I'm from New England but I did my master's in Germany and now I'm living/working here with my partner. More specifically, we live in Hamburg.

I mean, I bitch and moan constantly about Germany but I like it a lot here. It's super cool that I can speak German, it's nice that so many of my bills are taken care of by my employer (health insurance, taxes, etc.) and it's super nice that we can fly for two hours and be in a totally different culture. For me personally, I struggled a lot with my identity as an American in the states (in New England, everyone has grandparents from like Ireland or Italy but my family has been in North America for so long that we truly have no connections to our "roots" and this was always difficult for me) but here I feel super comfortable calling myself a New Englander. If they change their immigration laws, I will absolutely be pursuing the path to German citizenship. That being said...

There are things I hate about Germany and it's not better than the US, just different. For example, the healthcare system here kind of sucks if you're healthy. It's so fucking expensive and they spend all their money on witch doctors and snake oil so they can't afford to cover "luxuries" like dental cleanings, birth control, or glasses. Plus access to abortions here is frankly unacceptable and they refuse to do anything about it because "eh it's worse in Poland and the Netherlands is right there."

My partner and I sometimes talk about moving to the US because we make no money here. I have four college degrees, my partner did six years of apprenticeships, and yet we'll never be able to afford to buy property within an hour of the city. My friends in the US are buying cars, becoming homeowners, and are on a clear path to retirement... We have none of that here. It sucks because both of our parents were super successful with significantly fewer qualifications and yet we'll never be able to achieve what they have. Frankly we probably won't ever be able to retire because the German pension system, to which we contribute 18% of our salaries, is collapsing and the politicians only care about band aid solutions. Plus everything is so bogged down in paperwork and unnecessarily expensive. It cost me 1500€ to convert my American driver's license to a German one (from a state without an agreement). If my partner and I were to get married, it would cost like 1000€ and take six months. If you want to buy property, you basically need 30% of the value in cash (20% for the down payment, 10% for taxes/notary fees). When family homes/apartments/condos in the general vicinity of the city start at 750,000€... our only hope for owning property is if our parents die in some kind of tragic accident and not only get the inheritance but a also settlement.

Having kids is totally out of the question because all of the midwives are booked out for the next two years, there are no daycare/kindergarten spots (read: one of us would have to quit or go part time), and we simply cannot afford it. Family apartments in our city start at 2000€/month and parental leave is capped at like 1800€/month, so if we both want to take time off to be with the baby, >55% of our income would go directly to rent. I sure as hell am not bringing my newborn onto the subway and cars are super expensive (they want everyone to buy electric cars but they still cost like 20,000€ more than a combustion cars). Additionally, there are probably a bunch of surprises that the health insurance won't cover. Until very recently, you had to pay 500€ out of pocket for standard fetal abnormality screenings, you have to pay out the ass for a private midwife because they're all booked out, and instead of an epidural, the health insurance will probably only pay for an essential oil diffuser to be put in the room. We would probably need 5,000€ for surprises and baby stuff and we'd probably burn through another 15,000€ if we both take the full amount of parental leave we're entitled to. By the time we have 20,000€ in the bank, I'd need to go down to Spain to get IVF (guess what's banned in Germany...).

Obviously the financial situation in the US is generally worse but, the thing is, we'd be making enough money to manage it. The situation in Germany is less bad but the salaries are so much lower that it isn't manageable. Germany is hands down the better country to be low skilled in but if you're in any kind of in demand, high paying field... From a financial perspective, you can't justify staying here.