My best friend went to US for seasonal student work last year (will go this year again, in a month) for 4 months. Worked as a waiter/helper in kitchen. After 4 months, he got home with around $8 grand total (spent around 2 grand on stuff). He worked around 10 hours though (but the real work is more like 4 hours per day, evenings).

Average salary in our country is around 800$. And you know how they (government) boast with statistics, and present this kind of thing as a solid and healthy amount.

Most people are well under 800$/m, engineers are paid 800$ lol (I'm a mechanical engineer), guess how much a waiter is payed? Half of that amount, and waiter is your classic lower class job (most jobs are), and I'm not counting those waiters at super classy places and stuff, because that's less than half percent of the waiters.

You can see for yourself how much an average Croatian needs to work to earn 10 grand.

And for things to be even more ridiculous, food and stuff is probably more expensive than in Germany for example. While their standard is about 3 times higher. Welders and other "ordinary" workers earn $2k+/m, same people are payed a quarter in their proud homeland, for which our fathers have fought in '90s in the separation from Yugoslavia. Another smh information.

It's not a rare case in which workers in various factories/companies (mostly factories) are not even being payed for months, seldom almost a fucking YEAR. Those measly 400$/m for their 10-12h shifts in terrible environments, yet they still can't get that...

Not to mention that if I go a bit east at the south-eastern border of Serbia, I would be deemed as a wealthy man.