this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2024
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How much of that 60k is left after taxes? Is it enough to live on, or buy a home, or buy a home and support a family, or none of the above?
EDIT: Thanks for the responses everyone, very informative and interesting. That's the kind of perspective that may not often be shared and helps understand costs of living.
For the Deutchlanders wondering about the USA's taxes and my question.... 60k would be enough to live on in most of the USA but might not be enough to buy a home or raise a family. But it's highly dependent on your area's cost of living, and the USA is massive with many different areas and tiers of costs of living.
My example for tax costs: I make more than 60k and I only had to pay about 20% of it to taxes and retirement for 2023, in the USA. In my low cost of living area, 60k would be enough to buy a house and support a family but it would have to be on a very frugal budget. I bought my house when I was making about 45k but my spouse also had an income of almost that much.
Assuming single with no kids, you'd get:
Gross 60.000,00 €
Net 37.209,78 €
Taxes 11.262,97 € (includes 929,97 € church-tax that you can get rid off by leaving your church)
Pension insurance 5.580,00 €
Unemployment insurance 780,00 €
Health insurance 4.847,85 €
Long-term care insurance 1.249,37 €
Those are all the compulsory insurances.
Having a partner in marriage who earns less than you and / or children will increase your net.
For the average German in your average City that's somewhere between just short of wealthy and wealthy. There are poorly paid IT specialists who earn gross what you would take home net. It's definitely enough that you can live quite good if your significant other works too and more than enough to raise a family. The median household income in Germany is 42k gross.
Also remember this is only the employee side of what you cost your employer, because they'll have to double up your insurances, so you would cost them 75k a year.
Those numbers look similar to US taxes, etc (though not the same, and some of US ones aren't compulsory)
Depends extremely on where you live. In Bremen you will be fine, in Schwerin you will be comparably wealthy, in Munich you might have to start collecting bottles on the street for some extra money.
35 to 40k (if your spouse is choosing tax class with a higher rate) after taxes or around so, depends on many factors - German tax code is complicated.
Generally - barely above "paycheck to paycheck" level, but highly depends on location. In Munich you'll be fucked with this type of salary.
lmao no. Houses are mainly for older and retired people or rich, vast majority of active workforce are apartment renters, more fortunate ones were able to save/get help from relatives for mortgage. Total home ownership rate in Germany is 46.7%, lowest of all OECD countries - and that's including older people who got their homes during better economic times. Neat trick about Germany is that you have to have both stable job at big company and a lot of cash on your hands to cop a mortgage, since 20% downpayment + taxes/fees and other bullshit that run at around 10% of the total price make good barrier.
Not really, adults in the household have to work, 60k is not 'breadwinner' type of salary at all. In general, tech workers aren't special in Germany, if not for US companies branches they'd be earning the same as everyone else and in many industries (like transportation), where pressure from international market is not present that much, they still do.
It was good while it lasted, but Germany is heading into some pretty interesting times in general, younger population is absolutely fucked.
60k is about 30-35k after taxes and mandatory insurances, depending on your tax class (Single, Main earner in a marriage, ...). Your questions: Yes if you're not in a particular expensive town., No, unless you've got huge savings or an inheritance. Depends on what you want for your family - you might get by well if you're living in a LCOL area, otherwise... Not so much.