It is easy to create a low power chemical CO2 sensors with a service life of a few weeks/months. Obviously not pratical for real world applications. So critical data is missing in this press release.

In 2025, TV-L 13 starts with 4629€ a month and goes up to 6580€ (= 78K€+), depending on experience.

Indded, the raw tax difference is substantial. But the social benefits, health insurance, vacation days,... need to be considered for a complete comparison. But that was never the topic of discussion.

Even with your 2022 data/source, I get a salary that is >=Harvard.

And if you look at the latest 2025 salaries the difference is even more striking and in favor of Germany:

https://www.jobs-beim-staat.de/tarif/tvoed-bund_e13

But according to you, how much does a German Postdoc earn per year, in US$?

What numbers do you have in mind?

My data (see above) is from the same source ("Tarifvertrag"), but from 2024.

I am really surprised that PhD/PostDocs earning more (or at least same) in EU than the US is controversial. I tought everyone knows that.

The postdoc salaries I quoted are for 2024, of course.

Source: https://www.research-in-bavaria.de/what-salary-does-a-postdo...

"Most doctoral positions and some postdoc positions will be categorized as TV-L 13, which can range from about €4630 to €6580 (gross monthly salary). The exact salary is determined by your years of experience."

-> €6000*12 -> 72K Euro, ~US$ 80K

And that is without including the various social benefits.

> The highest possible salary anyone in the university gets is 96k Euros.

That is wrong, too. But not the topic of my post.

Harvard Postdoc salary: $67,600

Germany Postdoc salary: ~$80,000 plus benefits like health insurance

15mg Zepbound is 489 euro in Germany for a month (4 shots).

A new trend I see is that some customers even rule out using EU located servers that are owned/run by US companies (such as the AWS Dublin or Franfurt locations).

And if so, would that mean life in such a town is worse than in a comparable small town somewhere in the middle of the US?

Indeed, salaries are better in the US, especially AI jobs salaries.

But you also need less savings in the EU due to a much better social security system, e. g. free healthcare in case you get unemployed, free university (that alone saves you > 100K US$/kid),...

If there would be a magic pill that enabled anyone to learn a new language instantly, that would be the end of the US and UK as major immigration destinations.

The VW board even fired the CEO (Herbert Diess) because he wanted to make too many changes at once. The German car industry is a hopeless case, except maybe BMW.

Biontech is swimming in money and using it to foster its main goal, finding better cures for cancer.

My main point was that I can think of only two success stories.

- Stable Diffusion at Heidelberg University

- Biontech/Pfizer covid vaccine in Mainz

- What else?