60k anywhere in EU gives you pretty comfy life with two to three proper holidays a year and regular short weekend trips. And there's something left on the table for savings and hobbies as well. You will probably never be rich rich but you will have no money worries.
I'm closer to the second figure working in the UK, actually. You won't certainly get $60k/yr working for one of the FAANG offices in London.
In fact, how many US Netflix employees are actually earning $500k/yr like we were discussing upthread? I doubt that's the salary of a junior frontend employee. If it is, good for them. I don't think my quality of life and happiness would change dramatically between $250k and $1M/yr, but apparently this is so hard to convey to an American audience that thinks more money == more happiness.
I think for Americans (I am one), more money == less fear. We don’t have any real social safety nets, so making $500k/year let’s you pay off your house and save for retirement faster.
I’d give up my $500k/year salary to move to Europe and feel more supported if anything went wrong, but I do wonder how much support someone on a work visa in the UK/EU gets if they lose their job.
Yeah, this is the obverse of why I don't go to the US. I know the guy upthread was smarmily pushing the "oh, it's just because you CAN'T get a visa / get a job / figure out how the fuck you're meant to apply for an ESTA / etc" line, but it's not really that. I'm at the not-literally-top-percentile-but-very-very-close mark in London, and I'm confident I'd be paid commensurately in the US. But the healthcare situation is an absolute, hard no.
I don't care if I get private insurance in the States. I get private insurance here too, and I even use it now and again. But I care about knowing that, no matter what happens to me, ever, I won't be saddled with a life-ruining debt that wipes out what I've gained. Not without my consenting to borrow such an amount.
I'm not interested in playing snakes and ladders. I'm not interested in the equivalent of someone selling me a mortgage without my knowledge in my sleep (and with no house at the end of it). And I know that insurers - unlike the UK govt - are in the business of avoiding making payouts[0].
(That's the main thing, at least, by far. Then the salary-erasing real estate costs, in all the places where those endlessly-quoted salary figures are from, make me not-particularly-sad that I ruled it out.)
[0] I'm not imputing dishonesty. I'm just saying their literal business model is maximise premiums, minimise claims.
That's the issue, it's more like earning $60k in EU vs. $160k in the US for most Tech workers. And the latter is much, much better.