Living in those types of places shouldn't be the benchmark for living in a first world country. I'm not saying that where I'm living is perfect, far from it. I'm saying that despite the fact that I could make far more money in the U.S as a programmer, I couldn't live there because I wouldn't want to live somewhere that continues to allow this to happen.
Even for a hacker news reader the U.S. might not be unequivocally the best place to live. For example I would like to live in the U.S. (perhaps not forever, but at least for some time). There are a couple of things that don't make it a clear cut choice, even if you only consider purely selfish factors:
- healthcare: a large health bill or something that the insurance refuses to pay for can still wreck your life
- very religious
- high HIV rates
- gun ownership
- cycling unfriendly
- social safety net (because even hacker news readers can have bad luck, especially when you do something risky like starting a company)
- and of course more important things like distance from friends & family, but that's not a property of the U.S. in itself
None of these are show stoppers per se, and perhaps they are irrational fears, but they can tip the scales in favor of other places despite the big bonus points that the U.S. get in other areas.
People on the internet love to exaggerate how bad living in the US is.
The US is a big country and there's plenty of places that most people wouldn't like to live (every country has locations like this), but if you're a tech worker, there's no place better in the world to live than in the US. You don't have to live in the Bay Area, you can live in Seattle, New York City, Boston, Los Angeles, or Atlanta. Don't like the city? Okay, there's plenty of affordable suburbs to live in all over the country.
Plus your cost of healthcare will either be free or heavily subsidized, taxes will be lower, you'll be making more money, and the opportunities for career advancement, VC funding (if you want to go the startup route), and opportunities to network will be much greater here.
America is an amazing place to live, whether the internet wants to believe it or not.
I don't think I care about salary so much especially when I hear that the other countries have a better social safety net. As a software engineer I am confident I can make decent pay for the area. I am not looking to send my kids to private school or avail a world class surgeon or have a beach house or make millions. I just want a good happy middle class life writing code and without a lot of hustling. And somehow the US does not seem very conducive to that.
Wow, just wow! Unfortunately I did expect your response from the HN crowd. You and I have very different ways of looking at the world.
The entitlement and privilege among software engineers in the US to have crazy high salaries and "perks" such as health insurance is exactly the reason why I will never move there. I think your last statement sums up the situation very well, but it baffles me how any decent human being would consider that to be a positive.
You may think I am crazy, but did you know that insanely high salaries of a select few is one of the reasons that directly or indirectly leads to income and wealth inequalities in the world, one of the biggest problems of our generation? While you may have excellent health care for $20/month, what about the barista at your local coffee shop? What about your disabled neighbor who got laid off for no fault of hers? How can you live with yourself while they die of cancer as they cannot afford to go to the hospital? And don't get me started on education. How that is viewed as a commodity rather than a basic human right astounds me.
I am very happy with my $60k/year job. I have more than sufficient for myself, and a decent amount to spare. I have excellent healthcare for free and independent of my job situation, and so do all my neighbors. I live in a city with no homeless, and no one desperately poor. I do engaging work for 7 hrs a day and religiously shut my computer at 4 pm, and pursue my many passions afterwards. I have 6 weeks a year of paid vacations, and travel to a handful of countries every year. I paid $50/semester to get educated at a top university, and so will my children. And I received a stipend to cover part of my living expenses. I love the fact that I do not have to worry about getting shot (as rare as that might be). I love living in a country with highly educated people all around with most having the skills of critical thinking. I love living in one of the most gender equal countries of the world (I am male). No offense to anyone, but I wouldn't trade this for a $250k/year job in the U.S. (as levels.fyi seems to suggest for my case).
>And, as bad as the US is on an absolute scale, I'm having trouble finding some place better.
Then you're either putting impossible requirements on the new place (e.g. "and my friends have to all live there") or you're simply not looking. Throw a dart at western Europe. Any of those places will provide a better quality of living for most people.
Mostly, it sounds like you've just had bad experiences in the past, or you live in a place that makes life harder.
I live in the US, make an average salary for a software engineer, and live an incredibly comfortable life. I'm not going to retire at 30 or own a private yacht, but life isn't the dickensian struggle you present.
I know at least some programmers who have moved to Third World countries. In Indonesia, for example, you can live like a prince for about $1000 a month. Then work remote for US based companies. Your North American resume and cultural knowledge allows you to still charge a decent rate for your skills. But your cost-of-living is minuscule. It’s a decent option for many young people to consider.
I disagree with your disagreement about the barriers, namely:
It is false that the US is the ideal place to live in (or to temporarily migrate to if you're in tech). It is false that, all other things being equal, one should prefer to live in the US. The US is not the default place people should aspire to live in, not even people in tech. Even within the US, SV is not the best place to live in. Living in some place means much more than just working in trendy tech companies.
For a lot of us -- I'd say the vast majority, outside the HN bubble -- the US is not a particularly interesting place to live in, even if there were no immigration barriers. Which there are, anyway.
Easy for you to say sitting in your first-world, comfortable house with a job that pays you $250,000 USD a year. Try visiting a third (or even second) world country.
Then couldn't you just move somewhere else? I live in the Netherlands, near amsterdam. It's one of the most developed places on Earth (more so than most of the US) and my yearly salary is only 100k USD, which puts me in the top 1% on my country.
The US is full of safe, pleasant communities, excellent for raising families, though not necessarily near tech work places. Look outside the coastal bubbles and explore a bit. I'm very happy living in a place shunned by erstwhile colleagues in the ivory heights.
I've also lived decades in East Asia, and there are cases to be made for life in provincial South Korea, Japan, and Thailand -- among other places -- but practical considerations of work and visa status play a role in such decisions.
Maybe a good quality of life compared to other people from the same area... but nowhere even close to that of an American worker.
If you want the same quality of life as an American worker, the best way to achieve it is to be an American worker since you can always pick and choose things that are objectively "worse" in any arbitrary country. For example, you cite the high cost of cars as an example of why a country has a worse quality of life, but others may point to American car dependence as worse for their quality of life.
No idea where you got that "1/4 salary is worth more at home" from
Probably because that's not what I said. I said "you may find that your "1/4 salary" is worth more at home that it is in the USA.", Obviously I didn't mean that to mean in all situations. I wouldn't expect that someone living on £10/week in the UK would be able to live comfortably on £2.50/week in any arbitrary country
I have a friend that took advantage of COVID work from home to move to Indonesia (where his wife is from) - he said they pay less for all costs of living than he did just on their apartment in the SF Bay Area. He's still drawing his Bay Area salary, but is not going back to the office, when return to office becomes mandatory, he'll just quit and retire where he is. He feels that he has a far superior quality of life there. It's not the same as Bay Area life, but far more relaxing.
Sure, but then you have to live in St. Louis, Missouri.
I'm sure I could move to a third world country and have an even lower cost of living. As though it were otherwise equivalent to living in a top US city.
I don't think you can secure a decent life by programming outside of US - if this is understood as position of comfortable financial independence.
I'm a programmer, my income is in the top 10th percentile, but that just means I'm in the upper middle class with the privilege to pay more taxes. I need to work until I get to retirement to secure myself financially.
You don't need a well paying job to afford rent and food - just don't live in ridiculously expensive areas. USA has a plenty of very cheap places to live. As the rest of the world, with maybe a few exceptions of very expensive micronations.
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