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$36k/year post-tax is significantly below the median full time American wage. And that's counting people without college degrees, much less PhDs.
And sure, post-docs are paid little; grad students even less. They are extreme outliers among college educated working Americans.
I would push back against "cleaner safer streets". I live in vastly cleaner, safer streets than the nearest large cities. I live in a suburb. The urban rot in America is real, but it is also hyper-concentrated. You crossed an ocean and correctly notice the improvement. I'm a half hour drive away and also notice a night and day difference.
Yeah, I mean, I'm aware of the numbers. It also seems to be the case that my American acquaintances that took the jump into industry, with their significantly higher salaries, do not seem to be doing particularly much better in terms of creature comforts - I don't know how much this generalises, but my sense was that new social/role expectations ate a lot of the surplus money without delivering much utility for it (living in areas that are more expensive without being better, running fancier dinner parties for their friends, ...).
Right, yeah, but for me it's still been a very comfortable salary. I took over half a year off doing basically nothing at all (well, actually travelling) on excess money saved during grad school (in the US) and still had more than half of the savings (on the order of $20k initially?) left over, and I would hardly consider myself frugal (being the sort of person to eat out all the time). I am honestly not sure what the hell it is that normal people spend all their money on. $1k for rent and utilities, $30*30 ~= $1k for food [I realise this might have to be adjusted upwards for inflation now], and then whatever occasional expenses you have like tickets, travel and replacing clothes from the remaining $1k; what else is there?
In Europe, you can have clean and safe streets and also have worthwhile things to do and go to by just walking out of your door. I understand that this is a cultural difference, but the idea that you would have to get in a car and drive for half an hour for any meaningful interaction with the outside world seems like hell to me. (I've lived in places where the inner city was 20 minutes away by bus, and that was already a chore. At least you can have a drink after going somewhere by bus. Also was marooned in the DC suburbs for a while during COVID, and I only have expletives left for that period.)
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