> Service workers, which far outnumber tech workers, farmers, taxi drivers, etc are all better compensated in nearly every other European equivalent country than in the U.S.
No, they're not. The median income wouldn't be higher in the U.S. if the majority of its workers were not compensated more. In particular, with regards to commercial, full-time farming, farmers make far more in the U.S. (median commercial farm income was $186K in 2021 [1]).
Truck drivers in the U.S. earned a median income of $47K in 2019 [2] while truck drivers in France as of 2021 report around 25K EUR [3]. Many such examples.
> Well, for one thing, tech workers are not similarly compensated even within the US.
Sure, but we can compare tech hubs in France (are there any besides Paris?) to tech hubs in the U.S. or we can compare overall U.S. vs France. It doesn't matter how you slice the data: U.S. salaries come on top and by a large factor. This is also generally true across all engineering professions. As an example, take Civil Engineers (37K EUR vs $71K USD base) [4].
No, they're not. The median income wouldn't be higher in the U.S. if the majority of its workers were not compensated more. In particular, with regards to commercial, full-time farming, farmers make far more in the U.S. (median commercial farm income was $186K in 2021 [1]).
Truck drivers in the U.S. earned a median income of $47K in 2019 [2] while truck drivers in France as of 2021 report around 25K EUR [3]. Many such examples.
> Well, for one thing, tech workers are not similarly compensated even within the US.
Sure, but we can compare tech hubs in France (are there any besides Paris?) to tech hubs in the U.S. or we can compare overall U.S. vs France. It doesn't matter how you slice the data: U.S. salaries come on top and by a large factor. This is also generally true across all engineering professions. As an example, take Civil Engineers (37K EUR vs $71K USD base) [4].
[1] https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/farm-household-... [2] https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2019/06/america-keeps... [3] https://www.salary.com/research/fr-salary/benchmark/truck-dr... [4] https://www.payscale.com/research/FR/Job=Civil_Engineer/Sala... https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Civil_Engineer/Sala...