66% of Americans say they want extended European-style vacation policies at work

As much as I like my vacations, I would rather prefer US salary over it.

Does the US salary hold up against the benefits you get in a well-off EU country? Namely free healthcare, automatic payments into pension fund, strong social system if you're ever in trouble, etc.?

It seems to me that, as high as US salaries are, they arent that much higher compared to European salaries when you factor all this in, plus the face that a month of that work youre paid for youre OOO

In tech, yes. If you work in a FAANG-adjacent company, you're likely to be a millionaire after 5-8 years of working, all while getting better health care and better pre-tax retirement accounts than in the EU. If you decide you want to take it easy afterwards, you can still move to the EU then.

In the EU, this type of job is much more rare, and even if you get one, after 5-8 years you'd probably be at around $400k-$500k.

On top of that, there are roles in FAANG companies and Silicon Valley that give ~5 weeks PTO. For example, Facebook historically has had a fairly good PTO policy in the US, and for the past several years gives at least 23 days (plus there's the whole extra month off every 5 years). I heard that as a result of that, Google had to increase their PTO in recent years.

23 days isn’t good though. The fact that that’s being held up as a shining beacon says everything. 25 days + about 10 public holidays is the average here. I’m at a company that’s offering 30 days + 10 public holidays + 4 company wide days.i would much rather the days than a higher salary. At a certain point the extra disposable income isn’t worth it when you don’t have time to enjoy it.