EDIT: (using the most tax-effective form of employment, which most of the time is working as a contractor. Being a full-time employee comes with so much higher taxes in EU)
Health care, housing, education, retirement are incredibly expensive in the US. Day-to-day life in the US is also quite expensive for most Americans. Most people in the US are in massive amounts of debt with little to no savings.
The salaries that are considered "acceptable" in those countries would result in a _negative_ effective tax rate in the US. Tax rate alone is not everything. It's a combination of pretax pay and the effective tax rate that you need to be considering.
Outstanding people make $120-160k - and here I agree, they would probably make twice that much if not more at FAANG in SV. But, their taxes would be at 35-40%, and housing would also be more expensive. I've often considered moving to SV (I'm making $160k in Poland). According to my calculations, I would be saving up to 50% more money there, but for me that's not enough to move to the other end of the world - not to mention the gruesome immigration process.
In the US, someone like a programmer would get their health insurance paid for by their employer as additional compensation on top of their already much higher salary. The vast majority of Americans either get health insurance through their employer or are retired and are eligible for Medicare. Employers on average pay 82% of premiums for a single person, leaving on average $1,200 paid by the worker. For someone like a programmer, it’s common for employees to pay the whole premium. When you look at US salaries, that additional compensation is on top of the reported salary. So although health insurance is very expensive, you’re mostly not paying it out of the reported salary.
So out of pocket expenses for the Amercian are going to be much, much higher.
Not in comparison to the salary difference: https://www.oecd.org/health/health-systems/OECD-Focus-on-Out.... About $500/year difference between USA and France.
In the US, someone on that amount in Denver will pay $29k in tax.
That's not an extraordinary difference, even before you factor in health care costs.
true, but you should calculate everything- highly subsidized education, public transportation and medical, generous grants for students, more vacation days, long parental leave etc.