I agree completely. This is what I always tell my family in Europe: Sure, my salary on the US West Coast may be high, but the lifestyle this affords me (while being reasonably future oriented in preparing for retirement, family planning etc) is almost certainly worse. (Not to mention cultural differences in attitudes towards work.) You can't assess salaries as someone who would temporarily work somewhere else and then export that money back to their home country. You have to view the salaries in the context of someone who will spend their life there.