Lets assume I would earn 53000$ per year before taxes in the US, without additonal company benefits, how much would an average dude have left after paying taxes, pension (~48% income payed out after retirement at the age of 70) and health insurance at an good european standard?

17 comments

  2. It’s going to be relatively hard to answer this for a couple of reasons:

    – Federal taxes would be the same across the country, but every state has different income tax levels.

    – Defined benefit pension plans are not common here, most people put money into a tax advantaged retirement investment account, where investment returns are uncertain and the employee bears the risk of their retirement fund’s poor performance. An income replacement rate is not guaranteed at the time you put money in.

    – Health insurance premiums vary widely based on how rich the benefits are, how healthy your group is, and how much your employer subsidizes your health insurance premium. God forbid you have to buy on the individual health insurance market. Some people pay tens of dollars a month, some people pay thousands.

  3. Taxes depend heavily on the state. Everyone has to pay federal income taxes, but not all states have an additional state income tax, and not all state income taxes are the same.

    Also I’m not sure how much a pension would be, my company doesn’t have one. They do a 401k where I choose how much to contribute.

  4. You’re asking a question that’s impossible to answer.

    Taxes depend on the individual. We don’t pay a flat rate based solely on income. Having children or owning a home can make a huge difference.

    Pension? What pension? Few jobs have pensions.

    Health insurance is not a single flat rate for all persons. It’s completely dependent on the plans offered by the employer’s plan. This could range from zero dollars for the employee to hundreds per month.

    $53K is about $25/hr. It’s an ok salary for a very young person with no college degree, but it’s only about 2/3 of the median household income. They’d be struggling to get ahead.

  5. Depends greatly on where you live and your lifestyle, but you’d probably keep somewhere around 22k to 34k.

    If you’re asking because you have a specific job in mind, tell us a bit more and someone in the same shoes could chip in and tell you what they’re keeping.

  6. Really depends your state as states have different tax rates, and there’s other complications (taxes will be different if you’re single vs. married or have kids/dependents and certain activities or purchases can be tax deductible) but assuming none of that, for a single dude in my state (Minnesota) roughly speaking:

    * Yearly gross salary: $53,000
    * Federal Tax: -$3,374
    * Medicare Tax: -$712
    * Social Security Tax: -$3,044
    * State Tax: -$2,255
    * Benefits (Medical, Dental, Vision, 401k Plan savings at 10%): -$9,200

    Take home after all that is about $34,415.

  7. FYI for all the jobs I’ve worked, I usually bring home about 70% of the gross salary after all deductions (substitute 401k for pension because that’s not really a thing that 99% of places offer, including social security, and decent health insurance but not anywhere near a “European standard” meaning totally free)

    Deduct another 5% if you’re in a state that taxes income (I am not)

  8. You’re trying to make a one-to-one comparison, but removing the benefits only from one side.

  9. Before beginning to try to give you any kind of number, where did you come up with that number? $53000 is a pretty specific number to ask for, it is below the national median salary, and is not a particularly round number. If I had to guess, it is the USD equivalent to your current salary. That is a poor way to compare, as salaries completely different for the same jobs on either side of the pond.

  10. There’s no retirement plan that’s going to guarantee 48% of your salary in perpetuity unless one is offered by your employer.

    You’ll pay into Social Security which has a formula for how much you get based on your wages over X number of years and all that. Anything you choose to save beyond that is up to you. If you want to put away 48% of your salary every year into a 401k or other type of retirement account, you can.

  11. There isn’t enough information given to answer your question, it’s also not even a remotely realistic situation.

    People making $53k/year are almost certainly going to have some key employer benefits offered, like health insurance and 401k matching. Around 70% of jobs have health insurance offered with the job—the ones that don’t are generally going to be small business/self-employment situations, or part-time work that would be unlikely to pay that much. Roughly the same percentage of employers offer a 401k plan with some sort of match.

    There isn’t any way to predict exact unsubsidized health insurance costs in advance. It depends on too many factors you haven’t detailed.

  12. I actually did make $53k in the past few years and went back and looked at my paystub. This is in New Jersey and I file as single.

    Gross: $53,000.22

    All Taxes (federal and state): $8,791.90

    Health Benefits: $2,527.20

    Retirement contribution (401k): $3,180.06

    Voluntary Life Insurance: $60.06

    Take Home: $38,441.00. I get paid every 2 weeks which comes out to 26 paychecks a year which comes out to $1,478.50 every 2 weeks.

  13. If you don’t have a family, quite a bit. I make approx. that much, and social security alone is nearly 48% of my gross pay (google says SS pays ~1800/mo), so my retirement contributions will easily make up the diff. Between SS tax, insurance, normal taxes, etc, take-home pay comes out to ~2500/month.

    Housing, utilities, food, gas, etc. eats ~1500, so I end up with about 1k/mo left over. I’m kinda back-counting here, because I don’t keep a strict budget (…don’t really need to when my income so heavily exceeds expenses), but that sounds about right, or I might even have a bit more left over.

  14. As a rough estimate for Connecticut assuming you are single and no children, you’d pay around these amounts:

    * $1700 health insurance premiums
    * $4397 federal income tax
    * $3924 federal payroll tax
    * $2372 state income tax
    * $3000 health cost sharing

    Leaving $37607 afterwards, although it can vary a great deal based on your situation.

    No additional retirement savings are included because the government’s Social Security program already covers more than the required 48% according to the https://www.aarp.org/retirement/social-security/benefits-calculator.html calculator, assuming you had worked a full career. You would get a lower replacement rate if you retired earlier, or had a higher income.

    The health costs are a rough estimate. Employers with 50 or more employees are required by law to provide health insurance costing no more than 9.12% of income. Employers often give a better deal than required (my own is $1300 per year) so I put in $1700 instead of the legal maximum of $4834. This wouldn’t quite be the same as European insurance since there would likely be significant deductibles/copayments paid by the patient. I added an estimated $3000 to account for that (the worst case under my own insurance) but it could be as low as $0 if you have no non-preventative care or as high as $9100 if you have the worst insurance allowed.

    If you had a family the health costs would be higher, but the taxes would be lower. I used the calculator on https://smartasset.com/taxes/connecticut-tax-calculator for the tax amounts (note that the health insurance premium is excluded from taxable income).

  17. >53000$ per year before taxes in the US, without additional company benefits

    >and health insurance at an good european standard

    Let’s assume you pick either the $53K USD gross wages and no employer-dependent health insurance, or you pick health insurance at a good EU standard. Because both simultaneously aren’t on offer, and [this isn’t on offer in any American zip code](https://www.commonwealthfund.org/international-health-policy-center/countries/germany).

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