The World's 20 Richest Cities

[nickoakdl]

http://www.forbes.com/2009/08/24/bes...y_slide_2.html

Some suprising stuff (to me at least).
4 American cities made the list.

Zurich, Switzerland was #1 net pay per hour even with 46% tax and social security contributions.

What really sucks is that American's get the least amount of vacation days per year. Most other cities more than doubled us.

[aspertame]

http://www.forbes.com/2009/08/24/bes...y_slide_2.html

Some suprising stuff (to me at least).
4 American cities made the list.

Zurich, Switzerland was #1 net pay per hour even with 46% tax and social security contributions.

What really sucks is that American's get the least amount of vacation days per year. Most other cities more than doubled us.

And yet they suffer from fewer chronic illnesses and mental disorders. Imagine that.

[Blinx123]

http://www.forbes.com/2009/08/24/bes...y_slide_2.html

Some suprising stuff (to me at least).
4 American cities made the list.

Zurich, Switzerland was #1 net pay per hour even with 46% tax and social security contributions.

What really sucks is that American's get the least amount of vacation days per year. Most other cities more than doubled us.

WTF?

Didn't know they paid so much taxes. It's still lower than in Germany, but I thought of something like 16% (my mom even told me she only pays 8%, opposed to the 53% of Germany).

[nickoakdl]

And yet they suffer from fewer chronic illnesses and mental disorders. Imagine that.

Socialism at its worst.

[hatih]

http://www.forbes.com/2009/08/24/bes...y_slide_2.html

Some suprising stuff (to me at least).
4 American cities made the list.

These kind of lists don't tell the whole truth. First of all, in big cities that you get well paid your living costs much more. And these don't mention the general expensiveness of the country, 'it's not what you earn, it's what you spend'.

I was a bit surprised to see Helsinki in that list but I'm pretty sure that it's not that high if you count how luxurious lifestyle you can get with your earnings since general price level in Finland is higher than in Germany or US for example.

(Anecdotal example, Finland had expensive cars, it was somewhere in top-4 in the world, perhaps second after Denmark. Couple of years ago tax of new car became based on CO2-emissions, which meant that economical cars got cheaper and not so economical, well, let's just say that Ferrari 599 got 150 000€ more expensive... So try to show off with buying a fancy car in Helsinki as you would in New York or Münich.)

[andrew markworthy]

It's an interesting, but IMHO misleading list. E.g. the quoted tax rate for London is way off the mark - 22% means you'd be in the lowest of our income tax groups and if you're in that group, good luck finding somewhere to live in London (unless you really do want a cardboard box next to the crack dealer's).

To work out how much of your money is going out, you really need to calculate not only basic income tax and social security contributions (or equivalent) but also in countries without national health care, the cost of health insurance premiums (unless you are going to claim a bozo with no means of paying medical bills is a typical member of the population). You also need to take into account the realistic cost of utilities and shopping (cost of petrol, cost of weekly groceries, etc), not the cost of a luxury item such as an iPhone (if you are going to take a single item, a Big Mac is a better bet - Google Big Mac Index or similar to see what I mean).

Finally, you have to factor in issues such as ease and cheapness of public transport, access to recreational amenities and whether they have to be paid for, etc.

And to further complicate matters, you need to consider the relative pay levels in each country. E.g. relative to the rest of the population, medical doctors aren't as well paid in many parts of Europe as they are in the UK or (even more strikingly) the USA; on the other hand, university professors are badly paid in the UK relative to most of the rest of Europe and the USA.

Looking at the list, I can't believe London (or indeed any large UK city) would get on the list when these factors were considered.

[crazzeto]

Technically these are the "best paid cities"... I.E. cities where you make the most net income. Unfortunetly this is not necessarly reflective of relitive wealth compared to others making less else where. To get that you need to combine cost of living.

Just as an example, a friend of mine who works at UNC's neo-natology unit as a nurse practitioner told me that recently a man was willing to move his family from NY to Raleigh because of the massive pay increase he'd get at UNC. So what was this massive pay increase? He'd be making exactly as much as he made in NY!!! He wasn't getting a dime more than at his previous job. The cost of living was just skewed so badly that it was effectivly a massive raise.

[hatih]

The cost of living was just skewed so badly that it was effectivly a massive raise.

I think that Veikkaus, which arranges lottery in Finland, raised the jackpot because of news stories that said that you can't buy a one bedroom apartment with it in Helsinki anymore. (Base jackpot was ~700 000€, now it's around 1,5M€.) And from what I've heard housing is practically free in Helsinki compared to NY.

Is it really true that a small one room apartment (with no separate bedroom or kitchen) can cost 1500$ in NY?

[crazzeto]

Well I just did a quick search on rent.com and I found a 1br appartment in manhatten for $2,000/mo.

[Bourne]

Woohooo.... Chicago's on the list!

[darczap]

I get 20 vacation days and 5 sick days where I work, in PA.

[crazzeto]

awesome, thanks for sharing that

[LastSonOfKrypton]

I hate taxes. It makes me become poorer each day.

Try living in NY where online shopping has become almost as expensive as B&M stores due to taxes I miss my Amazon no-tax days

[cheez avenger]

Los Angeles in #7.

[Trekker4Life]

I hate taxes. It makes me become poorer each day.

If the long legged Mac daddy gets his way... you haven't seen anything yet!