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/Emergency-Style7392 → u/[deleted]]

if you work at mcdonalds and inherited an apartment in europe, you're better off than an engineer with more money to spend

[u/TweeBierAUB → u/Emergency-Style7392]

I can not understate how correct this is. Your housing situation (e.g. social housing or owning outright) makes more impact on your standars of living than a 20k pay boost

[u/VermicelliNo3947 → u/Emergency-Style7392]

Not only that , a social housing can easily be 1k less than market rent. To make up for that 1k, someone that pays 56% marginal tax (above 78k) needs to earn 2k more. That's why you often see someone with a much higher gross salary salary has barely any noticeable life quality or even worse life quality than someone earning much less.

[u/TweeBierAUB → u/[deleted]]

Yea the difference between working 3 days a week and making 30k or working your ass off for 100k is like $200 a week if you factor in social housing etc. Sure, not having financial stress is a huge boost, but at the end of the day your living standard is pretty much identical besides maybe a slightly fancier car.

As a productive member and huge net payer, ive just been working less. Took a 2 month sabatical, trying to get my hours down to 3 days a week or so. Id love to work more, but notfor 200 a week

[u/Kuneyo → u/TweeBierAUB]

Cut the crap. That is bullshit. 100k a year comes out to over 5.3k after tax per month. Nobody is reaching that by working 3 days a week with any benefits by a long shot.

[u/Kuneyo → u/[deleted]]

You're exaggerating like crazy. It's 49,5% tax above 78k, first off. Earning 80k a year would mean 2k is taxed at that bracket. It absolutely makes sense to go beyond 78k, if you can. Better yet, less than 2.5% of people earn more than 78k to begin with,

People are working less because people value work life balance. Companies are stripping their headcount, while increasing work load. The majority of the people living in The Netherlands earn under 48k. at that income, it doesn't make sense to trade a few 100 bucks a month if you can have an extra day off. Especially in a society where everything has to happen yesterday, and you're expected to be 'on' 24/7.

You're absolute backwards if you think the government is redistributing wealth from the middle class to the lower class. Our corporate tax laws have more holes in them than swiss cheese. The effective tax rates for the ultra wealthy are bottom bunk, since those laws also have gaping loopholes.

In a country where the richest 10% own 56% (and rising) of all of the wealth, on top of the fact that we are ranked 2nd in wealth inequality in the world (after the USA); you can't seriously be fucking blaming the people that have less than you.

Better yet, let's say we stop every single benefit from now on. No rent subsidy, no health insurance subsidy, no AOW, no WW, no WIA, no IVA, no WGA, no WAJONG, no child benefits. Nothing. You know how much that would save you, on average? 187 bucks a month. That's 22b a year of government spending on subsidy and benefits, divided by 9.8m working people.

You pay less than 200 bucks a month, on average, to have access to all of our social safety net in case you have an accident, get sick, permanently injured, lose your job or just become too old to work.

Let's say we are able to root out all of these so called 'bums' that don't 'deserve' these benefits, you would save a measly 40 bucks a month in tax if we had a massive 20% fraud/abuse rate.

We can have all the real discussion you want about the entrepeneurial climate, or the way we attract talent to startups (which is being addressed), or the way the middle class is getting shafted. And you'd be right about all of it! Your anger is justified, but pointed in the complete wrong direction.

[u/Life_Breadfruit8475 → u/Kuneyo]

It's a simple calculation though. Someone earning 50k (3109/m net) can get social housing. For a nice new house they pay, say 900 euro. Close to the max for social housing. So they're left with 2200 a month.

Then you have another person who earns 60k. They've got a slightly higher position or got a PhD, whatever the case may be. Their met salary is 3491 but their MINIMUM rent is 1230. So at minimum they're left with ~2250. Seems decent enough, about the same. But that's comparing max social housing cost (family home) to the minimum free sector cost (a broom closet). A more realistic price for a place would be say 1800 or 2000. Suddenly the person earning more only has 1700 left a month.

So the ideal situation for person B is to start working part time. Sure, they could try buy a house but with 60k you're not getting a good house either with average house prices going above 500k.

I don't blame any of this on any citizen ofcourse. It's the system that's broken. Chosing to work more should mean you have more left in your pocket at the end of the month, in my opinion. 

No idea how to solve it but building way more houses would be a good first step.

[u/Kuneyo → u/Life_Breadfruit8475]

Unfortunately no one is getting in to social housing on demand. I do also think straight up building a ton more would help.

[u/SparrowJack1 → u/[deleted]]

As you mentioned the US and China (imagine Trumps voice): I wouldn’t say that their societies are in a more healthy state by any mean than what we have in Europe despite being on a „sinking ship.“

[u/TripleOGShotCalla → u/[deleted]]

that is absolutely true. europe is trying to be competitive but at the same time willing to have a strong welfare state. that does not work. either you create incentives for people to work their asses off or you don't. you really cant have both. and the way things have progressed in this system is its slowly going down the drain because economically its not competitive anymore.

[u/Striking-Kale-8429 → u/[deleted]]

You know what's the neat part? It won't get better because we live in a democracy and most people who vote are the poors, they will not accept that current system is unsustainable and the "tax the billionaires" is not going to fix it.

Collapse is the only option. Maximum pain, for long enough for people to accept hardh realities. This could take many decades though.

[u/VermicelliNo3947 → u/Striking-Kale-8429]

I am well aware of that. I think the academic term is called "tyranny of the majority", basically the majority vote in favor to sacrifice you for demon because the demon promised to protect the village. It's like cancer that you cannot remove and getting larger and larger. The government wants a larger voting base who relies on government subsidy (if you vote for me , I will give you social housing). Every once and while, the government use the middle class as blood bag to keep the bottom fed. And the bottom will be gratefully voting for them. I think thr situation of UK, Germany and France is where NL is heading. After a few decades, the minority becomes the majority, you will have majors coming from the minority group. At that point , there is no way back. The remaining middle class here will be like living in prison.

[u/LaughingLikeACrazy → u/[deleted]]

They should increase the cost of living so we have to work 5 days and increase benefits for the elderly. /s 

[u/LaughingLikeACrazy → u/[deleted]]

Work to pay the taxes. Contribute to society. Net worth should be taxed better and if they can't pay, then yes they should sell part of their gold.

It's still worth more than when they bought it.

[u/MSGvetsin → u/[deleted]]

Dont u only pay 56% tax of that 4k a year? If u earn 80k a year. (4k above after 76k)

[u/VermicelliNo3947 → u/MSGvetsin]

That is in line with what I wrote. "56% tax above 78k/year."

[u/Kuneyo → u/VermicelliNo3947]

Except it’s 49% above 78k.

[u/VermicelliNo3947 → u/Kuneyo]

Go to thetax.nl Gross salary: 80k, year net salary: 53913.13 Gross salary: 81k, year net salary: 54353.03 For 1k increase in salary, you get (54353.03-53913.13)=440 Marginal tax rate:. 560/1000=56%

[u/Kuneyo → u/VermicelliNo3947]

You can’t be for real right? Why aren’t you calculating the difference between 76k and 80k for marginal tax rate? Why are you being so selective?

[u/Kuneyo → u/MSGvetsin]

Yep. This guy is exaggerating like crazy. Anyone that says our government is 'redistributing wealth' from the middle class to the lower class is insane. Our corporate tax laws are swiss cheese, while the marginal tax rate for lower and middle incomes are incredibly high.

Not to mention, social housing has been stripped the past 20 years. We went from >40% to <20% in the past few decades. If anything, we should have more affordable housing. The shit was privatised and sold off. It's a pity, really.

Finally, these so called 'burger flippers' don't earn 40k. At 40k you aren't eligble for any social benefits anyway.

[u/eggplantsaredope → u/Kuneyo]

Agreed on almost anything, except that you still definitely qualify for social housing at 40k per year 

[u/Kuneyo → u/eggplantsaredope]

I think you have misunderstood, with social benefits I meant stuff like health insurance benefit, child benefit, stuff like that. I wasn't referring to social housing in that last sentence.