisco. MUNI is actually several connected systems, but the majority of them are unreliable, expensive, and not implemented well.
I would not say the Bay Area has great public transit. It just has some public transit, which is more than you can say for a lot of California.
I lived in NYC and SF. Public Transit is far from ideal. When's the last caltrain on sunday? 8pm?? In NYC, I live in midtown east and take a lot of cabs .. mainly for cross town events. Yes .. I tried the bus but I realized my dignity was worth more than 10 bucks.
In London, the night bus route I tend to use (to Walthamstow from central London) runs at a slightly lower frequency overnight - just once every ten minutes. It's about as fast as the tube because of the more limited traffic.
And you use the same old Oyster card as during the day. I assume it's just as cheap - 80p or a pound per ride? Cheap enough that I don't even keep track.
I agree with the GP - the overnight services outside of limited routes in NYC aren't flash, and most of the rest of the US metro areas are appalling.
I really appreciate your reply and the global perspective!
That said, I'm not sure about Germany being approximately as rough as the U.S..
* Retirement - Our benefit is well under half of yours. The _minimum_ German pension, the floor, after reform will be 67 percent of national average wage (cites below). In the U.S., the average social security benefit is $1,153, annualized to $13,863 or about 34 percent of the average national income of $40,711.
So our _average_ govt. retirement benefit (34%) is about half of your _minimum_ retirement benefit (67%). In fact, the maximum U.S. benefit of $2,346 is just 69 percent of national income, i.e. the current German minimum (!) (it will go down to 67 percent under the current reform).
If you are right about "housings costs + 500 per month" this is, indeed, be about in line with U.S. benefits which average $300 per week (~1300 per month); our housing payments average $684. Not sure how to reconcile that with the 60 percent figure from OECD and elsewhere.
What I meant on the German and US systems is that they're both pay-in-get-something out. Germans pay about double for social security, so it's not a huge surprise that the benefits are higher. My point was not that Germans do not get more benefits, but that's it's not a large factor in contrasting wages. (i.e. if American professionals put the money into a 401k that would go into the required German pension funding, then the benefits would probably work out to being roughly comparable).
For unemployment the housing costs that are reimbursed are "reasonable" costs, not "whatever your costs are", i.e. they're capped per region. The 60% you're seeing there is for those who have paid for "Arbeitslosengeld I", which is only available to those who have been full-time employed and are terminated (though if you quit on your own, you're eligible after 3 months). Freelancers, recent grads, business owners, etc. are not eligible for "ALG I". There's also a time limit on how long you can receive it.
That time limit is two years. After that you get "Hartz IV" unless you still have enough money to live by. Sure if that happens you may have to drastically change your lifestyle but if you are well educated getting a job in under two years should be achievable.
The timelimit is actually one year or less for most people. You only get 2 years when you're older than 58.
For anyone else it depends on how long you've been employed before applying for unemployment support. Been employed for longer than 24mo? You get 12mo support. Been employed for only 12mo? Then you get only 6mo of support.
That retirement you mention is only partly true (unless there is a misunderstanding). It all depends how many years you have paid into the fund. For a women with lots of breaks due to kids or for self employed people who have not opted in paying into the fund, this is getting lower and lower.
And at the end of that 20 years you own a piece of property. Or you could take that down payment and invest it. Will that property appreciate more than the return you can get for your money? Don't forget about property taxes too.
Renting gives you greater mobility too, which can be used to maximize income.
Also don't forget the home mortgage deduction on the income tax, which once you are itemizing opens the door to a whole host of other deductions. My effective federal tax rate this year was 4.6%, back when I was renting I could not have accomplished that.
True, but buying a house now is betting that that tax deduction is going to exist for the next 20 years. The financial situation of the US is insane. The next 20 years aren't going to look anything like the last 40.
I spent it entirely on things I now do not have. Going out to eat, buying books and CDs, etc. There were times I genuinely could not have afforded to save five or ten percent of what I was making, but lots of times I could have.
and now you own a place with one bedroom, that can be sold for 2/3 (if you are lucky) of the price you paid in full for the mortage.
if you spent the same in rent, you would have lived in a 2-3 bedroom for 20 years, moving every time you changed jobs
20yrs is a LOT of time to be living in the same place you can afford downpayment when you are 20yr old. and a LOT of time to work/study on the same area
Well, it's a three bedroom, 2 1/2 bath with a two car garage. I've been in it since '93 Just after I turned 27. I'm the first owner. Original as built price ~$85,000. I'm not on the either coast and property prices were, and still are, a lot lower here. Last appraised value ~$122,000 (appraised 5 years ago), and similar sized homes in the same neighborhood are currently going for ~$135,000+. I'm in a nice neighborhood with relativly low crime compared to other parts of the city. In the intervening 18 years I have changed jobs once and stayed in the same city, and the new job is closer to home. I did refinance once to shave 2% off my interest rate so it will be another 7 years till it's paid off. Yes, mortgage interest does add up, but when you are renting an apartment you are basically paying the landlords mortgage interest anyway. If I did need to sell to move for a job I'd be able to roll the proceeds into the new home and have a much smaller, shorter mortgage to begin with. If I had rented for the same time period I would not have any built up equity. It would hurt to sell though, this house has seen me get married and gain two children. There are a lot of memories here.
I'm not sure that really proves your point. You've made about 2.8% annually over 13 years, not including your borrowing cost, agent fees, etc.
On the other hand, the S&P 500 returned 8.25% annually between 1993-2006. Say you put 10% down ($8500) and spend $800/year total on taxes, repairs, etc. (probably low). If you'd invested in an index fund, you'd have made $42,000.
If you'd invested in an index fund, you'd have made $42,000.
And also likely have moved several times at an average cost of around $2000 per move, seen rent increases above what his current mortgage is and so on. The odds are poor that all other things would have remained equal. I owned a house at one time. I benefited by about $2000/year over the time I owned it. When I refinanced, I got my escrow back and had no mortgage payment for a month. Then my payments after that were lower. No landlord in the world is going to drop by your apartment and leave you with a nice hefty check, say "Don't bother to pay me rent this month and, oh, next month your rent is going down. Cheerio!"
Great, then it worked out for you. I'm not saying there are no advantages to owning a house, but it's not a magical investment vehicle. Many people seem to just compare the purchase price to the sale price and think, "Wow, what a gain!" without considering all the other costs, or as what they could have made with another investment over the same period.
At the end of that twenty years, you can keep renting for another twenty years. Or you can spend the remaining thirty or forty years of your life in the home you own clear and free without paying rent or mortgage any more. I sure as hell don't want to still be making out a monthly check for a place to live when I'm 50, 60, or even 70 (not that I seriously think I'm going to live to any of those ages).
You guys are doing it again -- idealizing the other side of the fence as if everything was all rainbows and unicorns in Europe.
I used to live in Britain. After having gone to doctor a few times there, I'd rather have the customer-pays model of America. I was just pointing-out that it's (obviously) expensive over here.
You can have the 'customer pays' model in Britain too if you want it - just roll up to a BUPA (or some other private) hospital and whip out your wallet.
I was just talking to an elderly person who had a heart attack 2 months ago. Before insurance cost was around $200'000 and if she went with the more invasive option, it could of been $500'000. For one bloody heart attack.
The US and UK are both bad examples. Here in Aus we have universal healthcare and private - if you want to jump waiting lines or have carpet on the waiting room floor, pull out your wallet and go private.
There are a few problems, but there is no perfect health system as there is always more demand than supply.
Your ideas intrigue me ... seriously, I'd like to know more about this. Which nationalities are you speaking for, and in which contexts? For example, I believe Americans think Brits are very odd for having fitted carpets in bathrooms.
Mostly, I know that Italians think carpet is illogical and disgusting. It dropped heavily in fashion in the mid-nineties in Ireland, and now parquet and tile are close to God. Now I think of it, the last couple of German hotels I stayed in had some type of carpet; very industrial looking.
We Irish have for a long time tended to avoid carpet in bathrooms, but maybe we just don't piss as straight.
Comparing apples and oranges, or rather, the ecosystems that produce apple trees vs the right ecosystem for growing oranges?
These discussions just go around and around. I vote that we ban them in favor of people who want to know what it's like in Europe vs the US buying those of us who have spent significant (more than 2 years) on the other side a drink, while they listen to our anecdotes.
The fact that from an administrative POV, some part is split between the employee and employer is just that: an administrative convention, but don't be fooled by it.
I don't know where people are getting the idea that Europe pays software developers $3000-$4000 per month. Maybe in eastern Europe, but in Switzerland, you can expect double that amount.. after tax.
Well, from European software developers actually :) .
I guess it depends on your definition of software developer, but my sister's Austrian boyfriend (a software engineer) makes less than U$ 4.000, and so do some of my Magic:the Gathering acquaintances.
Granted, they're in their 20s and will probably command higher wages later on (I hope :) ), but I do know of a guy in his 40s making less than that in Vienna as well (working for IBM)
Cost of living in Europe is higher than in the US.
Consider cost of gasoline and real estate.
It's just that Europeans have lower income, so they do not buy things that wealthier Americans do.
Europeans on average are driving smaller and older cars, they drive less.
Other things you mentioned - Europeans are buying less gadgets.
Who's making the right choice is hard to say. Does larger house worth more than long vacation? The answer depends on who you ask.
Generalizations like Europe is more expensive than the US make no sense. Where in Europe, where in the US ? There is quite a difference between cost of living in London, Paris and Munich already, and the cost of living in the Bay Area is not the same as Austin.
Even within a given country, the cost of living is very spread out (London and Paris are extremely expensive compared to the average of their respective country for example).
Seeing how caltrain is pretty much a once an hour service (23 service runs per weekday) made me realize unless you live in downtown SF or any other area of the US where car usage is extremely painful, you pretty much need a car if you want to get out of your neighborhood.
You miss my point - I don't have a car, nor do I want one, and I'm a complete proponent of urbanism and mass transit.
But once-an-hour does not a transit system make. There's a false dichotomy here - the choices aren't car vs. shitty transit. We can very well have good transit (i.e., arterial mass transit with frequency of every 10 minutes or better).
The problem with infrequent transit, particularly arterial routes, is that it completely wipes out the possibility of transfers. When your frequency is once an hour (with a high variance for on-time performance), people cannot rely on the transit method for making connections. Moreso, decreasing frequency increases total trip time for most people by a factor larger than the actual frequency drop (which is to say, a decrease in frequency of an arterial route results in a very large increase for most whole-trip times). A highly frequent (i.e. every 10 minutes or better) trunk line is the bed rock of any mass transit solution, and is absolutely non-optional.
When I was just starting out, I lived on one side of town and my work was on the other side of town. My home town has extremely well-regarded public transit. Still, it took about 2.5hrs to get to work. Another 2.5 to get back. That turned a 9 hour day into a 14 hour day. And if a bus or train was just a little early, it could screw things up even further.
We have this idea that Americans don't use public transit, because they're infatuated with their cars. To a degree, we are. However, we also hate the work commute. The reason more don't use public transit is that it is not feasible for the average person to spend so much time sitting on a bus or train and making two or three transfers every day twice a day . . . on top of work. Especially if they have a family.
The idea of tighter communities where people work near their home is fantastic. Too bad we've already built our cities and roads and housing tracts, though. It's a thought for another bustling economy that is just starting to build out their infrastructure in the 21st century instead of the 19th and 20th century to do, though. We've already built our mess.
If you depend on other systems to commute (VTA, BART, etc...), then 45 minutes makes a huge difference. A one-way trip from South Bay to East Bay can easily take 3 hours if you take VTA+Caltrain+BART+Muni, while by car it takes just 30-45 minutes.
To give you a comparison, the sky-train system in Vancouver comes every 2 to 10 minutes during most waking hours (late evening it comes every twenty on the canada line)
I hope you weren't taking my statement to be that our situation couldn't be better. It certainly could. All I'm saying is once an hour is perfectly adequate to ditch a car-centric lifestyle.
Medicaid provides a health insurance safety net for tens of millions of working and poor Americans...in fact there are more Americans in a federal health program (Medicaid, SCHIP, Medicare) than the entire population Germany.
I've heard that Medicare + Medicaid actually cost a bigger part of your national budget than in Europe, yet it ends up creating a weaker coverage health service coverage for only part of your people, compared to covering everyone in most of the European countries. There's differences between countries here obviously, but US healthcare seems to be less efficient than the European systems.
Medical in the US cost more but there is "more" available. If I were at my doctors office right now (3:13 Central time) and he felt I needed a MRI, I could have one before 5:00. I've often heard that in a non-emergency situation there can be weeks of waiting to get an MRI in some European countries. I have also seen a comment from a guy in the UK who had to have his arm re-broken for a cast to be put on because it had already started to heal crooked while waiting several days. A few years ago I spent some time digging through official government reports on healthcare in several (well limited to English speaking) countries and found things like >8 hour wait times for emergency services, >30 day waits (in some places) for some non-emergency services, etc. Yes, we pay more, but the flip side of that is faster access even in non-critical situations. In my case in February, I was at the doctor at 11:00AM on a Friday, MRI at about 1:30PM, and by 4:00PM I was scheduling surgery for Monday for gallbladder removal. I could have probably waited, my discomfort was relatively mild at that point, but I didn't have to.
So you have some anecdotes about bad service. In reality, we have studies that conclusively show that US care is both more expensive and less effective.
> The elderly have Medicare, but there is (currently) no safety for most citizens.
Actually, there is, it's called medicaid.
What? You make too much to be eligible for medicaid? That tells us that you don't need the safety net that it provides.
And, even without medicaid, it's possible to get free health care for fundamentals in the US. No, "free" doesn't cover everything, but no healthcare system does.
Healthcare - Health insurance is often a luxury in America. The elderly have Medicare, but there is (currently) no safety for most citizens.
I get a little tired of hearing this. Study after study after study indicates that diet and lifestyle play a major role in all major deadly diseases. I was an American military wife for a couple of decades. Even after my divorce, I was entitled to free medical care at tax-payer expense. I did nothing to try to preserve that entitlement* because I was too busy making the dietary and lifestyle changes I needed to make in order to get well when I was told by some specialist that I would never get well. Eat right, exercise, don't smoke, don't drink to excess and all that other boring advice no one wants to hear and you greatly reduce the odds that you will need expensive medical care.
* And I'm saving the American public quite a lot of money because my medical condition is one of the more expensive chronic incurable conditions out there. It annoys me that it's all coming out of my pocket to get well but other folks would happily pay through the nose to help me stay sick and keep me a lifelong legal drug addict. /Rant
Why are you bringing up lifestyle? The discussion is insurance.
Insurance does nothing to really insure your health. It is intended to help protect your wallet. A better way to protect your health is to take care of yourself so you are healthy. The discussion in the US about "the healthcare crisis" always focuses on the financial piece of it. There are differences between Europe and the US that impact health having nothing to do with who pays the medical bills: Europe is generally more pedestrian-friendly, there is a different food culture and so on. All of those things impact health. I get tired of seeing "health insurance" held up as a) the only meaningful difference in health costs between the US and Europe and b) the only important part of "how to control medical costs" in the US debate on health care.
That's why I bring it up: Because to me the two things are related.
Freak accidents like just getting hit by a car while minding your own business are uncommon. Most accidents that happen are basically "accidents waiting to happen". If you are hit by a car and seriously injured (as in quadraplegic), your medical insurance in the US will still fall far short of covering the costs. With or without insurance, you are far better off doing everything in your power to avoid ending up in such a situation: Don't drink and drive, don't get in the car with an unsafe driver, and so on.
If you are concerned about getting cancer, you can get a very affordable cancer policy for a lot less money than major medical coverage costs. As with the above situation, the expenses involved if you get cancer are likely to far exceed what insurance covers. And cancer is influenced by lifestyle. Most Americans aren't terribly healthy. For example, obesity is rampant in the US. So I would be interested in a citation for your assertion that "millions" of people with "healthy lifestyles" get cancer.
Question to non-french here, does your advertised salary include the employer's tax ?
For exemple here in France, on the salary my employer pays, it's divided pretty much like this: 40% employer's taxes, 20% employee's taxes, 40% final amount of money you put in the bank when all is said and done.
BUT my negociated salary, the one I signed on, never included employer's taxes, so for a 100€ salary I never discussed 100€ or even thought of it at any point, my contract has always been about 60€ (and then I pay about 20€ in taxes).
For me what that really changes is that:
- if employer's taxes increses, I have no idea about it, and my pay check doesn't change at all (neither if it decreases)
- our perceived salary seems to be a lot lower than some other countries.
So what I'm asking is, when you guys speak about that kind of salary being way too low, is it a "complete" salary or is it after employer's taxes ? I live with less that those 60k$/42k€ and I can afford a nice middle class life in the middle of Paris plus vacations every year ...
PS: actually if you look at french job offers, you will see "brut" and/or "net" salaries, brut is pre employee's taxes, net is post.
In the US, yes. The various taxes that employers must pay are paid separately, not taken out of their salary. If someone is talking about $60k or whatever, their takehome is $60k-federal income tax - social security tax - medicare tax - state income tax (some states don't have this, but most do)- local income tax (rare). On top of that, you are also likely going to have deductions for health/dental/etc insurance, and then pre-tax payments to your retirement plan (401k).
Separately, the company must pay a few other taxes on that $60k (nowhere near 40%, though)
For FICA (SS/Medicare) the employer pays as much as the employee. The FICA rate is 15.3% of your base pay(there is an upper limit), you pay half and the employer pays half (except for 2011, stimulus package and all, the employee part of the SS part of FICA is reduced). Typically with most large employers the employer pays 70-80% of the medical insurance premiums, varies by company. Same for Dental, long term disability, etc. Typically the employers overall cost is 20-30% of your salary.
In the US advertised salaries don't include personal income tax (local and federal), insurance, social security, medicare, 401k, and any other fees you might incur.
At the top of your paycheck you would see your 'advertised' earnings for that period and then at the bottom you have your take home net pay. Depending on your location, you loose around 20% of your 'advertised' pay to taxes and other mandatory things. If you contribute to a 401K you loose even more.
Why would it include personal income tax? Your tax situation could be different than mine (single vs. married, deductions AKA children, etc.) it would be impossible for the employer to know what you personal income tax is going to be. Insurance? if your spouse has access to a better insurance policy you might opt not to participate in your employers plan so why would they "include" that? Social security and medicare AKA FICA? they pay half, you pay half and the rate is easy to find (7.65%, except this year) 401k? well you are paying yourself there, it's still your money.
In Europe some of those things are paid through taxes and some are not. To make a reasonable comparison you need to know what's included each system and how the fees are arranged.
That's what's so surreal about this entire discussion. "I have 7 weeks paid vacation!" as if employers were paying them for 52 weeks' work and then were shocked every year to discover that they only get 45 weeks of work.
That's not true. Europe is very regional in its pay structures. You can make very little in Berlin, move to Frankfurt or Brussels and make a fortune. The same is true in the States: what you make in Palo Alto is multiples more than Cleveland. I don't see that pay rates have anything to do with vacation allowances.
Or you could be a contract developer in the US, make 2x US employee salary and take vacation whenever you don't have an active project (months if you want).
depends on where you live. Here outside of dental it's all covered. And the local CoC offers full dental/prescription coverage for a decent amount per employee.
You can do similar in Europe as well. At least when I was there, many of my colleagues at Schneider Electric were contractors making decent money (even for US rates).
Actually being a contractor in a country with good social safety net is even better... as you're employment isn't responsible for healthcare benefits* , your options are much better.
* France has a public/private deal where you (or your employer) can pay extra for better service, but the baseline social safety net is quite ample.
Pay varies widely in Europe. I work in Norway, get 6 weeks vacation a year, and make a lot more than I would in the US. Even after accounting for higher taxes and living expenses (rent, food, etc), I can still set aside almost $1000 more per month than I would if I were in the US.
When I talk to people for the first time they're always asking me if I'll be moving back to the US. My response is maybe someday, but for now I'd be crazy to give all that up!
housing costs are amazingly obscene in some cities. Based on my minimal looking around, the cost of living is going to account for a lot of those "barely survive" stories.
That plus nice cars, eating out, and buying iPads.
That said, most Americans wouldn't like the European pay scales. While a developer gets 3-6 times the vacation in Germany, they make half as much money.
For me it was a great trade; I still had a middle class income and spent my 20s bouncing around the world visiting more than 30 countries on 5 continents, with zero gaps in my employment.
Now that I'm an employer, I still see it as a great trade: employees are a lot cheaper here, and seem to be happier. But again, while most American software developers would love to have more vacation, I've heard them also repeat ludicrous things about how they can "barely survive on $60k/year".