One thing I would like to address when it comes to higher taxes and lower pay than what you might get in the US is that to some degree, it's making the society a better place for the 90% who are not enjoying top salaries.
Consider the situation of me and my wife, we got monetary aid for attending the free high quality universities. This had nothing to do with the wealth of our families, it's available for everyone. Just like all the education before that.
We had our first child and bought a house in our 20s, easily done since one can get into work life without any debt. Oh, and we both had a year off work to spend with the said child. Expecting a second and planning to do the very same with her.
We reside ~30 minutes from the city center that's accessible via affordable public transportation and even walking / cycling roads where cars are not allowed. The air is clean and these roads go through small forests and parks.
When it comes to income, we're well off nowadays, probably in the 5% of top earning households (in our early 30s). But despite that, due to sensible city planning and good social policies, we have a lot of friends from different income brackets living next to us, having pretty similar quality of life as we do, who also bought their own apartments in their 20s and had kids. Our children go to the same kindergarten, will end up in the same schools, and they will do so with other kids from all walks of life. That's a real treasure in my opinion. Compared to the rest of the world, they are also quite safe in here. Some US cities look like warzones (statistically speaking) compared to our roughest neighbourhoods.
I have an idea what the SV top earner life without kids looks like, it's pretty sweet I can admit that. Would I trade my life to have that? Never, if it means that my friends without jobs have to live on the street without healthcare. Life is just so much better when everyone has a decent standard of living.
Life in the USA can be seriously depressing. There is a constant awareness of just how unequal everyone's opportunities were. There is a lot of visible poverty and crime. I have personally watched people eat bits of food out of the gutter in San Francisco. There's also a lot of animosity between the haves and the have-nots. Daily conversation with strangers can be a minefield. Does this person not have access to health care? Do they have hundreds of thousands in school or medical debt? Do they expect to ever be able to retire? Does their job even allow them any paid vacation? Is a comfortable and well-paid job hopelessly out of reach for them? Have they experienced racial discrimination in school or work?
For many, many people, the psychic pain of all this inequality is too much and they retreat into bubbles of people very similar to themselves. Communities, schools, workplaces, and social networks can be shockingly segregated by race and class and people constantly get more unable to relate to the lives of others.
A little extra money is worthless in comparison to all that. Please enjoy the egalitarian society that we will never know.
> we have a lot of friends from different income brackets living next to us, having pretty similar quality of life as we do, who also bought their own apartments in their 20s and had kids.
This fact only is a reason to live in countries with proper social policies, and accept paying high taxes is not a bad thing
Consider the situation of me and my wife, we got monetary aid for attending the free high quality universities. This had nothing to do with the wealth of our families, it's available for everyone. Just like all the education before that.
We had our first child and bought a house in our 20s, easily done since one can get into work life without any debt. Oh, and we both had a year off work to spend with the said child. Expecting a second and planning to do the very same with her.
We reside ~30 minutes from the city center that's accessible via affordable public transportation and even walking / cycling roads where cars are not allowed. The air is clean and these roads go through small forests and parks.
When it comes to income, we're well off nowadays, probably in the 5% of top earning households (in our early 30s). But despite that, due to sensible city planning and good social policies, we have a lot of friends from different income brackets living next to us, having pretty similar quality of life as we do, who also bought their own apartments in their 20s and had kids. Our children go to the same kindergarten, will end up in the same schools, and they will do so with other kids from all walks of life. That's a real treasure in my opinion. Compared to the rest of the world, they are also quite safe in here. Some US cities look like warzones (statistically speaking) compared to our roughest neighbourhoods.
I have an idea what the SV top earner life without kids looks like, it's pretty sweet I can admit that. Would I trade my life to have that? Never, if it means that my friends without jobs have to live on the street without healthcare. Life is just so much better when everyone has a decent standard of living.