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Waaypoint t1_jdljeq6 wrote

Reply to comment by jxx37 in America needs immigration reform, or it risks losing an entire generation of tech workers to countries like Canada, the UK, and Japan by TakeOffYourMask

Salary is lower but things like healthcare access and cost, educational opportunities for kids, and freedom to access information are better in the UK at the moment.

That and working in the US is highly dependent on where you live and it has been exacerbated by recent changes in laws in certain states.

For example, women cannot receive adequate care in many states because of draconian abortion laws. If you have a child who is trans they might not be able to receive treatment.

You also have major educational gaps developing in some states. There are states that are trying to ban mentioning the existence of the LGBTQ population or racial bias in public schools. Setting aside the perceived morality of this, it hamstrings the students if they want to go into certain fields. If you have a child educated in this system they are going to be at a significant disadvantage relative to their peers from other states.

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jxx37 t1_jdmtjnd wrote

America has some issues for certain. What is the salary difference between tech jobs in the UK and US?

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Waaypoint t1_jdpzelg wrote

I've seen some really exaggerated comments about Americans all landing 200k a year jobs after taking a few online classes.

The reality is that the average pay is around 113K USD for a role like SW developer. Further, most of the high salaries are if you work in the bay area. (San Francisco, Sunnyvale, San Jose, etc, California, USA)

https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm

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By state views.

https://www.statista.com/chart/22030/average-tech-worker-salary-in-us-cities/

One thing you will notice is that these cities are the ones all our "red" state Americans complain about. e.g. Shit in the streets, zombies on meth, crap.

Two things about that.

  1. There are very large homeless populations in these cities (and growing). I live in one of these cities and the only place with income disparity worse is Brazil.
  2. The cost of living in those areas is very high compared to other US states. I can buy a house for 100k in my midwest hometown. The same size house in the city I live in now is over 1M. A two bedroom 700 sf house with no parking goes for 500K on the low end.

Looking at the UK the average pay for a SW developer is 65K pounds (79,300 USD with Google's current conversion rate).

So, lets say there is a 35K difference is pay on average. Again, this is probably skewed by CA, but meh.

I pay around 25k out of my salary for my retirement in the US and about 15K in health insurance. That is not unusual and it is much more if you have a spouse who does not work. Anyway, that extra pay disappears quickly because we do not have a safety net or universal services in the US.

TLDR: You might feel like you have more money in the US, but the reality is that that money disappears quickly because America is mostly a fast food restaurant pretending to be fine dining.

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