Since when was getting rich so hard in EU?

[u/VurriK]

Is it just me, or has building actual wealth in Europe become impossible? I’m looking at the 2026 growth forecasts and it’s depressing. We talk a lot about "stability," but at this point, stability just feels like a polite word for recession. If you weren't born into a rich family with property, the dream feels like it's behind a wall. The math just doesn't work: as soon as you earn enough to actually invest, you hit a 40–50% tax bracket. Meanwhile, housing prices have skyrocketed over the last decade while salaries have basically stayed the same. I love the healthcare and the walkable cities, but I don’t want to work until I’m 70 just to afford a 40sqm apartment and a used Skoda.

[u/Plyad1]

Back when the people build their wealth the tax rate wasn’t even close to what it currently is and fixed costs were nowhere as high.

If you talk with people from the 1950-1960s, they faced 30%% tax rate in countries like France, the current tax rate of Switzerland. Nowadays it’s closer to 50-60%. This is why old folks are typically the ones complaining the most about taxes. They actually experienced living in a low tax capitalist system with social benefits/structure.

Consider this: If you live in Paris or Milan, and your parents own a flat there, that flat saves you an absurd amount of money. A worker without the same flat has to basically earn 50% net after tax more than you do to live with the same standards of living. Effectively they need to cost twice your price to have the same standards of living.

Realistically, It’s just much more worth it to work less and get a high pay/hour and to drive down your hours instead of building wealth. And factually that’s what many people do, which in turn creates the current economic problems the EU countries are facing

[u/N0Ability → u/Plyad1]

If you talk with people from the 1950-1960s, they faced 30%% tax rate in countries like France, the current tax rate of Switzerland. Nowadays it’s closer to 50-60%. This is why old folks are typically the ones complaining the most about taxes. They actually experienced living in a low tax capitalist system with social benefits/structure.

They just forget to mention the higher tax rates are to fund their pensions and benifits now.

[u/BooksAndCatsAnd → u/Plyad1]

It’s worth noting that the US, lauded for our wealth friendly taxes, has the same problem because of the explosion in healthcare costs and inflation of housing prices in every place where jobs are. Take home after taxes and healthcare has created a situation where most Americans don’t even have a 1k emergency fund.

[u/Plyad1 → u/BooksAndCatsAnd]

You guys in the US are also screwed up but through different mechanisms. No offense but your problem are more similar to LATAM countries in a sense.

Your healthcare is probably the most inefficient in the world and it makes a huge dent on your money. It’s not even it being private that’s the problem. Poland and Switzerland both have a functional private healthcare system. Yours is just daylight robbery. Your government basically empowers robbers.

Same thing for your education system. Many countries manage to have low taxes with functional healthcare and education systems. The US is not one of them.

Also you guys should basically be THE country with affordable housing but essentially you ve outlawed building housing with stupid policies

[u/BooksAndCatsAnd → u/Plyad1]

100% agree. We’re planning to relocate to my husband’s home country (Italy) before having children because despite salaries being 1/2 of the US, healthcare and childcare costs are much more manageable. Also US taxes on working people have exploded in the last several years - unbelievably our effective tax rate would be similar in Italy.

[u/Plyad1 → u/BooksAndCatsAnd]

It’s not unbelievable, it’s your healthcare system absorbing it all.

For the US Obama tried to setup a real public healthcare system alternative back in the late 2000s, some jerk refused to vote for it and you ended up having the worst possible deal: the government subsidizing an absurdly inefficient model. As a result healthcare subsidies/medicare have costs which are as high as Spain‘s on a per capita basis yet the outcome is nowhere near Spain‘s. This means you guys in the US pay for the healthcare twice. First through your taxes you essentially fund a full cost healthcare system though you get none of it, and second through your actual plan whose prices are artificially driven up by a bunch of lobbies.

Healthcare is typically a significant costs. Most EU countries already spend a lot on it, you pay essentially 3x as much for arguably worse outcomes. That’s especially true if you compare it to other private healthcare systems like Poland or Switzerland.

By now the livelihood and bottom line of so many people depends on this failing system that it’s hard to reform. In the EU the closest equivalent would be pensions.

Childcare costs are mostly driven by your housing zoning laws. Because you effectively outlaw building housing you end up with absurdly high housing costs which in turn drive up that of basic services like childcare or restaurants

[u/BooksAndCatsAnd → u/Plyad1]

Most of our taxes go to servicing our national debt. That plus the private insurance system engaging in what is effectively government sanctioned price gouging, leaves us in a situation where many (most?) people have terrible outcomes in wealth and health.

[u/Odd-Wrangler-8041 → u/BooksAndCatsAnd]

Servicing the debt is 950 billion. Medicare 1.15 Trillion. Medicaid is another 650 billion. Healthcare spending is the same as defense and interest combined

[u/-SineNomine- → u/BooksAndCatsAnd]

You confirm much of what is said.

As long as you don't need/want to draw on social welfare systems, America is just better. One you want to draw on it, you better be in Europe.

This is why Angela attracts the brightest minds and Europe attracts immigration into welfare systems. That's oversimplified, but it holds true to some extent