Average Wages Around Europe
 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...y_average_wage

two things are missing for better picture

- grey economy
- cost living / salary ratio

Not sure if this is very up to date and also keeping in consideration that the larger European cities (Frankfurt, Hamburg, London etc) obviously have much, much, much higher salaries.. I do think that this is a pretty good reflection of the European map.
But what you dont see is why Scandinavia actually have those high salaries.. I mean you have to compare it to the cost of living as well.. And Estonia higher salary as Poland or Czech.. Dont think so..

hmmmm... ukraine is europe :1orglaugh
http://mignews.com.ua/modules/news/i...inyala-dik.jpg

Yes, Ukraine is in Europe, as well as Belarussia and your own motherland. Go back to the school and learn geography already.

I've very surprised with the massive difference between North & South Italy :helpme

Yep, because it does make much more sense, but I haven't seen those mixed indexes. Just this one, which is also almost senseless, because GDP should not be calculated in dollars (since it's an internal product) and because higher military expenses don't mean a better life for a regular citizen:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...ta_in_2015.svg

Looks like I'm doing better than average.. :thumbsup

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...)_pe r_capita

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...PP)_per_capita

GDP PPP is more accurate as it reflects the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP)

All vegetables are not the same.

Yup! Good for us then and I'm not complaining :winkwink:

It's not North & South Italy genius, it's Italy and Malta :1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

That's pretty old.. there were the same numbers like two years ago

So the best places to live are Qatar, Kuwait and Singapore? Sorry, but I would not agree :upsidedow

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

Where did I say "best places to live?"

Actually, Singapore has a very well paid financial sector.
Doha is the capital city and most populous city of the State of Qatar -- OPEC money. The figures are not for 2015 or 2016 to date. I imagine most oil exporting country have a lowered ranking today.

If you are poor or or immigrant labor wages it sucks wherever you live.

My point was better to normalize the European income disparity seen.

Not you, this list "says" that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...PP)_per_capita

But you would not want to live in those countries (even as a regular citizen and not as a poor immigrant), right? So I'm.

All those lists have zero informational content. Unfortunately I haven't seen something that clearly shows the relationship of average wages and the things the one can afford for that money. For example, some Joe earns $10,000 a month, but he has to pay about 90% of that money + various insurances etc. Can we say he has a better life than someone who earns $300 (officially) and pays 13% tax + $800 (unofficially - "tax free")? Especially if the average price of services for the first guy is about 10 times higher than for the second one?

For example, the average salaries in Sweden are rather high for Europe, but if you earn more than $5,200 a month, you will have to pay $51% tax. Also if you compare the average prices in Sweden vs say Greece, you will see a huge difference in several times. So it's very hard to say where an average citizen lives better.

Just another example. In my country an MRI of brain will cost you about $25, a caries treatment is about $30. I'm talking about good private clinics, not some free municipal ones. Now how much you will pay for that in the USA? 10x time more? No, in the States you will pay 100x times more for the same services. So to be able to afford the same services as here, you must earn 100x times more there.

I really would like to find some index which reflects the real dependence between the earnings and the cost of life.

obviously Russia is the best place to live, even though just about any statistic pegs it as one of the worst in Europe... :error

caries treatment for $30... who gives a shit dude? it's $80 here, that's about 3 hours of work at an average salary here...

As you say :1orglaugh

BTW, those were Moscow prices. The average dental prices across the country are much cheaper: about 1000 rubles for depth caries treatment which is equal to $15 according to the current exchange rate, and we don't pay for Obamacare here ;)

Income Per Capita Definition | Investopedia

I don't think average salaries when comparing standards of living.

There are also other considerations like affordability of residential property of cost or rent for a tenant. Affordability of durable goods. Cost and availability of healthcare. The list goes on and on -- what makes for a reasonable life for the average or median income level.

No one is considering VAT, GST or state sales taxes -- they really comes into play on larger durable goods purchases. How many months does it take to buy a new automobile or how many weeks/or days work to buy a mobile smartphone -- things like that matter.

How many people are in the top 20% income percentiles? Distribution of wealth and opportunity matters.

This is not to be found on a simple chart :2 cents:

However, by the OP chart of European incomes that is not adjusted to living standards I can plainly see why the intra-EU migration patterns are what they are. The cost of living in Luxembourg is very high where in Germany, France or the UK the southern European's lifestyle might be better (that is assuming he is working and earning a wage).

Look at the growth rate in the US states by rank 2009/2015 -- does increased GDP translate into higher wages and better living standards? Data is what you make of it :2 cents:

Maybe that is more meaningful?

disposable income (the income you actually get to spend on stuff you want):

https://public.tableau.com/static/im...eet1/1_rss.png

</thread> :winkwink:

Depends on which exactly stuff you have to pay every month for and how much. E.g. what's your tax rate? Do you have to waste your money on Obamacare monthly? How much do you pay for house/apartments renting (if you don't have your own real estate)? How much do you pay for electricity, heating (if you live in the cold area), water, natural gas supply, garbage collection and other services (e.g. lift maintenance and cleaning in apartment buildings)? How much for Internet, cable TV, phone etc? How much do you pay for education of your kids? How much do you pay for medical service if it's under the Obamacare's deductible? How much do you pay for a taxi, for a subway/bus ticket, for a haircut or for a house cleaning? How much are average traffic fines in your area? How much are gas prices? All these things matter and they determine the real wage/cost of living index.

P.S. If you want, we may compare all these numbers for our regions, so we can do some calculations :)

scandinavia is leading they have always been strong countries

wrong again ...

You want to look at discretionary income.
Disposable Income Definition | Investopedia

Disposable income is income after mandatory taxes.

That same $44K disposable income after deductions for other loan obligations, cars, boat, student loans, etc. might qualify you for a $100K to $60K mortgage loan half the average price of a house maybe?
from a mortgage calculator list:
You said the buy the ''stuff you want'' like a house or condo(apartment)? Maybe, if you live in a large city you do not need a private auto and you can use a taxi or the subway. How many people own a home free and clear? Their discretionary income is higher. If a village African owns his hut then he doesn't pay rent -- it is all relative. However, if you live in a hut or tent and have to go to the well to get water -- that is 200 years behind the times -- so I imagine that is not a good living standard.:1orglaugh

Who can afford to own a home in the US?
American FactFinder - Results
That table is national average and not by state. The EU would be the same difference by nation (or state). You could break that data out to compare the states with higher GDP growth that I mentioned.

But that still doesn't tell you where it is better to live. Weather (climate), lifestyle and entertainment opportunities ... There are so many variables.

Yes, I live in the largest megalopolis in Europe, which is much bigger than NYC. Course we have a personal car, but it's almost useless in the traffic jams during the rush hours. So subway is still the fastest transport here.

A lot in my country. That's because during the Soviet times all apartments were owned by the government and were provided to the citizens for unlimited time. When Soviet Union has collapsed, all those apartments were privatized by the people who lived there for symbolic price (for free).

Plus to that lots of the city families here have a dacha (please read the Wikipedia article to understand the meaning of this word) - a second home in the exurbs of the city. They are in personal own so no rent is being paid.

Sure the US climate is much better than ours, because we have really cold winters here. But there is a good thing about it, we have no hurricanes and tornadoes ;)

can you really be this stupid?

Cost of Living Comparison Between Prague, Czech Republic And Moscow, Russia

That's comparing Prague and Moscow and we're on the lower end in terms of quality of life in Europe :D

So what should it show to me? The consumer and groceries prices are lower in Moscow. Yes, our renting prices and restaurant ones are higher than in Prague. Those things are always more expensive in megalopolises like Moscow (2561,5 km2), London (1,572 km2) or Tokyo (2,187 km2) in comparison to small cities like Prague (496 km2).

Average salary in Prague is 25,000 CZK or $1039.91 USD a month
Average salary in Moscow is 66,562 RUB or $1036.79 USD a month

Before the financial crisis an average salary here was 2x times more. Anyways, as you can see, the average official* salaries in Prague and in Moscow is almost the same according to the current CZK and RUB exchange rates. Now tell me what's your tax? All Russians pay a fixed tax of 13% of their salary. Personally I pay only 6%, because I'm a self-employed person. Now how much do you pay?

* When I say "official" I mean so-called "white" salary which is reflected in financial documents and taxed. However the people here are used to receive "black salary" (aka "salary in envelope"). It's not taxed and usually it's much more than your official salary. When your employer doesn't want to pay taxes it hires you for some minimal allowed salary (in Moscow it's only 16,500 RUB or $256 USD a month) which you both will pay taxes from, but the main part of the salary (say another 60,000 rubles) will be paid to you in cash and it won't be reflected in the financial documents. That's why the actual salaries have nothing to do with the official ones here. And that's why some clerk with an official salary of $300 UDS a month can afford to own apartments in Moscow (one bedroom ugly Khrushchyovkas start at $100,000 USD here), a good car and travel the world two times a year.

Hope you have learned something new about salaries in Russia ;)

:thumbsup:thumbsup

GDP per capita for Russia is something like $9000/year ($750/month)... so yea, obviously everyone in Russia makes $1000 in "white" salary, then on top of that another couple thousand in "black" salary...

all this time I thought Russians excel in math, and I was right!... they figured out how to pay someone $1000s/month for $750/month worth of goods/services... :thumbsup

GDP per capita for Russia is $25,411 / year, but as I said above it's stupid to calculate it in USD, since it's an internal product (we use rubles here). Also there are two things you don't aware of:

1) GDP is not that you earn but also it's what you spend. For example, the States spend a lot to their useless and overpriced army. This money inflates your GDP (the US GDP per capita is 55,805 which is 2x times more than in Russia) but it doesn't make your life better, because you just waste this money, not earn it.

2) Russian GDP is an absolutely useful number which has no relation to the real life. It doesn't include "black salaries", "откаты" (I really can't find the proper English translation/explanation) etc. Most of the money here circulate in "grey" and "black" zones. Even when you buy apartments or a house, you pay with cash (yes I mean a real case with money like in all those movies about mafia). This cash is not documented somehow and is not included into the official GDP. I'll try to show you a very simple example. When you want to move from one district of your city to the another one you simple call a taxi. Do you know that most of Russians do? They just raise a hand, stop a car (not a taxi, just a random car) and pay to a driver in cash for delivery. You can't do this in the States because work w/o a license and tax evasion are the crimes there. Here in Russia it's a usual thing which everybody does.

Once I've stopped a car of Russian parliament member, and his driver (he was alone) took me to the place I wanted ;)

Not in Russia. $1030 is the average official salary in Moscow only. In other places it's about 2x times less. And yes, it's just a "white" part of it. The "black" part is always paid in cash (that's why it's "black"), so it can't be included into the officials stats. To be honest, even your colleagues don't know how much you receive "in envelope". Why we say "envelope"? That's because you really get the most part of your salary in the paper envelope so nobody couldn't know what's inside. It's illegal but it's also a usual practice here.

You forgot one.

Expectations of the workers. The cost of living apart from housing are very similar. Food has a price that's comparable between Czech and the UK. Fuel is similar. The big difference here is people don't need to own so much.

This is why Western Europe businesses and politicians are so keen to bring in migrants who will work for a lot less.

Now add the costs of owning a house, two cars, buying the latest gadgets, etc. Americans have been brainwashed into spending on shit they don't need. Remember when the board had all the threads of people boasting what they had bought.

so the US is doing awesome?

or is everything horrible like Trump says

can't be both

On stuff a marketing man convinces you to want.

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1357116/original.jpg

http://dy00k1db5oznd.cloudfront.net/...therjones2.png

https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content...come-share.png

https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-...assincome3.png

Will those graphs turn around? Not until Americans turns around. I suspect most here are doing worse that they were.

Europe needs people like Farage, Le Penn, etc. Who know that Europeans can't keep giving money to others.

it's actually $9,055... PPP one is after bs "adjustments", which is not what we are discussing here... average Russian makes $9k/year and that's that... so average citizen can afford 12 $750 iphones per year... or 25% of a $36k BMW per year... or one $9000 vacation to Paris... etc... there is no "adjusting" out of that reality...

"65 Russia 9,055"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...al)_per_capita

GDP is what you produce, not what you spend...

if we are going to go by what you spend, standard of living in the US is actually higher than what GDP would suggest, because we spend more than we produce...

every country has this problem, in Russia it may be informal taxi service like you suggested, in the US it might be some entrepreneur growing and selling illegal weed... but in all countries best efforts are made to estimate these gray market economies, it's not like they are ignored and not included in the GDP just because they are not listed on some government tax form...

depends who you ask, many are probably not thrilled with the way things are going... but those that are smart, hard working, etc are doing fine... :thumbsup

fuck that shit

and since you are here only for trolling i'll save my breath on a more detailed reply