tst123TIL the US is the only rich country offering no national paid parental leave
StrikerLife Pro Tip for Americans: If you can save up for a plane ticket and go to another country. Europe would be my recommendation. It amazes me that there isn’t a mass exodus going on in the US. I don’t understand why anyone would possibly choose to live there tbh.
KbobabobEurope isn’t a country and it’s not always easy to just move to another country. You have to actually be desirable to have in the country to even be considered.
That’s kind of the big problem with a lot of the Americans talking about moving to Europe for benefits. They lack these benefits because their jobs aren’t specialized or well paid, and European countries aren’t likely to accepted their visa applications. Outside of marrying a European national, the best path is probably collective bargaining in the states.
Hi there. American here. I am actively learning both French and Dutch in case shot really hits the fan here in the states so I could potentially move to Europe.
Dutch here; while learning new languages is always a good thing, speaking Dutch is the least of your worries if you’d want to move here. Many expats don’t even try, since the majority of Dutchies is quite fluent in English.
If you’re serious, make sure you have job skills that are wanted over here so a company can sponsor you (and prove they cannot fulfill the vacancy). It’s basically how it works in the US too.
Or, if shit really hits the fan over there, you might be able to get a visa as a refugee :)
I agree, French and German are more useful to know in Europe as the biggest countries where one could live and be in the EU.
French is also useful because of Overseas France. Personally, I don’t necessarily want to move to Europe; I want to buy a sailboat and travel the world. French-speaking islands are relatively evenly-distributed all the way around it.
ImotaliI currently speak German, Dutch, Japanese and am learning Italian… just in case (and I realised I really enjoy learning languages)
As if “europe” just hands out working visas to americans
As a European, I would make 3-4x in my job if I was American. Of course somethings would be more expensive (education, healthcare, housing). Personally I would be better in states. I would still not want my county to change to states, because that inequality is not good for the whole country.
For the average person, America is much better than most places in Europe.
For people who aren’t doing as well, though, it’s much worse.
I think you’re vastly overestimating jow well-off “average” is in the US.
Yea, middle-upper middle class in America = rich in Europe.
For me at least wait times for healthcare always seem to be shorter outside the US. Nearly 2 months for a CT scan vs same day
I had to wait 2.5 months for a simple blood test panel.
chakan2Upper middle class is the top 10%…So yea, 9 out of 10 people aren’t doing so great.
Low end of Middle class, 50%, is still making a good college degreed salary in Europe.
You’re reading that article completely wrong…the numbers you posted are medians for upper income earners. The median US worker does not have 6 years of higher ed. I think only 20-30% even have a bachelor’s.
The median income in the US is 50k as of 2022. The 90th percentile is 120k-130k.
Those are disgustingly low for not having universal health or any social safety net like the rest of the industrialized world.
50k is more than most Europeans make with 3-6 years of education… That’s my point.
I think you are confusing one European country with Europe.
Europe, Italy, Switzerland, and Greece. Haven’t been to Spain in a few years but they are suffering.
If we want to compare incomes
What about happiness and quality of life?
Money buys quality of life and access to distractions thay may or may not make you happy.
I certainly enjoy eating at the fanciest restaurant in the area every week because it’s what I used to pay for dog shit delivery in SF.
Sure, but Europe is not exactly poor (well some countries are).
More money is nice, but I prefer life here. And most of western Europe and especially northern Europe where I live outranks north America in pretty much every index and statistic I care about.
Canada seems pretty alright though. You do have the same stupid city planning that the USA does, which is a shame.
If you have $20 in your pocket, and no debt you are wealthier than most Americans. The average person in the US isn’t doing too great
RicazI don’t think that’s true at all. Your middle class percentage is tiny compared to most of Europe, and while you also earn a bit more, that money goes to a much stronger social safety net in most of Europe, too (at least in our more successful countries).
I would also wager that middle class workers are more comfortable here, because of guaranteed 5-7 weeks holiday, 37 hour work weeks (for the vast majority), guaranteed parental leave, and just generally a very unionized job market.
Good luck getting visas and residence permits.
I (Danish) am married to an American and it was easier for me to get a US green card, than for her to get a residence permit in Denmark. After living some time in the US we decided to move to Denmark and while it’s great to live here, it was a freaking painstaking process to get her a permit.
Whats her ancestry? Many countries it’s easy to get grandfathered citizenship which makes it dead easy to move to most of the EU.
Isn’t that just Ireland and your parents or grandparents needs to be citizens?
Sure if your family came over here in the last 100 years. My family came over from Ireland somewhere around the famine, it’s too far back, I’ve checked. Y’all need to stop telling us its so easy to just move out of the us, it’s fucking not.
We are stuck here
And even better, you’ll still own taxes in the US when you’re gone.
IIRC, you can subtract the taxes you pay to the other country, so it’s not as if you’re double-taxed.
Honestly didn’t know that. Thanks for the info.
Jesus, just make it a whites only test and be honest.
My mother is literally German and most of my family is as well, and I can prove direct lineage. But I can’t get Germany citizenship because the laws are so strict.
You’re right, Great Britain is easier for the children of Europeans, but other countries (possibly Denmark as well) are hard.
My Italian citizenship was pretty much just paying fees and my wife’s German citizenship was… free and a 1 page form. I think they made it more difficult after trump became president and they got slammed with applications.
I didnt mean to imply that it’s easy for everyone, but often times there’s an easier route than most people realize if they’re from European decent.
Oh for sure. Your EU citizenship is infinitely more valuable than my German lineage. The EU is a very sweet deal. I can’t how stupid Britain was to leave.
Could you maybe go over the process for how you got Italian citizenship? Trying to go through the process now with my fiancée and it’s… a lot (neither of us speaks Italian either).
Specifically, how did you go about requesting documents from Italy? How did you know which civil registry to request from? What if I can’t find the civil registry for the state her descendant is from?
I started mine about 12 years ago at this point… I called the nearest consulate that handles citizenship (NYC for me) and made an appointment for applying for citizenship. Back then you had to pay to make the call and the appointments filled up within minutes about 1 year out (so you’re calling to make an appointment for the same day next year pretty much), and this got the clock ticking for getting all the forms done. I had my birth certificate (from the state, not my town), my parent’s birth and marriage certificates (again, state not town) my grandparents naturalization papers, their marriage certificate, and their birth certificates. My grandfather recently passed when I did this so I had a copy of his birth certificate too. I knew where my grandparents were from so I contacted some office there for copies of everything (you can also contact the consulate for assistance, though they were nasty people to work with). I needed to submit original sealed documents, so I needed copies of everything. I then scanned everything that was in English and did the translations on the forms into Italian (you can pay someone to do this, but DIY is fine as long as you don’t screw up, or else youll need to pretty much start over).
You then also have some forms to fill out (all on the consulate website) then submitted everything on the appointment day and pay everything in euro (this whole process was a money grab TBH). I’m pretty sure it could be paid in card, but it might have been in cash. Back then it was just a short interview (why you want it, career, any criminal history, etc…) - I heard recently that there is a test now (language and government?) You then wait about year+ then one day you get an email either saying a form is wrong or missing and you start over (i had mistranslated a form) or that you’re a citizen… then you call to make your passport appointment (I think this was only 3 months out or so).
You can go back as far as a great grandparent as long as you would have had citizenship if everyone was born in and still in italy. So you have to consider the leaneage and time especially if the lineage is through a grandmother (im pretty sure at some points citizenship was only passed to a child if the father was an Italian citizen at the time of the birth).
Wait. What? German citizenship is ancestry based. You should be eligible. You might need to drop the US citizenship though, but I’m not an expert.
Life Pro Tip for that guy: You should understand what you’re talking about. The reason why all these European countries have these great social programs is because they actually are tough on immigration and don’t have the strain on social programs like we do. If it’s such a shithole, why are immigrants risking their lives to enter the US by any means available?
uis“Strain on social programs” lol.
“why are immigrants risking their lives to enter the US by any means available?” if you want to talk about mexicans, then this is only immigration they can afford.
You mean to tell me we can completely afford all the social programs we have and the country actually isn’t in debt?
You do realize there are far more nationalities than Mexican entering the country, right? I know racist hear the word immigrant, and all they think is brown people, but come on. Do better.
We could if we taxed people properly, if corrupt officials didn’t pocket the money for their own, if money didn’t get thrown down the drain on all the admin salaries, if Medicare was legally allowed to negotiate prices, and if corrupt officials didn’t give money to their company owning friends in the name of “business aids”.
Our country spends double on healthcare compared to the next country down the list and yet we have worse health outcomes. Making it illegal for Medicare to negotiate prices absolutely has something to do with that. In addition “Anderson attributes [higher prices] to consolidation among hospitals and doctors’ practices, which allows them to demand higher prices.
Despite paying higher prices, Americans actually have less access to doctors, nurses and hospital beds. There are only 2.6 practicing doctors per 1,000 people in the US, compared to a median of 3.2 active physicians in the OECD, for instance. The efforts include raising deductibles to give consumers more incentive to shop around for health care services and paying doctors and hospitals based on patients’ health outcomes rather than for every service rendered.”
www.cnn.com/2019/01/08/politics/…/index.html
And before anyone argues that appropriately taxing the rich will make them all leave:
I make over $200k in a retail sales job…it’s very specialized but still retail sales. No college. I live very well here in the US. Perhaps I could move to Europe and make this sort of money with only my drive to sell, but I’d doubt it. Also family …I love my family and see them often.
And that’s what America works for some people. Money.
My career would take a hit in Europe. Just not doing the kinda work we are doing here
Maybe it’s not actually that bad living here in terms of reality?
It amazes me that there isn’t a mass exodus going on in the US
This may blow your mind but there’s thing called “laws” that prevent Americans from simply moving to another country and living there. You need to immigrate, you need paperwork, you need a job, you need to prove to their country that you’re useful there… you know, all the things Americans do to other countries.
I mean, yes, would I like to move to Germany tomorrow? Absolutely. Can I? No, it’s not that simple.
Also just packing up and leaving means leaving behind all your family, friends, possessions. Very probably you’ll have to practically start your career over from a much lower stage, learn a whole new language and live as an outsider in a culture you’re unfamiliar with.
In addition, the people who would most benefit (the very poor with poor paying jobs that don’t have these benefits) are the least able to do so. It’s not just a plane ticket, you need lawyers to help you navigate the process.
And the reality is that despite what social media makes it seem, America isn’t the unbearable dystopia the internet makes it out to be. Do we have problems? Abso-fucking-lutely, more than most first world countries, but not so much that it’s sensible for most to uproot their whole lives to emigrate.
This also ignores that since 2008 there has been a large exodus. Americans are leaving whenever they get the chance.