Quote:
Originally Posted by XYZ
America may seem like paradise in comparison to your country, but it is often said that "the grass appears to be greener on the other side".
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Before quoting "the grass is greener", consider who you're talking to and where they live.
My take-home pay is less than $1,000. And I'm considered middle management. If I'd chosen to go into advertising like I'd thought of, I might be making more, like $1,500. But too late for that.
Basic minimum wage here is $7 (rural)...
per day. To elevate the living conditions of the people, the government raised that to $12 in the cities and nearby factories. Upon which many of the off-shore companies running manufacturing here said "That's all, oktnxbai!"
Gas here costs about $5 a gallon.
A loaded Honda Fit costs $22k.
A loaded Toyota Camry costs $52k.
I have friends who've moved there. Working basic school-teacher jobs, they've saved enough to rent a good place, lease/buy a car, and send home more than my take home pay to their family here every month... and enough extra after that to buy plots of land for future investments.
Sure, food is relatively cheap... if you eat nothing but rice. Beef costs twice as much here as it does there, and we actually grow beef locally.
The reason I haven't moved is because, while my day job sucks in terms of actual cash value, my family owns the company, and I have side benefits and other sources of income. So I'm comfortable, and I don't plan to leave, despite being a US Citizen by birth (born in New York) But for people who don't have family money, America is still the land of opportunity. What most Americans see as barely livable wages is upper-middle-class stuff here.
Hell, during the nursing boom, doctors were dropping the MDs from their name and emigrating there en masse.