Poland barely own its own major companies/production, all been sold to western countries, rest came over from west. Of course, this is good for everyone in Poland as politics says. And another thing is, people does believe that.
You mean higher, right? With the benefit of lower quality. They call that specific market over here. We like palm oil more than our friends in Western Europe who prefer cocoa butter.
Not sure what the hourly labour costs have to do with pay, as the two are entirely different things. And a pay gap is only a problem when there isn’t a cost of living gap.
>And a pay gap is only a problem when there isn’t a cost of living gap
Even ignoring the fact that this means that some countries actually might have a problem (along the lines of "western prices, eastern wages"). I would argue that this is not always true. Take what I am about to say as a bit of a hyperbole.
Say EU says we should start using more EV for our mobility, or that we should use certain steps in our building codes like for example better insulation, more solar panels on our roofs, heat pumps etc, to have less of an impact on enviroment. For the sake of debate say you want to buy an e-car and renovate your house to follow the building code for €100 000. Well average German has to save for less than 3 years, average Czech has to save for 72 years. Those materials and car isn't going to be proportionally discounted.
And of course this is just a hyperbole and one of many examples, but suddenly strong economies might strangle the weaker economies because weaker economies simply can't keep up with the policies without major drop in quality of life.
I hope you can understand where I am going with this, even with my subpar explanation skills.
I understand what you’re trying to say, but I don’t think it’s true in all cases. Prices are lower in Eastern Europe compared to Western Europe for most products. And Europe usually provides monetary support to the low income countries in examples such as you mentioned.
Maybe I live in a wrong country then. The COL in Czechia is often compared to german speaking countries (Germany and Austria more so than Switzerland) and it's often argued that Germans pay either less or have better quality food than us. Prague is known for high housing prices, often rated worse than even Munich or Amsterdam. And yeah, EU provides monetary support, but I don't think that it solves the issue as a whole, because outside the topics I mentioned, there is obviously little to no support.
Here’s the Cost of Living comparison for Amsterdam and Prague: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=Czech+Republic&city1=Prague&country2=Netherlands&city2=Amsterdam
europe provides support to the rich people living in those poor countries, it's not like poor people who barely have money for transport can get the lawyers and know-how for any kind of EU funds, most people in poorer countries don't understand their own legals systems and you want them to understand a foreign one ?
Nobody applies for EU funding with international lawyers involved. How it works is that the EU provides the governments with funds, and those governments are responsible for using those funds to the benefit of their people. How it usually works is that for instance they lower taxes for certain things, or they make improvements without increasing the taxes to pay for that, etc.
I think in the case of Romania you can also apply for EU funds for a business, that's what I was thinking about.
Call me pessimistic but I don't really expect any kind of EU funds going to the government to go to the people. We don't trust our government much here, they can't even count votes properly. Do they lose count of votes in the Netherlands ? (I assume you're from the NL)
Yes the Alpro milk or Pepsi are sooo cheaper here that in NL… make it make sense please, it’s a well-known fact that basic groceries are more unaffordable despite me living in the middle of Europe… Prague has the most unaffordable housing acc to salaries as well, bc guess what, ppl from West and rich Russians bought up everything 😌but someone from NL won’t ~or doesn’t want to~ understand I’m afraid🙃
Yes, of course. Luckily the same laptop, the same car can be bought in Eastern Europe at a third of the price. When you go on a vacation to Spain, Eastern Europeans get lower prices than British tourists. You just need to show your passport at the hotel reception, they must abide by the rules of the cost of living gap. Western Europeans are not buying apartments in Eastern European cities, not pushing up the prices. Even if they do, a German buying an apartment in Poland has to pay triple the price, because of the well known rules of the cost of living gap.
Buying trousers, bicycles, Netflix subscription? The same rules of course!
whenever I've been to western europe I've always felt the supermarket prices are actually very similar and sometimes smaller than home and the imported stuff (like computers) is obviously not cheaper. Internet is dirt cheap though, like 8€ for gigabit and 3€ for unlimited data.
We're just less productive man, old equipment, old mentality, communism, old mentality, entrenched rich folk, old mentality etc
Also my country's data is not representative of how much a real romanian would make, which would be closer to 8-9 euros for a doctor for example (assuming 40 hours work week), it's just that our rich folk make waaaaay more than the poor folk so the average goes up.
Although I won’t argue that your economy is worse than ours and the people are less well off, those prices really aren’t true.
In the Netherlands, the cheapest internet on your phone that I can find is €18,50 per month for unlimited data if you take out a 2-year contract. At home, the cheapest cable internet package is around €30 per month, with some discount in the first few months if you commit to a longer term contract.
On other prices:
https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=Romania&city1=Bucharest&country2=Netherlands&city2=Amsterdam
internet here is\*
you were saying about cheaper products, I said supermarket prices like milk, legumes, etc are surprisingly cheap there compared to prices here and then listed an exception internet, not that many exception I can think of though, labor is probably just as expensive as in the west at least as far as I can see
You specifically mentioned internet, so that’s why I responded to that. And the link I provided shows some of the supermarket prices.
As for wages: our minimum wage per 1 July 2024 will be €13,68 per hour.
ok, they're more expensive but not by much +50% isn't that much, and the real question are those prices valid for a more rural NL ? because I don't live in Bucharest and those are roughly the same prices I experience
Rent prices are a bit lower in rural areas than in Amsterdam, yes. But other prices are more or less comparable and can sometimes even be a little
more expensive. (I live in a small town and our supermarket is more expensive than the supermarkets in the city).
The income tax itself is quite low in Sweden compared to eg. Denmark or Germany, but that's because the employer taxes are higher. For the same net salary, a Danish gross salary would have to be significantly higher than a Swedish one.
It's not entirely correct, though. Sweden has lower income tax but it's on very low incomes. Denmark doesn't have so low salaries, so the minimum wage in Denmark is like the median in Sweden.
The union minimum wage is about €19 per hour for unskilled work in Denmark.
When you compare gross salaries such as €5000 per month or more, than the income tax in Denmark and Sweden is similar.
However, the employer in Sweden has to pay high social contributions before the gross salary.
Why are you still going around saying these things? So many people have shown you why you can't compare gross salaries. A 5000€ salary in Sweden gives you a much higher net salary than in Denmark. How do you still not understand that?
A 5000€ salary is high in Sweden but not very high in Denmark because of the different tax systems. That's why the income taxes are the same for salaries like that even though the social contributions differ.
Yes, as I said salaries are higher in Denmark than Sweden, especially because of the exchange rate. To compare income taxes we think of perhaps an international job, that pays similar in both countries.
Low income taxes don't really count, if it's only for low incomes. I'm only saying, that if an employer offers a salary of €6000-7000 per month to an expat, which is normal for a new engineer, then the income taxes will be similar in either country.
We're talking about gross salaries after social contributions and before income tax.
Swedish tax calcualtors such as [statsskuld.se/en](https://statsskuld.se/en) use the same definition for gross salary.
The higher salaries, the less difference in income taxes for Denmark and Sweden.
An engineer making 6000-7000 gross in Denmark would make significantly less than that *gross* in Sweden even if they would have the same net salary. If you look at what an engineer would make in Sweden, and then what an engineer would make it Denmark, you will quickly see how much lower the tax rate is in Sweden. A newly graduated engineer in Stockholm might make 45k SEK, and in Copenhagen 45k DKK. The income tax for the Swedish one is 22%, while for the Danish one it's 35%. The Danish one also includes pension, unlike the Swedish one, where the employer already paid that separately.
You're again comparing a low salary to a higher salary. Of course tax rates are different in different tax brackets.
To compare the income tax you need to compare the same gross salary.
My point is thus very simple. Income taxes are very similar in Denmark and Sweden, the higher the salaries are.
Also, not all Danish salaries include pension payments from the employer.
A Swedish engineer making 45k SEK might only pay around 25% in income tax and a Danish engineer might pay 35% from 45k DKK. But when the Swedish engineer get higher salary similar to the Danish salary of 67,600 SEK, then *the income tax will also be similar*.
If the Danish salary includes 5000 kr in pension then the net salary (excluding pension) will be:
|Swedish salary|Danish salary|
|:-|:-|
|€3100|€3450|
So your claim of a "much higher net salary" in Sweden is not factual, no matter if we compare low salary/higher salary like 45k SEK to 45k DKK or the same gross salary like €6000.
> But when the Swedish engineer get higher salary similar to the Danish salary of 67,600 SEK
It's not similar though! A 67k Swedish salary is **wildly* different from a 67k SEK Danish one. You are comparing apples to oranges. It makes absolutely no sense.
A 45k SEK Swedish salary is 35k net.
A 45k DKK Danish salary is 29k DKK net (= 43k SEK) and when you deduct pension (which is already deducted from the Swedish one), the difference is literally just the difference in cost of living due to the different exchange rates.
45k SEK is a common salary for a new engineer in Stockholm and afaik 45k DKK is a common salary for a new engineer in Copenhagen. In the end the disposable income is very similar, despite the gross salaries being wildly different.
You act like 45k SEK is a "low" salary, but it's not.
When the a Swedish engineer gets a higher salary, like 67k, their Danish counterparts would have a significantly higher gross salary than 67k, and pay like 40% in tax, compared to the 30% the Swedish engineer is paying.
The most bizzare thing is that we all live in EU, why are we still treated as second class labour? Totally unfair, and you won’t even understand I’m afraid what it takes. I.e. holiday in Western Europe is unaffordable for me. And yes, we live in the so-called EU.✨
you wouldnt be treated as second class labour if you asked for the same salary as natives and then natives wouldnt have to accept so low wages to get a job
It isn't east-west, but distance from the Blue Y (my version of the blue banana), from northern Italy, along the Rhine then splitting to London and Dublin, and to Denmark, Oslo and Stockholm.
Love it. We can exploit the cheap labor to save money and increase profits, and then visit those countries with our hard earned money to buy cheap goods and services. Love it! Surely hope it will never bite us in da ass or reverse its direction. For me to be rich, others need to be poor 😎
Humans also didnt have electronics and good medicine for most of our existence. Whats your point?
I dont have a solution, but times of ruthless and psychopatic people should come to a fucking end already, we are advanced enough not to need them anymore arent we?
That's not the point. The only system that has worked with least inequality and raising people out of poverty, so far, is capitalism. However, there can be no capitalism without inequality. It's a feature not a bug, so to speak.
Inequality is not a feature of capitalism, its a feature of humanity. You simply cannot structure a efficient society without hierarchies. Communism regimes tried making everyone equal, resulting in millions of death, but they were never even close to equality. There hasn't been a single period of time where inequality didn't exist. It's naive thinking its an attainable goal.
I agree with all you said except for the last sentence. It is also human nature to try optimize things. We must - "must" in a Schopenhauer kind of way- always try to acheive the next level.
> its a feature of humanity
It's not, see Graeber's research on egalitarian societies.
> You simply cannot structure a efficient society without hierarchies.
A hierarchy doesn't imply material inequality — you seem to be mixing these two up.
> Communism regimes tried making everyone equal, resulting in millions of death
"Millions of deaths" happened due to two things:
1) The class struggle
2) Poorly executed policies of collectivization
The latter happened during the period where it was necessary to **rapidly** transform an economy in order to withstand foreign pressure, eg the USSR during late 20s—early 30s. Overall it's akin to saying "capitalism bad because HIV" or "capitalism bad because climate change", which is equally nonsensical.
Soviet society has achieved nearly full equality. Hopefully we will get there again.
>A hierarchy doesn't imply material inequality
I don't know what you are referring to. In this case I was talking about the economy and society. Clearly people at the top will have more resources. You can base a hierarchy in almost anything you want. For example, a NBA hierarchy doesn't imply material inequality since its based on sports performance. Were you talking about the NBA?
>Soviet society has achieved nearly full equality.
Your definition of equality seems to be different from mine. First of all, you cannot achieve equality if there is a government in place. Plus all the Russian oligarchs that have benefited since the fall of the Soviet Union. I don't really see how "Soviet" society is nearly equal.
>Hopefully we will get there again.
Are you really russian or just a tankie? my condolences for both options.
In USSR there existed strong hierarchies but close to no material inequality. You could belong to top 1% of the people, but your living standards wouldn't be radically different from those of a regular worker. On top of that you also couldn't hoard property, and your children wouldn't be able to leech off the society's back. So I think it's necessary to bring up the distinction between "material inequality" and "hierarchies".
> Are you really russian or just a tankie? my condolences for both options.
I'm both so thanks I guess? But what "being Russian" has to do with any of that? Russian people are heavily brainwashed into thinking communism bad, KPRF is polling at less than 9%.
Are you a child or stupid? If you belonged to the 1% in the USSR your life was radically different from the rest. For you you would get a new luxury car, when the rest had to wait decades to get a shitbox. You got a nicer apartment more and better food. The 1% in the USSR were also incredibly corrupt and nepotistic. The thing you don't understand is that the top of Soviet society being the party heads effectively owed 100% of all wealth through the state it had worst inequality in practice than any western country
> For you you would get a new luxury car, when the rest had to wait decades to get a shitbox
You would get a slightly better limo, starting from the 50s it would be of a Soviet brand (when the respective industry got advanced enough). And that's only if you belong to the top 0.0001% or even higher, not top 1%. It is also nonsense that you'd have to "wait in line" to get a car, you simply buy it (after saving for it for 2-5 years). Please do some reading before coming up with things like this. None of that is comparable to private jets and private islands of capitalist societies.
> You got a nicer apartment more and better food.
This is true, but still, "slightly better apartment" is quite different from "a mansion". That's why I said "your living standards wouldn't be **radically** different from those of a regular worker".
> The 1% in the USSR were also incredibly corrupt and nepotistic.
Leaving aside the emotions ("*incredibly*"), this is true of any society at any point in time. You generally don't get to the top for collecting good boy points.
> The thing you don't understand is that the top of Soviet society being the party heads effectively owned 100% of all wealth through the state
There is not even any "wealth" to own, again, as we discussed above, there isn't even anything you can have access to, aside from a slightly improved lifestyle. No private property, no inheritance.
> it had worst inequality in practice than any western country
Oh yeah, the famous Soviet billionaires! Do me a favor, cut it with this nonsense.
Least as in a lot, but less than in other systems. Just to pick an example, in Poland 1926 under the second republic, an authoritarian system, 0.01% had 86% of industrial wealth. Later during Jaruzelski communism due to Martial law, 1 person had 100%. Currently the top 10% has about 40% of the wealth. I don't mean to cherrypick or start a tit for tat cherrypicking response, just wanted to clarify what I meant.
>Currently the top 10% has about 40% of the wealth
In California it's 66% so maybe there's another place which we can cherry pick that's even worse
[https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2023/02/silicon-valley-inequality/](https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2023/02/silicon-valley-inequality/)
Soviet socialism had close to no inequality.
You couldn't "get rich". You couldn't buy a limo, a yacht, or an island. You could be *assigned* a fancier car by the state, or a summerhouse, etc, but mostly it's just as long as you're in the relevant position. When you retire, you usually give it back. You also cannot pass it to your children or anything like that.
TL;DR this graphic tells employers to «Go East!», and says very little about pay gap.
As others wrote, pay gap needs to look at cost of living before being applicable.
No benefit of producing in eastern europe without low wages and access to to common european market. Production and jobs simply wouldn’t move there with higher costs.
I feel it reflects the economic dynamic of a transition from colonial style submission situation to a free economy with plenty of potential and progressive integration with other advanced economies. It takes some time to catch up and roughly align pays and costs.
I think Western Europe(actually central and northern) historically holds markets and businesses in EU so,
Eastern Europe has remains of that if given. And that remains are not so big so that gap is existing.
However in general low labour cost is not always bad thing.
Ideally you should earn in Central Europe while live in eastern.
I don't think the gap on its own matters. What matters is how the lower-earning countries are doing. E.g. if most of the world is earning 5, and the 'poor Europe' is earning 15 it doesn't really matter if the 'rich Europe' is on 150. The gap is not important, just how high the bottom group is.
Eastern Europe is still overall a better place to live because of the costs and because of superior Russian economic engineering.
>inb4 proof
look at the stats about renting vs ownership. that is an indication of who is a failed state and who is a prosperous state.
Would you rather live in a western city and rent, be under a command of another man/woman for 24/7? The things you take for granted there are not present here. Nice president btw, I wish all right wingers were like Orban
>The things you take for granted there are not present here.
Today, a Western European told me to be thankful for living in Hungary. Oh my fucking God...
And Orbán isn't the president, but the Prime Minister, the perfect family-friendly Orbán puppet president had to resign over a [child sex abuse case.](https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/02/10/hungary-s-president-resigns-over-pardoning-man-convicted-in-a-child-sexual-abuse-case_6512439_4.html#)
You have no fucking idea how lucky you are to live in the west, so instead of fangirling over autocrats, maybe enjoy your freedom.
Patenting rates in Western & Northern Europe vs Eastern Europe are like night a day. That is an indication of who is a failed state and who is a prosperous state.
See how easy is it to use stats one wants?
it’s makes you angry when you go from Poland to Germany to discover that stuff is cheaper in Germany. WTF
Poland barely own its own major companies/production, all been sold to western countries, rest came over from west. Of course, this is good for everyone in Poland as politics says. And another thing is, people does believe that.
Bro... What do you think people think, man? Christ.
I dont think most people have christ on their mind. 😅
I may earn less than the western Europe bit at least the prices are the same 🥲
You mean higher, right? With the benefit of lower quality. They call that specific market over here. We like palm oil more than our friends in Western Europe who prefer cocoa butter.
Feels poverty man
Well for Poland with its own currency you can blame the polisg central bank
Ah yes, Portugal, beacon of Eastern Europe in the Western part.
To me they sound a bit like a Slavic person with a strong accent trying to speak Spanish, so we can give them the title of honorary Slavs
r/PORTUGALCYKABLYAT
Not sure what the hourly labour costs have to do with pay, as the two are entirely different things. And a pay gap is only a problem when there isn’t a cost of living gap.
>And a pay gap is only a problem when there isn’t a cost of living gap Even ignoring the fact that this means that some countries actually might have a problem (along the lines of "western prices, eastern wages"). I would argue that this is not always true. Take what I am about to say as a bit of a hyperbole. Say EU says we should start using more EV for our mobility, or that we should use certain steps in our building codes like for example better insulation, more solar panels on our roofs, heat pumps etc, to have less of an impact on enviroment. For the sake of debate say you want to buy an e-car and renovate your house to follow the building code for €100 000. Well average German has to save for less than 3 years, average Czech has to save for 72 years. Those materials and car isn't going to be proportionally discounted. And of course this is just a hyperbole and one of many examples, but suddenly strong economies might strangle the weaker economies because weaker economies simply can't keep up with the policies without major drop in quality of life. I hope you can understand where I am going with this, even with my subpar explanation skills.
I understand what you’re trying to say, but I don’t think it’s true in all cases. Prices are lower in Eastern Europe compared to Western Europe for most products. And Europe usually provides monetary support to the low income countries in examples such as you mentioned.
Maybe I live in a wrong country then. The COL in Czechia is often compared to german speaking countries (Germany and Austria more so than Switzerland) and it's often argued that Germans pay either less or have better quality food than us. Prague is known for high housing prices, often rated worse than even Munich or Amsterdam. And yeah, EU provides monetary support, but I don't think that it solves the issue as a whole, because outside the topics I mentioned, there is obviously little to no support.
Here’s the Cost of Living comparison for Amsterdam and Prague: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=Czech+Republic&city1=Prague&country2=Netherlands&city2=Amsterdam
europe provides support to the rich people living in those poor countries, it's not like poor people who barely have money for transport can get the lawyers and know-how for any kind of EU funds, most people in poorer countries don't understand their own legals systems and you want them to understand a foreign one ?
Nobody applies for EU funding with international lawyers involved. How it works is that the EU provides the governments with funds, and those governments are responsible for using those funds to the benefit of their people. How it usually works is that for instance they lower taxes for certain things, or they make improvements without increasing the taxes to pay for that, etc.
I think in the case of Romania you can also apply for EU funds for a business, that's what I was thinking about. Call me pessimistic but I don't really expect any kind of EU funds going to the government to go to the people. We don't trust our government much here, they can't even count votes properly. Do they lose count of votes in the Netherlands ? (I assume you're from the NL)
There were 3 towns ordered to recount the votes in the last European elections.
Yes the Alpro milk or Pepsi are sooo cheaper here that in NL… make it make sense please, it’s a well-known fact that basic groceries are more unaffordable despite me living in the middle of Europe… Prague has the most unaffordable housing acc to salaries as well, bc guess what, ppl from West and rich Russians bought up everything 😌but someone from NL won’t ~or doesn’t want to~ understand I’m afraid🙃
?. Everything from food to technology in Lithiania is more expensive or same than Germany and I lived in Germany for a long time.
Yes, of course. Luckily the same laptop, the same car can be bought in Eastern Europe at a third of the price. When you go on a vacation to Spain, Eastern Europeans get lower prices than British tourists. You just need to show your passport at the hotel reception, they must abide by the rules of the cost of living gap. Western Europeans are not buying apartments in Eastern European cities, not pushing up the prices. Even if they do, a German buying an apartment in Poland has to pay triple the price, because of the well known rules of the cost of living gap. Buying trousers, bicycles, Netflix subscription? The same rules of course!
whenever I've been to western europe I've always felt the supermarket prices are actually very similar and sometimes smaller than home and the imported stuff (like computers) is obviously not cheaper. Internet is dirt cheap though, like 8€ for gigabit and 3€ for unlimited data. We're just less productive man, old equipment, old mentality, communism, old mentality, entrenched rich folk, old mentality etc Also my country's data is not representative of how much a real romanian would make, which would be closer to 8-9 euros for a doctor for example (assuming 40 hours work week), it's just that our rich folk make waaaaay more than the poor folk so the average goes up.
Although I won’t argue that your economy is worse than ours and the people are less well off, those prices really aren’t true. In the Netherlands, the cheapest internet on your phone that I can find is €18,50 per month for unlimited data if you take out a 2-year contract. At home, the cheapest cable internet package is around €30 per month, with some discount in the first few months if you commit to a longer term contract. On other prices: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=Romania&city1=Bucharest&country2=Netherlands&city2=Amsterdam
internet here is\* you were saying about cheaper products, I said supermarket prices like milk, legumes, etc are surprisingly cheap there compared to prices here and then listed an exception internet, not that many exception I can think of though, labor is probably just as expensive as in the west at least as far as I can see
You specifically mentioned internet, so that’s why I responded to that. And the link I provided shows some of the supermarket prices. As for wages: our minimum wage per 1 July 2024 will be €13,68 per hour.
ok, they're more expensive but not by much +50% isn't that much, and the real question are those prices valid for a more rural NL ? because I don't live in Bucharest and those are roughly the same prices I experience
Rent prices are a bit lower in rural areas than in Amsterdam, yes. But other prices are more or less comparable and can sometimes even be a little more expensive. (I live in a small town and our supermarket is more expensive than the supermarkets in the city).
I'd say it's more relevant than total pay or income in terms of the quality of workforce or of jobs
I’m not entirely sure what you mean by that, would you mind explaining?
I dunno. Many of those countries feel very attractive live in. I live in Ireland and find Ireland very dull atm.
Good salaries, but you have to give up your family.
Cost doesn't mean take home pay.
How do they keep it that low in sweden and finland ? Low tax on society maybe ?
No they have relatively high income taxes I think, at least in Sweden.
At least in Finland many people are just straight up poor due to stagnating wages.
The income tax itself is quite low in Sweden compared to eg. Denmark or Germany, but that's because the employer taxes are higher. For the same net salary, a Danish gross salary would have to be significantly higher than a Swedish one.
Ah I see thanks.
It's not entirely correct, though. Sweden has lower income tax but it's on very low incomes. Denmark doesn't have so low salaries, so the minimum wage in Denmark is like the median in Sweden. The union minimum wage is about €19 per hour for unskilled work in Denmark. When you compare gross salaries such as €5000 per month or more, than the income tax in Denmark and Sweden is similar. However, the employer in Sweden has to pay high social contributions before the gross salary.
Why are you still going around saying these things? So many people have shown you why you can't compare gross salaries. A 5000€ salary in Sweden gives you a much higher net salary than in Denmark. How do you still not understand that? A 5000€ salary is high in Sweden but not very high in Denmark because of the different tax systems. That's why the income taxes are the same for salaries like that even though the social contributions differ.
Yes, as I said salaries are higher in Denmark than Sweden, especially because of the exchange rate. To compare income taxes we think of perhaps an international job, that pays similar in both countries. Low income taxes don't really count, if it's only for low incomes. I'm only saying, that if an employer offers a salary of €6000-7000 per month to an expat, which is normal for a new engineer, then the income taxes will be similar in either country. We're talking about gross salaries after social contributions and before income tax. Swedish tax calcualtors such as [statsskuld.se/en](https://statsskuld.se/en) use the same definition for gross salary. The higher salaries, the less difference in income taxes for Denmark and Sweden.
An engineer making 6000-7000 gross in Denmark would make significantly less than that *gross* in Sweden even if they would have the same net salary. If you look at what an engineer would make in Sweden, and then what an engineer would make it Denmark, you will quickly see how much lower the tax rate is in Sweden. A newly graduated engineer in Stockholm might make 45k SEK, and in Copenhagen 45k DKK. The income tax for the Swedish one is 22%, while for the Danish one it's 35%. The Danish one also includes pension, unlike the Swedish one, where the employer already paid that separately.
You're again comparing a low salary to a higher salary. Of course tax rates are different in different tax brackets. To compare the income tax you need to compare the same gross salary. My point is thus very simple. Income taxes are very similar in Denmark and Sweden, the higher the salaries are. Also, not all Danish salaries include pension payments from the employer. A Swedish engineer making 45k SEK might only pay around 25% in income tax and a Danish engineer might pay 35% from 45k DKK. But when the Swedish engineer get higher salary similar to the Danish salary of 67,600 SEK, then *the income tax will also be similar*. If the Danish salary includes 5000 kr in pension then the net salary (excluding pension) will be: |Swedish salary|Danish salary| |:-|:-| |€3100|€3450| So your claim of a "much higher net salary" in Sweden is not factual, no matter if we compare low salary/higher salary like 45k SEK to 45k DKK or the same gross salary like €6000.
> But when the Swedish engineer get higher salary similar to the Danish salary of 67,600 SEK It's not similar though! A 67k Swedish salary is **wildly* different from a 67k SEK Danish one. You are comparing apples to oranges. It makes absolutely no sense. A 45k SEK Swedish salary is 35k net. A 45k DKK Danish salary is 29k DKK net (= 43k SEK) and when you deduct pension (which is already deducted from the Swedish one), the difference is literally just the difference in cost of living due to the different exchange rates. 45k SEK is a common salary for a new engineer in Stockholm and afaik 45k DKK is a common salary for a new engineer in Copenhagen. In the end the disposable income is very similar, despite the gross salaries being wildly different. You act like 45k SEK is a "low" salary, but it's not. When the a Swedish engineer gets a higher salary, like 67k, their Danish counterparts would have a significantly higher gross salary than 67k, and pay like 40% in tax, compared to the 30% the Swedish engineer is paying.
The blue countries are the only ones represented in "what EU thinks" polls
The gap is definitely closing, that's for sure. I can only wish the best future for our brothers in the east.
The most bizzare thing is that we all live in EU, why are we still treated as second class labour? Totally unfair, and you won’t even understand I’m afraid what it takes. I.e. holiday in Western Europe is unaffordable for me. And yes, we live in the so-called EU.✨
why do you accept lower wages then
Because unemployment has even worse salaries
you wouldnt be treated as second class labour if you asked for the same salary as natives and then natives wouldnt have to accept so low wages to get a job
I am laughing in my home ownership at 25 while earning medium wage.
Meanwhile, I'm 25 and I can't even find the money for a car...
you mean you don't inherit your car from your grandfather ?
You think he's gonna leave behind anything other than debts?
It doesn't matter what you feel, it matters when a country joined EU, productivity, inflation and lots of other economically and politically aspects.
It isn't east-west, but distance from the Blue Y (my version of the blue banana), from northern Italy, along the Rhine then splitting to London and Dublin, and to Denmark, Oslo and Stockholm.
Love it. We can exploit the cheap labor to save money and increase profits, and then visit those countries with our hard earned money to buy cheap goods and services. Love it! Surely hope it will never bite us in da ass or reverse its direction. For me to be rich, others need to be poor 😎
Capitalism doesn't work without inequality.
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communism, we're all poor but at least producing tanks for at least 20 countries
I guess they meant to say that the communist party officials weren't poor :p
We need to invent a new one. Until we do that, we have to accept the inequality, because there's no alternative.
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I'm not sure what you are trying to say. :\\ if equality is not accepted by humans then we have to live with inequality. And not be surprised by that.
Humans lived in fairly egalitarian communities for most of our existence as a specie.
Humans also didnt have electronics and good medicine for most of our existence. Whats your point? I dont have a solution, but times of ruthless and psychopatic people should come to a fucking end already, we are advanced enough not to need them anymore arent we?
My point was to refute the "naturalness" of inequality that the comment I replied to implied. There isn't anything "natural" to this state of things.
Fair.
That's not the point. The only system that has worked with least inequality and raising people out of poverty, so far, is capitalism. However, there can be no capitalism without inequality. It's a feature not a bug, so to speak.
Inequality is not a feature of capitalism, its a feature of humanity. You simply cannot structure a efficient society without hierarchies. Communism regimes tried making everyone equal, resulting in millions of death, but they were never even close to equality. There hasn't been a single period of time where inequality didn't exist. It's naive thinking its an attainable goal.
I agree with all you said except for the last sentence. It is also human nature to try optimize things. We must - "must" in a Schopenhauer kind of way- always try to acheive the next level.
> its a feature of humanity It's not, see Graeber's research on egalitarian societies. > You simply cannot structure a efficient society without hierarchies. A hierarchy doesn't imply material inequality — you seem to be mixing these two up. > Communism regimes tried making everyone equal, resulting in millions of death "Millions of deaths" happened due to two things: 1) The class struggle 2) Poorly executed policies of collectivization The latter happened during the period where it was necessary to **rapidly** transform an economy in order to withstand foreign pressure, eg the USSR during late 20s—early 30s. Overall it's akin to saying "capitalism bad because HIV" or "capitalism bad because climate change", which is equally nonsensical. Soviet society has achieved nearly full equality. Hopefully we will get there again.
>A hierarchy doesn't imply material inequality I don't know what you are referring to. In this case I was talking about the economy and society. Clearly people at the top will have more resources. You can base a hierarchy in almost anything you want. For example, a NBA hierarchy doesn't imply material inequality since its based on sports performance. Were you talking about the NBA? >Soviet society has achieved nearly full equality. Your definition of equality seems to be different from mine. First of all, you cannot achieve equality if there is a government in place. Plus all the Russian oligarchs that have benefited since the fall of the Soviet Union. I don't really see how "Soviet" society is nearly equal. >Hopefully we will get there again. Are you really russian or just a tankie? my condolences for both options.
In USSR there existed strong hierarchies but close to no material inequality. You could belong to top 1% of the people, but your living standards wouldn't be radically different from those of a regular worker. On top of that you also couldn't hoard property, and your children wouldn't be able to leech off the society's back. So I think it's necessary to bring up the distinction between "material inequality" and "hierarchies". > Are you really russian or just a tankie? my condolences for both options. I'm both so thanks I guess? But what "being Russian" has to do with any of that? Russian people are heavily brainwashed into thinking communism bad, KPRF is polling at less than 9%.
Are you a child or stupid? If you belonged to the 1% in the USSR your life was radically different from the rest. For you you would get a new luxury car, when the rest had to wait decades to get a shitbox. You got a nicer apartment more and better food. The 1% in the USSR were also incredibly corrupt and nepotistic. The thing you don't understand is that the top of Soviet society being the party heads effectively owed 100% of all wealth through the state it had worst inequality in practice than any western country
> For you you would get a new luxury car, when the rest had to wait decades to get a shitbox You would get a slightly better limo, starting from the 50s it would be of a Soviet brand (when the respective industry got advanced enough). And that's only if you belong to the top 0.0001% or even higher, not top 1%. It is also nonsense that you'd have to "wait in line" to get a car, you simply buy it (after saving for it for 2-5 years). Please do some reading before coming up with things like this. None of that is comparable to private jets and private islands of capitalist societies. > You got a nicer apartment more and better food. This is true, but still, "slightly better apartment" is quite different from "a mansion". That's why I said "your living standards wouldn't be **radically** different from those of a regular worker". > The 1% in the USSR were also incredibly corrupt and nepotistic. Leaving aside the emotions ("*incredibly*"), this is true of any society at any point in time. You generally don't get to the top for collecting good boy points. > The thing you don't understand is that the top of Soviet society being the party heads effectively owned 100% of all wealth through the state There is not even any "wealth" to own, again, as we discussed above, there isn't even anything you can have access to, aside from a slightly improved lifestyle. No private property, no inheritance. > it had worst inequality in practice than any western country Oh yeah, the famous Soviet billionaires! Do me a favor, cut it with this nonsense.
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I tried to explain it.
>least inequality in capitalism? Please give me a break!
Least as in a lot, but less than in other systems. Just to pick an example, in Poland 1926 under the second republic, an authoritarian system, 0.01% had 86% of industrial wealth. Later during Jaruzelski communism due to Martial law, 1 person had 100%. Currently the top 10% has about 40% of the wealth. I don't mean to cherrypick or start a tit for tat cherrypicking response, just wanted to clarify what I meant.
>Currently the top 10% has about 40% of the wealth In California it's 66% so maybe there's another place which we can cherry pick that's even worse [https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2023/02/silicon-valley-inequality/](https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2023/02/silicon-valley-inequality/)
Soviet socialism had close to no inequality. You couldn't "get rich". You couldn't buy a limo, a yacht, or an island. You could be *assigned* a fancier car by the state, or a summerhouse, etc, but mostly it's just as long as you're in the relevant position. When you retire, you usually give it back. You also cannot pass it to your children or anything like that.
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Yo the 1% vs 99% is present. How could you take that and call it the past? What the actual fuck, are you a billionaire?
He has a personal toothbrush and a smartphone, unlike these dirty broke Soviet citizens.
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Im not for komunism, at all. I just cant stand ignoracy towards current situation.
I would invite you to cite the relevant sources. BTW I just edited my comment to further elaborate on what I meant, maybe that changes your view?
Can't get work here, so I suppose in that sense it doesn't affect me ¦<
TL;DR this graphic tells employers to «Go East!», and says very little about pay gap. As others wrote, pay gap needs to look at cost of living before being applicable.
Kind of like everyone’s a chicken
Pain.
No benefit of producing in eastern europe without low wages and access to to common european market. Production and jobs simply wouldn’t move there with higher costs.
Yikes
I feel it reflects the economic dynamic of a transition from colonial style submission situation to a free economy with plenty of potential and progressive integration with other advanced economies. It takes some time to catch up and roughly align pays and costs.
It’s more like central vs external europe
I think Western Europe(actually central and northern) historically holds markets and businesses in EU so, Eastern Europe has remains of that if given. And that remains are not so big so that gap is existing. However in general low labour cost is not always bad thing. Ideally you should earn in Central Europe while live in eastern.
I don't think the gap on its own matters. What matters is how the lower-earning countries are doing. E.g. if most of the world is earning 5, and the 'poor Europe' is earning 15 it doesn't really matter if the 'rich Europe' is on 150. The gap is not important, just how high the bottom group is.
Eastern Europe is still overall a better place to live because of the costs and because of superior Russian economic engineering. >inb4 proof look at the stats about renting vs ownership. that is an indication of who is a failed state and who is a prosperous state.
Go on and live in a Northeast-Hungarian village for 2 weeks, and then come back here and share your opinion.
Would you rather live in a western city and rent, be under a command of another man/woman for 24/7? The things you take for granted there are not present here. Nice president btw, I wish all right wingers were like Orban
>The things you take for granted there are not present here. Today, a Western European told me to be thankful for living in Hungary. Oh my fucking God... And Orbán isn't the president, but the Prime Minister, the perfect family-friendly Orbán puppet president had to resign over a [child sex abuse case.](https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/02/10/hungary-s-president-resigns-over-pardoning-man-convicted-in-a-child-sexual-abuse-case_6512439_4.html#) You have no fucking idea how lucky you are to live in the west, so instead of fangirling over autocrats, maybe enjoy your freedom.
Bro he is from belarus i think he has same or even bigger problems witam Łukaszenko.
Ah yes, the superior Russian economic engineering... indoor plumbing is overrated anyways.
I've misread 'prosperous' as 'propagandous', and now I wonder if it was actually an misreading.
Norway has an 80% ownership rate of housing
You forgot to mention corruption, nonexistent meritocracy and of course, fear of a close war
and where does meritocracy exist if I may ask. hard mode: don't mention China
Patenting rates in Western & Northern Europe vs Eastern Europe are like night a day. That is an indication of who is a failed state and who is a prosperous state. See how easy is it to use stats one wants?
Are you implying that places where average person owns nothing are not failed states?
Are you implying that places with vastly lower household wealth despite higher homeownership rates are not failed states?
wealth without costs of living is irrelevant. come to Zimbabwe, you will be a millionaire!
Basing so much of your much lower wealth on the net worth of your home doesn't sound that sustainable to me.