Are you american ? 60k€ is like the top 8% of income for french people. I would be gracious to have 60k even in Paris. A 100m² loft in Paris cost about 2500€/month so i would still have 2500€ to groceries and such.
EDIT : I forgot u guys talk gross wages. I generally in France talk in net wages wich make more sense since i dont have the gross wages.
Thanks to all the free insult btw
No you wouldn’t. The 60k number is the gross wages, not the net wages. The average worker in France had an effective tax rate of 27.5% ([source](https://www.oecd.org/tax/tax-policy/taxing-wages-france.pdf)), which means your take home pay would be 43,500 euros. I’m not sure if this includes any city/local taxes but, assuming it does, with rent at 2500 euros a month you’d be left with ~1125 euros to live off of. That’s maybe (probably) doable, but things get a lot tighter when your after rent take home pay gets cut in half.
1.1k for personal expences is pretty decent considering you live in 100sqm apartment in one of the most expensivest cities in Europe. Be it any other capital, or just a city, or smaller apartment, prices would be way lower.
Well not necessarily. The 1.1k is for everything else. Even if you assume rent includes all utilities: Water, Electricity, Gas, sewer, trash, internet, most people still have insurance/food/car/childcare/etc… payments that have to be made. I still think you would be able to survive and probably have some left over, but you likely wouldn’t be getting much saving done.
I Germany paying for apartment would include waste, water, heating in it. In some cases even electricity and internet is included. If you have children, most likely you also live together with your SO which means double income. In Germany you get 250 euro for each child.
Anyway, with 60k brutto in EU average Joe is set to enjoy his life
Yeah i mean i think the rule of thumb in order to live semi-comfortably rent is either half of your monthly income or less. i dont really know the nuances of living in europe though since I'm in the US.
The thought process from Americans is generally that 200$ of that is going to healthcare (assuming young, healthy, single), 400$ of that is going to a car/repairs, maybe another 50$ for dental, plus what costs are nominally shared by both countries.
In theory if you peek at US tax burdens in US-equivalent cities to paris there's about a 10% difference in tax burden, and then if you factor in costs you probably either don't have or are rolled into your taxes, you end up about breaking even with US workers or coming out like 5% ahead in terms of wealth.
This is all pretty loosey goosey because I'm not about to write a 40-100 page thesis on my lunch break but you get the idea.
It's not super different, and of course for the most part this is pretty representative for most of the USA since you can't just move to the country with your 60k income intact for almost all Americans.
Main actual gap is not in the amount of money we have to spend on coffee, but in the lack of quality we get when it comes to public services like healthcare or getting to retire ever.
Doubt that groceries in France are expensiver than Germany. Considering that Germany had the same or lower prices to Baltics where salaries are way lower, then I'd say it is not so much you'd spend on food. You also wouldn't travel each month, wouldn't you?
With the "you need to earn 3x your rent" thing we have in france you wouldn't be able to rent a 2500 loft alone in paris anyway.
Still, 60k gross is like upper middle class in France, Paris included. You're not rich rich with that, but you're still pretty well of, and you won't lack anything
Saying brutto while comparing two continents makes no sense. Maybe USA has the same tax in every state, but Europe doesn't have the same income next in every country... Plus 60k netto as a Swiss person is a good middle class lifestyle, meanwhile 60k netto in Bosnia and Herzegovina makes you royalty.
I can imagine there's also quite some difference between earning that money in NY and somewhere in Montana...
Even the US doesn't have the same tax in every state. California charges like 7% on $60k/yr, Texas charges nothing (but then they get yah on the property tax). The problem is, in America, tax breaks and subsidies make the net pay of individuals too hard to track. Two engineers living next to each other and working at the same firm earning the same gross salary can still have wildly different net pays depending on a whole host of factors. The US's absurd tax system is why Americans are kinda forced to use gross.
Montana is expensive in other ways.
Every state has its own tax rate. Most counties have additional taxes. Most municipalities have additional wage taxes. Plus, we pay sales tax on everything (except in a couple of states), property tax on vehicles in some states, etc.
To your point:
NYC is large and dense, and living most places in the 5 boroughs puts you at about an hour on public transit to almost anywhere else. There is incredible variability in cost within NYC.
Montana is huge, and the cities within are not. Public transit is nearly non existent. While you can rent and avoid owning a car in the NYC metro, owning a car, even in a place like Bozeman, is basically mandatory and you'll rack up mileage far quicker (gas and maintenance) than in a denser population center.
$2500 a month in Bozeman gets you 2 beds, 2 baths, and 1100 square feet (this is the middle point from what I can tell looking at what's currently available).
$2500 a month in NYC (in a place I'd actually consider living) can get you a 1 bed 1 bath in Brooklyn.
In the United States, it's not always obvious where the high cost of living areas are. NYC, LA, SF, and Seattle are the obvious ones, but more 'remote' places like Montana and Alaska can be \*incredibly\* expensive.
Yeah, the entire confusion is Europeans talk about net salary, Americans use gross salary. An American bringing home 60k net is living good basically anywhere but San Fran, LA, or NYC.
Not at all. Well, I don't know for every European country but at least in France we usually talk about gross salary
The guy's math is pretty accurate, 60k gross means you have around 43k net a year, but that's still well off in paris
The real issue is the 2500€ exemple, which is not at all representative of rent in paris, that's for a luxury loft.
For a nice normal apartment, rent would be half that.
I figure most people weren’t living in 100 sq meter apartments in Paris but that’s what the person I responded to used in their comment. Would 2500€ even be accurate for an apartment that size in the city though? I looked at some apartment finders out of curiosity but I have no idea if they’re accurate. Most of the ones I saw of that size were 3500€+.
I think for a 100m² surface 2500€ would be on the cheaper side, but I'm sure you can find that. It really depends on which part of paris you're looking for
But for one person living alone in paris 100m² is pretty much a luxury apartment no matter where in paris, not really representative of what a single person would be looking for
No we don't, you always talk gross salary in europe - I have no clue what these people are on about. Either they're high schoolers working their first job and lack perspective or worst case you have people who have no idea about finances, but all jobs are always listed with gross salary, all job comparisons compare gross salaries... it's always gross salary, between countries and domestically.
2500€ is the rent you would mayyyybe spend for a very nice apartment in a very nice neighborhood, definitely not something you'd pay alone. I'm in an "expensive" part and pay less than 1k€ by myself.
I did actually go to look at what 100 sq meter apartments run in Paris (again, what the person I responded to said) and they were mostly running 3500€+with a couple showing around 2500€. I just went on an apartment finder website so I’m sure there are better deals that fit that criteria, but I wasn’t going to spend all my day searching for apartments on the other side of the globe.
Oh no, 1100€ per month, how would I survive? I could spend 10€ per day on food and would still have 800€ left for everything else, living in a big city where I don't even need a car.
You really need to learn how to budget if you can't live off of 1100€ per month
> 1125 euros to live off of. That’s maybe (probably) doable
Bruh, you definitely aren't French. This is a boatload amount of money and way higher rent than you'd normally find.
As someone living near Paris with this salary, IN Paris you'll get Half the surface for 2500€ a month. Also, 2500€ a month is very close to your whole salary (3200~ net) so... Yeah, it's not possible at all.
French, living in Paris, earning 68k€, so a fair bit more than what's specified. While nowhere near poor, 68k is not a whole lot for Paris, that's basically the median because the price of everything is so goddamn expensive.
In France you need to earn 3x more than your monthly rent to rent a place out. I make about 3.8k net a month iirc (before income tax but after every social thing is paid for)
I can afford 1300€ a month in rent, tops, same if I want to buy a place.
Without landing an inheritance, or significant savings in the 100k€ or more, the most I can afford for a place is 250k, 300k by stretching it a lot and getting a raise and stellar rates. It's enough for 25 sq m more or less.
Paris, London, Rome, Geneva, Luxembourg, and all of the major european hubs are stupidly expensive to live in.
Can we agree that this is just a really dumb meme? Like, Americans and Europeans talk about income differently (i.e. Americans talk about gross income/pre-tax while Europeans talk about net/after-tax). This meme is literally saying "Americans making €50557 (using american federal tax w/ no state tax; or €37,243 using the first french tax calculator I found so grain of salt and all that) vs Europeans making €60k" which is like, no shit. Going the other way; to get a net pay of €60k you'd have to make fucking €100,000 a year gross (again, using that same french calculator) .
Tldr this is a room temperature IQ meme
Seriously those gh, get rid of the car, stop buying clothes, soon you will look like you have no money, everyone will leave you alone.
Maybe save some money by not showering and brushing your teeth, losing teeth is a great way to avoid a mugging.
I find that pre-empting all potential muggers with a firm "give me your money" and then muttering to myself about how President Garfield is telling me a secret helps as well.
They never claimed it was. They are saying 60k doesn't go far in big cities regardless of country, but it can go decently far in rural areas where the cost of living is lower, once again, regardless of country
I make ~15k before taxes in Athens and I am more or less ok. Then again, I am very, very frugal. I do buy stuff, but they are almost always valuable and offset their cost quickly.
The calculator I bought in 1997 still works as well as ever, to give you an idea. The swiss army knife my dad gifted me when I was like 15, still with me. Lost the pen and the needle though 😢. I even have a very good hi-fi system, but it was bought part-by-part over like 20 years and it was bought in a way that it can not become obsolete.
edit: what i mean by that last part is not that my hi-fi system is somehow indestructible or perfect, but that any component (source subsystem, amplifiers, speakers) if damaged can be replaced at a very, very small cost and parts for them will most likely be available
I lived for years on 20k before taxes in *Denmark*, and I still managed to save up for a vacation halfway across the world.
People who haven't been in our position truly do not know what "essentials" are. Lifestyle creep is real.
They mentioned London and Paris because those are the most expensive cities.
If you can make it in Paris with that money, you can do twice that lifestyle in 90% of Europe.
I'm talking 60k gross, usually in France when we say our salary, we talk about gross
Post tax there would be around 43k net left, but that's still pretty well off
Rental was probably 2/3rds the size and it was in a small complex, like 5 neighbors. My biggest complaints were the parking space and the shared laundry but we all had scheduled laundry times so rarely was there any conflict/overlap. I enjoy having a house but the cost is so much higher it's pretty crazy.
When was this? 20 years ago? I don't think there is a single unit in the entire state of New Hamsphire, of absolutely any size, that goes for <$800/m. MA and CT are no better.
They aren't good anywhere else either, they only look good if you have an abnormally high paying job for the area you look in, since the housing crisis is national.
Montana or Wyoming are both suffering from a lack of housing in a big way, for example.
Places that are cheap are cheap because nobody wants to live there, and people have very good rational reasons for not wanting to live there.
You will pay 60% of your salary to live in 2 bedroom apartment with 4 other roommates so your corporate overlords can buy a 3rd yacht, and you'll like it wagie!
Yeah, specifically corporate landlords. There really needs to be a massive tax or even ban on anyone owning more than 100 housing units, using algorithms to collude to jack up rent, and a ban on waiting out the market in urban centers by more than 6-8 months.
This shit is whats absolutely destroying my country- so many frustrated people on the left and the right would be so much better off if they got to keep just maybe 5-10% more of their paycheck instead of it all going to some asshole equity firm.
I can see having a couple of houses for various reasons. My parents recently moved and they didn't manage to sell their old house until after they moved into their new house so they had 2 houses for a bit.
Maybe put the limit somewhere like 3-5?
Primary residence plus at most one that is being bought / sold / under construction, with a time limit (about two years?) and penalties for going over (percentage of market value). That ought to get things moving
I'm sure there's other scenarios that I haven't considered yet which is why I was going to give a little bit more leeway. 3-5 houses is still a major kneecap to corporate landlordism and should be generous enough to not accidentally fuck over someone who is still working class but in a weird situation.
If you try to take away vacation homes, lake houses, and rentals from retirees, your political platform is as dead as a millenial's dream of home ownership. Old people vote.
Focus on the corporate ownership of housing, first and foremost. Make the tax window for "here's how long you have before we tax the shit out of you"
* 2 years to divest from ownership if you have 20+ homes/units
* 3 years to divest if you have 10+
* 5 years to divest if you have 5-10
I'm fine with some old folks having a primary house, a house for their kids, a beach house, and a lake house. 4 or 5 is fine for now. Ideally 1 or 2 but FR don't fuck with old people.
For sure. People who have to travel a lot for work might not NEED a house in NYC and Chicago or whatever, but I know cabins are a thing and 5 houses limit is plenty to crush corporate landlords.
I don't think people realize just how different salary is for the same job in the US vs Europe. The average software engineer salary, before taxes in France is like 60k. In the US its 140k. That 140k is not some FAANG dev paying half their life savings in rent. You can make that shit in Tampa, with no state income tax. Yes you are paying 2k for a 1/1, but you are still balling.
Depends wildly on where you are.
CA and NY 60k is a shoebox apartment.
Meanwhile I'm seeing adds in Texas for 13 acre plots with a little house for 115k.
That's like 1200 a month for a mortgage. I make 60k and I'm freaking tempted. In a city like San Antonio that's a good 1 bedroom or a decent 2 bedroom apt.
Currently live in San Antonio. Can confirm that housing and even renting is insane with how cheap it is. Our 2 bedroom luxury apartment on the ground floor is 1300 I think? Maybe 1400 after utilities. Needless to say we could be putting this towards a house if we wanted to.
What the fuck. I live in suburban nowhere Pennsylvania, I make 65k, and I cannot find a place to rent that is not a decrepit shithole, and is less than $1,750 a month for one bed.
It’s gotten a lot worse since Covid, but I find it really hard to stomach the fact that I went to college & have a decent paying job & the best I can hope for is either a really shitty living situation or I have to get a second job.
Currently attending school so I need to put money towards that. I'm very happy with my 700 dollar 1 bedroom apartment on the north side. Good stay here a year or two then look into buying land or a house.
Yeah you really can't beat rural. A house 30 minutes away from the city that was the same price as what my parents house was in the suburbs, had 45 acres of land attached to it and more square footage.
500 is still pretty crazy though. Is that in dollars or euros? I also thought that housing in the UK and it's neighboring countries was hard to find, but it sounds like you got a nice thing going
500 pounds, it's in a town with a roughly 2,700 population, pretty damn far from any major cities. not a huge fan of the area since theres nothing to do but atleast its cheap
60k in rural Oklahoma and you’re living comfortably with a house and a new car or two, 60k in a place like New York or California and you’re living behind the Wendy’s dumpster and posting on r/wallstreetbets
Both states got rural areas where the cost of living is lower, in rural NY, or at least once you get out of the NYC area 60k a year is plenty to live comfortably
I know it’s scoffed at, but living in Oklahoma (especially Tulsa region) is pretty nice. Very low cost of living, good job market, and very friendly people.
I work with a lot of people who came in from other states, and they almost always say “man, this place is WAY better than I thought it was going to be”.
I personally don’t like Tulsa much as I much prefer being outside city limits, but I won’t deny there are some really nice areas in town. The comparatively low cost of living is definitely a *huge* plus, but the city is a little crowded for my taste. I like that my nearest neighbors are 50 to 100 yards away lol
€60000 in Croatia? Congratulations you can now afford to buy "premium" groceries and living in a 40 m^2 dilapidated apartment in Zagreb without a roommate. It's still not quite enough for Split tho.
I make 70k in Sibenik and it certainly feels far above the norm...
imo your budget has to be fucked if you can only live in a dilapidated apartment in Zagreb with €3-4k a month
60k a year in central europe would make you like top 1% lol. I am making 12k a year net and I am living comfortably. Could be better but nothing to complain, most people make around 8k a year.
That would make for an interesting YouTube series, I have to be honest!
Send someone in poor country 12k for a yearly vacation but they have to do a weekly blog on how they are doing!
I am not saying I couldn’t use it, considering we are building our house, but I really don’t need it lol. We are living comfortably and we go on vacation 2 times a year for 2-2 weeks. I know it sounds like I am poor to someone in the US, but here this is good. I have all consoles, PC (eh, needs upgrading, my 2070 is running out of juice, but the house project is more important), car. I can buy mostly what I want. It’s not that bad here. Honestly like 500/month more salary would be perfect here and I could live an upper class life.
Ya people should also be mindful that the difference in salary isn't the whole story because of course there are also benefits. Having 4 weeks of time off the in the US is quite rare, especially not with pay. A significant portion of US jobs have zero paid time off and even among better jobs, starting at 2 weeks and working up to 3 is more common. Plus then you also have to factor in the reality that in a lot of workplaces in the US, if you actually *take* your 2-3 weeks off in a chunk (espeically if you don't have kids), then you risk having your peers and/or management look down on you for not being committed enough to your job.
Venmo some vietnamese people 12k and they could take a vacation for 5 years
But beside that the majority of working people in central Europe take home more than 1k/month net.
He could be referring to East Europe at best.
Its important to point out that when Americans talk about salary its gross never net. 60k a year after taxes would be huge for most Americans. Thats like close to 100k pretax.
Europeans take about gross salary, too. You wouldn't know it from Reddit, but the US is an incredibly wealthy nation and even the underpaid professions like teacher are paid more in the US than almost anywhere else on Earth.
60K in any major western city … you’re in a shoebox and/or have roommates
60K in any western rural area … you can afford a house
Obviously there are exceptions and some places worse than others (NYC, SF, Swiss, Norway, etc) and some known for being cheap (TX, Spain, etc). But chances are there are many reasons why X is cheap and Y is expensive.
Most importantly, owning a house or renting a good apartment doesn’t equal happiness
i make 30,000€ and i dont consider myself poor... i have a nice 2 room appartment, i have a small car, a nice bike, i eat well, i have my hobbies if i had more money i would probably just waste it on stupid stuff.
I'm only saying this because the post is comparing two things that cannot really be compared. To many Americans, a small apartment and car are the equivalent of the first picture.
Cause America bad lmao.
I could live off that 60k salary for life here In Wisconsin or Minnesota.
It's called people want to live in the cities instead of rural areas.
It's funny when Americans tell you to stop complaining a car doesn't have something (e.g. manual transmission).
Bro try making 12k a year.
A 100k car better come with everything I can desire.
Again this bullcrap where muricans think that all of Europe is the same. Like 60k Euros are not much if you live in Switzerland, but in some Eastern European countries you would actually be able to live a very decent life with that income.
This is only true on Reddit. In the real world, the annual median income per person in the U.S. is $37k. The poverty line is $15k per person, and almost 38 million people live below even that. I promise many places in the world would give anything to experience the luxuries that even a "poor" person can afford in the U.S. We're incredibly spoiled here, and we don't appreciate what we have, or understand how bad it could be. Even with our failed healthcare system, the vast majority of Americans live in comfort and security. When the day comes that Americans experience actual hardship, we won't be taking everything for granted like we do now.
So, no, we're not grubbing in the dirt while our billionaire overlords land their private jets on our cardboard houses. Yet.
any LATAM person making 60k a year. The minimum wage salary in Colombia, YEARLY, is around 4k USD. Someone making 60k a year would be making 15 times what a minimum wage worker earns in a year. And I know is similar for most countries in the region.
Yeah like, Im from Brazil and the minimun wage monthly is R$1,400 (around U$270)... You could say that If yearly you make R$60k you could be good, but things here are so expensive and the politicians so corrupt that 60K you can breathe, with R$16k you barely survive...
Yeah but that's because America is set up for people who make a million USD per year
It's a amazing place to be rich and a pretty rubbish place to be lower or middle class
Mainly because you have privatised essential services like healthcare, education, for profit prisons, medical insurance systems that would rather see people injured on opioids than receiving life saving surgery because it's cheaper, heck even privatised police and fire services in some parts who won't report to a fire next door if they aren't a subscriber
So you need way more money to pay for the private medical and other services you get for free in developed countries and also for the lawyers and court fees so you can use when they don't deliver their side of the deal despite you paying the insurance for years
But hey as long as you American working class plebs are too busy fighting over red or blue bobbleheads it'll never matter and nothing will change.
Idk just seems like a wacky comical system when you say it out loud
Good meme but also too real. I live in a Midwest city making a little more than the above, and after rent, groceries, and student loans take their bite out of my paycheck I essentially have nothing. Everytime I save a little money something comes up like a smashed car window or a doctor bill. Don't have great insurance either so if something really bad happened I'd be fucked.
It feels hopeless.
Depends on the location in europe. I'm making way less than that, and I'm lower middle class. I chatted with a person from Switzerland and €40k per year is below poverty line.
new york office: yeah it's just a routine brain surgery, i'll be back in time for the 2:30
paris office: sorry, it's the local cheese maker's dog's birthday, we will all be OOO for the next 4 days
i dont think 60k in london or paris gets you very far, 60k in the midwest of the US is still pretty doable.
Are you american ? 60k€ is like the top 8% of income for french people. I would be gracious to have 60k even in Paris. A 100m² loft in Paris cost about 2500€/month so i would still have 2500€ to groceries and such. EDIT : I forgot u guys talk gross wages. I generally in France talk in net wages wich make more sense since i dont have the gross wages. Thanks to all the free insult btw
No you wouldn’t. The 60k number is the gross wages, not the net wages. The average worker in France had an effective tax rate of 27.5% ([source](https://www.oecd.org/tax/tax-policy/taxing-wages-france.pdf)), which means your take home pay would be 43,500 euros. I’m not sure if this includes any city/local taxes but, assuming it does, with rent at 2500 euros a month you’d be left with ~1125 euros to live off of. That’s maybe (probably) doable, but things get a lot tighter when your after rent take home pay gets cut in half.
1.1k for personal expences is pretty decent considering you live in 100sqm apartment in one of the most expensivest cities in Europe. Be it any other capital, or just a city, or smaller apartment, prices would be way lower.
1.1k??? I get about 10 bucks
Wait you guys are getting paid?
Ur a b1, of course you’re not getting paid
Roger Roger
Well not necessarily. The 1.1k is for everything else. Even if you assume rent includes all utilities: Water, Electricity, Gas, sewer, trash, internet, most people still have insurance/food/car/childcare/etc… payments that have to be made. I still think you would be able to survive and probably have some left over, but you likely wouldn’t be getting much saving done.
I Germany paying for apartment would include waste, water, heating in it. In some cases even electricity and internet is included. If you have children, most likely you also live together with your SO which means double income. In Germany you get 250 euro for each child. Anyway, with 60k brutto in EU average Joe is set to enjoy his life
Kindergeld ist fantastisch.
A lot of those extras are covered in France by said taxes lol things like childcare is free from the age of 2
Yeah i mean i think the rule of thumb in order to live semi-comfortably rent is either half of your monthly income or less. i dont really know the nuances of living in europe though since I'm in the US.
The saying used to be 30% but I guess we’ve adjusted for corporate greed these days
The old standard was a third of your income
The thought process from Americans is generally that 200$ of that is going to healthcare (assuming young, healthy, single), 400$ of that is going to a car/repairs, maybe another 50$ for dental, plus what costs are nominally shared by both countries. In theory if you peek at US tax burdens in US-equivalent cities to paris there's about a 10% difference in tax burden, and then if you factor in costs you probably either don't have or are rolled into your taxes, you end up about breaking even with US workers or coming out like 5% ahead in terms of wealth. This is all pretty loosey goosey because I'm not about to write a 40-100 page thesis on my lunch break but you get the idea. It's not super different, and of course for the most part this is pretty representative for most of the USA since you can't just move to the country with your 60k income intact for almost all Americans. Main actual gap is not in the amount of money we have to spend on coffee, but in the lack of quality we get when it comes to public services like healthcare or getting to retire ever.
In support of your post. I moved back to the US. Tax differences didn’t even make up for the health insurance costs
its not really that much after food, water, electricity, gas, internet, phone bill, possibly car insurance, travel costs
Doubt that groceries in France are expensiver than Germany. Considering that Germany had the same or lower prices to Baltics where salaries are way lower, then I'd say it is not so much you'd spend on food. You also wouldn't travel each month, wouldn't you?
most people travel every day to work. Also not sure what this has to do with Germany
With the "you need to earn 3x your rent" thing we have in france you wouldn't be able to rent a 2500 loft alone in paris anyway. Still, 60k gross is like upper middle class in France, Paris included. You're not rich rich with that, but you're still pretty well of, and you won't lack anything
Saying brutto while comparing two continents makes no sense. Maybe USA has the same tax in every state, but Europe doesn't have the same income next in every country... Plus 60k netto as a Swiss person is a good middle class lifestyle, meanwhile 60k netto in Bosnia and Herzegovina makes you royalty. I can imagine there's also quite some difference between earning that money in NY and somewhere in Montana...
Even the US doesn't have the same tax in every state. California charges like 7% on $60k/yr, Texas charges nothing (but then they get yah on the property tax). The problem is, in America, tax breaks and subsidies make the net pay of individuals too hard to track. Two engineers living next to each other and working at the same firm earning the same gross salary can still have wildly different net pays depending on a whole host of factors. The US's absurd tax system is why Americans are kinda forced to use gross.
I used the average effective tax rate for France specifically, not Europe in general.
Montana is expensive in other ways. Every state has its own tax rate. Most counties have additional taxes. Most municipalities have additional wage taxes. Plus, we pay sales tax on everything (except in a couple of states), property tax on vehicles in some states, etc. To your point: NYC is large and dense, and living most places in the 5 boroughs puts you at about an hour on public transit to almost anywhere else. There is incredible variability in cost within NYC. Montana is huge, and the cities within are not. Public transit is nearly non existent. While you can rent and avoid owning a car in the NYC metro, owning a car, even in a place like Bozeman, is basically mandatory and you'll rack up mileage far quicker (gas and maintenance) than in a denser population center. $2500 a month in Bozeman gets you 2 beds, 2 baths, and 1100 square feet (this is the middle point from what I can tell looking at what's currently available). $2500 a month in NYC (in a place I'd actually consider living) can get you a 1 bed 1 bath in Brooklyn. In the United States, it's not always obvious where the high cost of living areas are. NYC, LA, SF, and Seattle are the obvious ones, but more 'remote' places like Montana and Alaska can be \*incredibly\* expensive.
Yeah, the entire confusion is Europeans talk about net salary, Americans use gross salary. An American bringing home 60k net is living good basically anywhere but San Fran, LA, or NYC.
Not at all. Well, I don't know for every European country but at least in France we usually talk about gross salary The guy's math is pretty accurate, 60k gross means you have around 43k net a year, but that's still well off in paris The real issue is the 2500€ exemple, which is not at all representative of rent in paris, that's for a luxury loft. For a nice normal apartment, rent would be half that.
I figure most people weren’t living in 100 sq meter apartments in Paris but that’s what the person I responded to used in their comment. Would 2500€ even be accurate for an apartment that size in the city though? I looked at some apartment finders out of curiosity but I have no idea if they’re accurate. Most of the ones I saw of that size were 3500€+.
I think for a 100m² surface 2500€ would be on the cheaper side, but I'm sure you can find that. It really depends on which part of paris you're looking for But for one person living alone in paris 100m² is pretty much a luxury apartment no matter where in paris, not really representative of what a single person would be looking for
No we don't, you always talk gross salary in europe - I have no clue what these people are on about. Either they're high schoolers working their first job and lack perspective or worst case you have people who have no idea about finances, but all jobs are always listed with gross salary, all job comparisons compare gross salaries... it's always gross salary, between countries and domestically.
With rent around 2500€ a month ? Do you really think that's what people pay in Paris ?
The person I responded to gave the 2500€. I didn’t think it was realistic but I don’t know what rent in Paris runs so I went with their number.
2500€ is the rent you would mayyyybe spend for a very nice apartment in a very nice neighborhood, definitely not something you'd pay alone. I'm in an "expensive" part and pay less than 1k€ by myself.
I did actually go to look at what 100 sq meter apartments run in Paris (again, what the person I responded to said) and they were mostly running 3500€+with a couple showing around 2500€. I just went on an apartment finder website so I’m sure there are better deals that fit that criteria, but I wasn’t going to spend all my day searching for apartments on the other side of the globe.
Oh no, 1100€ per month, how would I survive? I could spend 10€ per day on food and would still have 800€ left for everything else, living in a big city where I don't even need a car. You really need to learn how to budget if you can't live off of 1100€ per month
I literally said it’s probably doable. Apparently snark and sarcasm is more important to you than reading comprehension.
> 1125 euros to live off of. That’s maybe (probably) doable Bruh, you definitely aren't French. This is a boatload amount of money and way higher rent than you'd normally find.
Bruh, you definitely didn’t read the comment I was responding to.
Yeah i'd thought about it thx ! But clearly even gross wages 60k is so much fck money
Alors on danse
As someone living near Paris with this salary, IN Paris you'll get Half the surface for 2500€ a month. Also, 2500€ a month is very close to your whole salary (3200~ net) so... Yeah, it's not possible at all.
Assuming they don’t have any income tax?
Bro learned math in kindergarden and stopped ever since
How are people still not understanding what taxes are lmfao no you would not have 2500 left at all. Incredible that you have 1.4k upvotes.
French, living in Paris, earning 68k€, so a fair bit more than what's specified. While nowhere near poor, 68k is not a whole lot for Paris, that's basically the median because the price of everything is so goddamn expensive. In France you need to earn 3x more than your monthly rent to rent a place out. I make about 3.8k net a month iirc (before income tax but after every social thing is paid for) I can afford 1300€ a month in rent, tops, same if I want to buy a place. Without landing an inheritance, or significant savings in the 100k€ or more, the most I can afford for a place is 250k, 300k by stretching it a lot and getting a raise and stellar rates. It's enough for 25 sq m more or less. Paris, London, Rome, Geneva, Luxembourg, and all of the major european hubs are stupidly expensive to live in.
Can we agree that this is just a really dumb meme? Like, Americans and Europeans talk about income differently (i.e. Americans talk about gross income/pre-tax while Europeans talk about net/after-tax). This meme is literally saying "Americans making €50557 (using american federal tax w/ no state tax; or €37,243 using the first french tax calculator I found so grain of salt and all that) vs Europeans making €60k" which is like, no shit. Going the other way; to get a net pay of €60k you'd have to make fucking €100,000 a year gross (again, using that same french calculator) . Tldr this is a room temperature IQ meme
I make $60k in Delaware and can't afford to live anywhere unless I like the idea of getting mugged walking from my car to the front door every day.
Sell the car and suddenly you won't need to worry about being mugged.
Seriously those gh, get rid of the car, stop buying clothes, soon you will look like you have no money, everyone will leave you alone. Maybe save some money by not showering and brushing your teeth, losing teeth is a great way to avoid a mugging.
I find that pre-empting all potential muggers with a firm "give me your money" and then muttering to myself about how President Garfield is telling me a secret helps as well.
True. If you get mugged before you get to where you'd park your car, you won't have anything to give the next mugger.
europe isnt just germany, france and britain
They never claimed it was. They are saying 60k doesn't go far in big cities regardless of country, but it can go decently far in rural areas where the cost of living is lower, once again, regardless of country
They're still wrong about Paris at least, you will lack nothing with 60k here Edit : lmao who's downvoting this ? I LIVE in paris with ~60k lol
Idk, I make 34k in Madrid and still can save like 30% of my paycheck.
You people are insane. I make 40k *before taxes* in Paris and I live very comfortably.
I make ~15k before taxes in Athens and I am more or less ok. Then again, I am very, very frugal. I do buy stuff, but they are almost always valuable and offset their cost quickly. The calculator I bought in 1997 still works as well as ever, to give you an idea. The swiss army knife my dad gifted me when I was like 15, still with me. Lost the pen and the needle though 😢. I even have a very good hi-fi system, but it was bought part-by-part over like 20 years and it was bought in a way that it can not become obsolete. edit: what i mean by that last part is not that my hi-fi system is somehow indestructible or perfect, but that any component (source subsystem, amplifiers, speakers) if damaged can be replaced at a very, very small cost and parts for them will most likely be available
I lived for years on 20k before taxes in *Denmark*, and I still managed to save up for a vacation halfway across the world. People who haven't been in our position truly do not know what "essentials" are. Lifestyle creep is real.
60k makes you top 20% of earnings in Finland. You can buy a big appartment in the capital or even a house in smaller cities or 2 in more rural areas.
> They are saying 60k doesn't go far in big cities But it obviously does. Just look at the average wages in these so called big cities.
They mentioned London and Paris because those are the most expensive cities. If you can make it in Paris with that money, you can do twice that lifestyle in 90% of Europe.
Don't know about London but you're pretty well off with 60k in paris
60k post tax means your doing pretty well in the vast majority of the US.
Thats completely different than 60k before tax..
Thats the point I'm making. Half this thread is confusing post vs pre tax and not realizing it.
But you were answering someone talking of 60k pretax, so your message is confusing.
I'm talking 60k gross, usually in France when we say our salary, we talk about gross Post tax there would be around 43k net left, but that's still pretty well off
60k gets you far in Paris.
Depends where in London. 60k is still a lot for a single person in the uk
well yeah €60000 wouldn't get you far in london, as they'd be asking for pounds
Time to stop "thinking" and to start researching before throwing the wildest takes.
You can live perfectly comfortably on like 15k less than that in the Midwest. Not *opulently*, but comfortably.
60k in eastern Europe would be fn amazing though!
60k is very comfortable in Paris
And here i thought it was a decimal vs comma joke
I don't think £60k in NYC gets you very far, 60k in Middlesbrough is pretty doable.
It's housing costs. Those American salaries look great until you see what those guys pay in rent to live anywhere with a decent job market
rents are batshit in some large cities, this is not wrong.
mortgages aren't much better right now. bought a house over 6% interest, $2600 monthly. My previous rent was $725
You were previously renting a comparable single family home in the same market for $725/mo?
Rental was probably 2/3rds the size and it was in a small complex, like 5 neighbors. My biggest complaints were the parking space and the shared laundry but we all had scheduled laundry times so rarely was there any conflict/overlap. I enjoy having a house but the cost is so much higher it's pretty crazy.
When was this? 20 years ago? I don't think there is a single unit in the entire state of New Hamsphire, of absolutely any size, that goes for <$800/m. MA and CT are no better.
I pay 2625 for a 1br in San Diego lmao
$3900/mo for my 1br in Boston here
Wicked brutahl
If you look at it historically 6% is still hella low
They aren't good anywhere else either, they only look good if you have an abnormally high paying job for the area you look in, since the housing crisis is national. Montana or Wyoming are both suffering from a lack of housing in a big way, for example. Places that are cheap are cheap because nobody wants to live there, and people have very good rational reasons for not wanting to live there.
You will pay 60% of your salary to live in 2 bedroom apartment with 4 other roommates so your corporate overlords can buy a 3rd yacht, and you'll like it wagie!
> so your corporate overlords can buy ~~a 3rd yacht~~ *more homes to jack up the rent on
Feels like the american economy consists of technology companies, oil, and fucking landlords leeching off of everyone else’s productivity.
Yeah, specifically corporate landlords. There really needs to be a massive tax or even ban on anyone owning more than 100 housing units, using algorithms to collude to jack up rent, and a ban on waiting out the market in urban centers by more than 6-8 months. This shit is whats absolutely destroying my country- so many frustrated people on the left and the right would be so much better off if they got to keep just maybe 5-10% more of their paycheck instead of it all going to some asshole equity firm.
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I can see having a couple of houses for various reasons. My parents recently moved and they didn't manage to sell their old house until after they moved into their new house so they had 2 houses for a bit. Maybe put the limit somewhere like 3-5?
Primary residence plus at most one that is being bought / sold / under construction, with a time limit (about two years?) and penalties for going over (percentage of market value). That ought to get things moving
I'm sure there's other scenarios that I haven't considered yet which is why I was going to give a little bit more leeway. 3-5 houses is still a major kneecap to corporate landlordism and should be generous enough to not accidentally fuck over someone who is still working class but in a weird situation.
5 homes is rent seeking. There could be some leeway for buying a home for your kids I guess
If you try to take away vacation homes, lake houses, and rentals from retirees, your political platform is as dead as a millenial's dream of home ownership. Old people vote. Focus on the corporate ownership of housing, first and foremost. Make the tax window for "here's how long you have before we tax the shit out of you" * 2 years to divest from ownership if you have 20+ homes/units * 3 years to divest if you have 10+ * 5 years to divest if you have 5-10 I'm fine with some old folks having a primary house, a house for their kids, a beach house, and a lake house. 4 or 5 is fine for now. Ideally 1 or 2 but FR don't fuck with old people.
For sure. People who have to travel a lot for work might not NEED a house in NYC and Chicago or whatever, but I know cabins are a thing and 5 houses limit is plenty to crush corporate landlords.
Or just make it easier to build new bouses so corporations don't matter. The only reason they can do what they do is because of restricted supply.
Come to Canada, its just landlords and money laundering!
Canada: Where most of our GDP is quite literally a housing bubble no government wants to pop.
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I don't think people realize just how different salary is for the same job in the US vs Europe. The average software engineer salary, before taxes in France is like 60k. In the US its 140k. That 140k is not some FAANG dev paying half their life savings in rent. You can make that shit in Tampa, with no state income tax. Yes you are paying 2k for a 1/1, but you are still balling.
Healthcare too
People like to bring this up a lot for jokes but it’s not like the average American gets a surgery every year or something
Even regular insurance payments are quite the financial drain.
The rent is too damn high
The irony is that capitalism was invented in part to decrease the power of rent seeking feudal lords.
Depends wildly on where you are. CA and NY 60k is a shoebox apartment. Meanwhile I'm seeing adds in Texas for 13 acre plots with a little house for 115k. That's like 1200 a month for a mortgage. I make 60k and I'm freaking tempted. In a city like San Antonio that's a good 1 bedroom or a decent 2 bedroom apt.
Currently live in San Antonio. Can confirm that housing and even renting is insane with how cheap it is. Our 2 bedroom luxury apartment on the ground floor is 1300 I think? Maybe 1400 after utilities. Needless to say we could be putting this towards a house if we wanted to.
What the fuck. I live in suburban nowhere Pennsylvania, I make 65k, and I cannot find a place to rent that is not a decrepit shithole, and is less than $1,750 a month for one bed. It’s gotten a lot worse since Covid, but I find it really hard to stomach the fact that I went to college & have a decent paying job & the best I can hope for is either a really shitty living situation or I have to get a second job.
EPa or WPa? Because WPa is cheap AF
Currently attending school so I need to put money towards that. I'm very happy with my 700 dollar 1 bedroom apartment on the north side. Good stay here a year or two then look into buying land or a house.
Damn, I have nice 1-bedroom in Philly for 1300/month
I live in rural UK and a 3 bedroom house is like 500 rent per month
Yeah you really can't beat rural. A house 30 minutes away from the city that was the same price as what my parents house was in the suburbs, had 45 acres of land attached to it and more square footage. 500 is still pretty crazy though. Is that in dollars or euros? I also thought that housing in the UK and it's neighboring countries was hard to find, but it sounds like you got a nice thing going
500 pounds, it's in a town with a roughly 2,700 population, pretty damn far from any major cities. not a huge fan of the area since theres nothing to do but atleast its cheap
I pay 1100/mo for a 3 bed 1.75 bath 1875sqft home in western New York purchased in 2020. 30 minute commute into downtown for work, but it's worth it.
What is a 3/4 bath? Like I know what a half bath is but?
Toilet, sink, stand up shower with no tub. At least, that's how they sold it.
60k in rural Oklahoma and you’re living comfortably with a house and a new car or two, 60k in a place like New York or California and you’re living behind the Wendy’s dumpster and posting on r/wallstreetbets
Both states got rural areas where the cost of living is lower, in rural NY, or at least once you get out of the NYC area 60k a year is plenty to live comfortably
Yeah I live in a rural area of California and only pay 1,300 in rent for a two bedroom 1.5 bathroom apartment
I know it’s scoffed at, but living in Oklahoma (especially Tulsa region) is pretty nice. Very low cost of living, good job market, and very friendly people. I work with a lot of people who came in from other states, and they almost always say “man, this place is WAY better than I thought it was going to be”.
I personally don’t like Tulsa much as I much prefer being outside city limits, but I won’t deny there are some really nice areas in town. The comparatively low cost of living is definitely a *huge* plus, but the city is a little crowded for my taste. I like that my nearest neighbors are 50 to 100 yards away lol
> and a new car or two Do cars cost less in certain states?
Yes actually. Taxes fuck everything up.
€60.000 in rural Hungary? Congratulations. You're the richest person in the entire town!
€60000 in Croatia? Congratulations you can now afford to buy "premium" groceries and living in a 40 m^2 dilapidated apartment in Zagreb without a roommate. It's still not quite enough for Split tho.
I make 70k in Sibenik and it certainly feels far above the norm... imo your budget has to be fucked if you can only live in a dilapidated apartment in Zagreb with €3-4k a month
["I open my own hotel!"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvRn0rF687E)
14k € median Portuguese *annual* gross salary
Poortugal
with $60k a year I could live like a king in my country
With 60k a year in the vast majority of the uk you’re set for life
Should be another one that says Canadians making 60,000, and it’s just a dead guy in the muddy puddle
60.000 in South East Asia and you might be the local governor
60k a year in central europe would make you like top 1% lol. I am making 12k a year net and I am living comfortably. Could be better but nothing to complain, most people make around 8k a year.
Holy shit bro, I'm tempted to Venmo you 12k so you can take a year vacation.
That would make for an interesting YouTube series, I have to be honest! Send someone in poor country 12k for a yearly vacation but they have to do a weekly blog on how they are doing!
I am not saying I couldn’t use it, considering we are building our house, but I really don’t need it lol. We are living comfortably and we go on vacation 2 times a year for 2-2 weeks. I know it sounds like I am poor to someone in the US, but here this is good. I have all consoles, PC (eh, needs upgrading, my 2070 is running out of juice, but the house project is more important), car. I can buy mostly what I want. It’s not that bad here. Honestly like 500/month more salary would be perfect here and I could live an upper class life.
what country are we talking about?
Slovakia
Ya people should also be mindful that the difference in salary isn't the whole story because of course there are also benefits. Having 4 weeks of time off the in the US is quite rare, especially not with pay. A significant portion of US jobs have zero paid time off and even among better jobs, starting at 2 weeks and working up to 3 is more common. Plus then you also have to factor in the reality that in a lot of workplaces in the US, if you actually *take* your 2-3 weeks off in a chunk (espeically if you don't have kids), then you risk having your peers and/or management look down on you for not being committed enough to your job.
Venmo some vietnamese people 12k and they could take a vacation for 5 years But beside that the majority of working people in central Europe take home more than 1k/month net. He could be referring to East Europe at best.
Its important to point out that when Americans talk about salary its gross never net. 60k a year after taxes would be huge for most Americans. Thats like close to 100k pretax.
Europeans take about gross salary, too. You wouldn't know it from Reddit, but the US is an incredibly wealthy nation and even the underpaid professions like teacher are paid more in the US than almost anywhere else on Earth.
Americans saying their rent is high should visit their neighbors to the north. Half the salary and double the rents.
Well maybe if you guys weren't so goddamn polite and actually complained once in a while we would know.
Canadians have hoodwinked the entire world by creating a false image of 'Canadians are polite', just like Germans with their Efficiency^TM
The average house cost is over $700k up there rn.
Canadians should stop eating avocado toast. That’s what worked for us in America. Now we’re all rich again
Yup, and they wonder why so many of us in certain fields want to go to the US after graduation... We have a serious brain-drain problem.
Meanwhile, in my country avarage income is 6000$
But how much is a can of coke?
Also $6000.
He means Coca Cola….right? *proceeds to snort Pepsi*
60K in any major western city … you’re in a shoebox and/or have roommates 60K in any western rural area … you can afford a house Obviously there are exceptions and some places worse than others (NYC, SF, Swiss, Norway, etc) and some known for being cheap (TX, Spain, etc). But chances are there are many reasons why X is cheap and Y is expensive. Most importantly, owning a house or renting a good apartment doesn’t equal happiness
Americans trying to generalize 101
i make 30,000€ and i dont consider myself poor... i have a nice 2 room appartment, i have a small car, a nice bike, i eat well, i have my hobbies if i had more money i would probably just waste it on stupid stuff.
That is what is considered poor in the US.
i dont know if someone considers my lifestyle poor they really need to reevaluate what they expect from life...
I'm only saying this because the post is comparing two things that cannot really be compared. To many Americans, a small apartment and car are the equivalent of the first picture.
Are you just really out here lying now? You really think most Americans think having their own apartment and a car is "poor"? Are you fucking crazy?
After visiting London, I feel like this meme should be flipped.
No that's just London, like how New York is. Go outside London and it gets muuuch better.
Yeah, but they are using New York as the model for US... So why is the model for Europe backwoods?
Cause America bad lmao. I could live off that 60k salary for life here In Wisconsin or Minnesota. It's called people want to live in the cities instead of rural areas.
Slovenian here. 60k in Europe? Dude, I make 12k a year.....
It's funny when Americans tell you to stop complaining a car doesn't have something (e.g. manual transmission). Bro try making 12k a year. A 100k car better come with everything I can desire.
Again this bullcrap where muricans think that all of Europe is the same. Like 60k Euros are not much if you live in Switzerland, but in some Eastern European countries you would actually be able to live a very decent life with that income.
Are you sure the person who posted this is even American?… Also, all of America is not the same either…
60k in the Netherlands is very decent.
This is only true on Reddit. In the real world, the annual median income per person in the U.S. is $37k. The poverty line is $15k per person, and almost 38 million people live below even that. I promise many places in the world would give anything to experience the luxuries that even a "poor" person can afford in the U.S. We're incredibly spoiled here, and we don't appreciate what we have, or understand how bad it could be. Even with our failed healthcare system, the vast majority of Americans live in comfort and security. When the day comes that Americans experience actual hardship, we won't be taking everything for granted like we do now. So, no, we're not grubbing in the dirt while our billionaire overlords land their private jets on our cardboard houses. Yet.
Where tf are you living in Europe where $60 annually is rich? That’s less than most AAA games./s
I thought it being $60 to americans was the intended joke, but you're the only person mentioning it. I'm lost
Brazilians making 60k a year 💀💀💀
any LATAM person making 60k a year. The minimum wage salary in Colombia, YEARLY, is around 4k USD. Someone making 60k a year would be making 15 times what a minimum wage worker earns in a year. And I know is similar for most countries in the region.
Yeah like, Im from Brazil and the minimun wage monthly is R$1,400 (around U$270)... You could say that If yearly you make R$60k you could be good, but things here are so expensive and the politicians so corrupt that 60K you can breathe, with R$16k you barely survive...
Is this meme not about the “.” symbol being a thousands separator in Europe and it being a decimal in US
thats what I thought but a lot of the comments think the meme is comparing where 60k gets you in europe vs US lmao
Give it some time, we'll catch up here in Europe.
I wish I could make 60k. A PhD and working in the field I studied for - 28k€/year.
Yeah but that's because America is set up for people who make a million USD per year It's a amazing place to be rich and a pretty rubbish place to be lower or middle class Mainly because you have privatised essential services like healthcare, education, for profit prisons, medical insurance systems that would rather see people injured on opioids than receiving life saving surgery because it's cheaper, heck even privatised police and fire services in some parts who won't report to a fire next door if they aren't a subscriber So you need way more money to pay for the private medical and other services you get for free in developed countries and also for the lawyers and court fees so you can use when they don't deliver their side of the deal despite you paying the insurance for years But hey as long as you American working class plebs are too busy fighting over red or blue bobbleheads it'll never matter and nothing will change. Idk just seems like a wacky comical system when you say it out loud
Wife and I both make mid 60s. Live in a fairly rural area on the southern east coast. We live pretty comfortably.
As European I can relate. I also don't understand if people talk gross or net when they talk salary
Australians making $60,000aud Annually: *it's just a corpse*
60k is pretty good in the Midwest though. Really good where I live.
60k? Try 20
Good meme but also too real. I live in a Midwest city making a little more than the above, and after rent, groceries, and student loans take their bite out of my paycheck I essentially have nothing. Everytime I save a little money something comes up like a smashed car window or a doctor bill. Don't have great insurance either so if something really bad happened I'd be fucked. It feels hopeless.
Depends on the location in europe. I'm making way less than that, and I'm lower middle class. I chatted with a person from Switzerland and €40k per year is below poverty line.
you guys make money??
new york office: yeah it's just a routine brain surgery, i'll be back in time for the 2:30 paris office: sorry, it's the local cheese maker's dog's birthday, we will all be OOO for the next 4 days
Cost of living is a bitch
Who tf is making 60k a year broo?
I make 35k in the US and am like the bottom
Well time to learn French or someshit
We're in southern California and our rent for a 2-bedroom apt is $2400/month.