High taxes and strict regulation do have a negative impact on job and income growth in much of Europe, though.
Yet you listed two relatively tiny countries. Which don’t even have (relatively) very high taxes.
France, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Greece etc. all have higher taxes on labor
https://www.oecd.org/en/data/indicators/tax-wedge.html?oecdc...
e.g. Denmark and Norway are closer to US than to France
> have full employment and very high standards of living for decades now
Yet those standards have barely improved over those decades. Prior to 2009 the gap between US and the EU was closing, not it is the complete opposite.
The US has an absurd GDP. But if you could compare the average American and, say, the average Norwegian, I don't think it would even be close in terms of quality of life. Particularly if we include things such as food, exercise, and education.
That’s the problem. You should comparing it only with states like Massachusetts, Connecticut etc. (and even then.. Norway is inflated by oil revenue, IMHO Denmark is a lot more impressive).