But I would not move to the US (especially now obviously) or be without job security for double the wage. Life for me isn't about making as much money as possible, it's about enjoying my life and money is just one of the means to do that. Time is another big one.
And like the other poster said, I don't know americans who work 20 years and retire. On the contrary most I know have a 200+k$ student loan pending back home or are shuffling debt from card to card to make it look like they are paying it off.
The thing about a social safety net is that it makes life better for poor people. That's good. Praiseworthy even. Laudable.
The negative impact on economic growth and wages for high earners means the American tech workers are just richer than European tech workers. Any other analysis is a combination of wishful thinking and pseudoscience, quite frankly. Economics is science, just like biology and mathematics and physics.
Fwiw, I know a bunch of American tech workers who worked 20 years and then retired. Pretty much every person who works for Meta can name ten people like that. Those people tend to retire in Europe, where they can enjoy free healthcare while living off the incredible amount of money they made when they were young.
And perhaps most importantly - if they decide to switch to Europe life, they can, with extra money in the bank. While European tech workers can't afford to live the high life in America.
Tbh, I'm sure I'm going to get down voted to hell, but it's pretty amazing how many highly educated and otherwise intelligent Europeans just... don't believe in economics anymore when economics says their lives are worse than their peers in America. It's one of the major touch points of anti intellectualism in this forum.
Another tendency I find anti-intellectual is appealing broadly to "science" or "economics" to make claims that neither field supports.
When I speak of "science", I'm only speaking about using numbers to measure and compare. As it turns out, it doesn't really matter which metric you use. GDP, PPP, you name it - America went up substantially more than Europe over the past 20 years. A continent that used to be an economic peer is now a few notches poorer. If the trend continues, by the time I'm old, Europe will be poor compared to America, full stop. Just another region full of third world countries.
You can read https://ecipe.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/ECI_24_PolicyBr... if you like or find your own sources. All the ones I've found say the same thing about the last 20 years. But if you can find some that say Europe is improving its economic standing compared to America, I'd be interested in reading them! I'm very open to having my mind changed by evidence!
Economics and money is just numbers. It's not a measure of happiness in life. I just want to have enough money to not worry in life, I don't care about having much more than others. Doing a job I enjoy in a place I enjoy is worth much more to me. Would Elon Musk, the richest guy in the world be happier than me? I don't think he is, he's always angry about something. I wouldn't want to trade places with him. Having that kind of money is a burden, never being able to just walk around and discover a new town without a security detail, or partying until 6am without journalists capturing everything I do.
A big house doesn't make me (much) happier. A car definitely doesn't, driving really stresses me out (and I have a lot of driving experience having lived in many countries). We have great public transport here and that's enough for me because I live in the city.
And economics isn't really an exact science in my book. It's a social science, psychology based on human constructs. Which are different here in Europe anyway (more socialist). We chose to make the world work like this but it could be different too. More fair.
I moved to a lower wage country to have a better life and I'm a lot happier now. I will never be rich but I don't care. It's not a race to be the top, I want everyone to have a good life.
To address your point, GDP per capita is not a good metric capturing happiness, for several reasons. Most trivially, because it does nothing to reflect the distribution of wealth. A country could (purely hypothetically ;) ) have massive GDP per capita but the benefits flow mainly to the top.
Even putting that aside, a culture with massive GDP but where the citizens don't have the time, peace, values, and social structures to enjoy life is not a happy society.
I don't know that a massive house is enough to make up for it.
Immigrant from a developing nation, living in the UK here. I very much notice this attitude on hn, and elsewhere. Europeans (I include the UK obviously) are extremely protective of the idea that the welfare state here automatically makes everything better than life in the US. It's a bit easier to be objective when you live here but you're not actually from here.
I love the UK. It has been my home for over 20 years. I love the fact that there is a safety net that mostly, sort of, works. But I also know people from my original country who have moved elsewhere. Some who actually lived in the UK, then moved elsewhere. Some of those to the US, where they have really accelerated their earnings and their comfort and in some respects, quality of life.
I think there is no doubt that the material comforts that most people enjoy out of life will be improved just by working the same job in the US. Obviously there are non-tangibles such as living in a society where people can't carry guns, one of the things I appreciate about the UK compared to the US. Or also knowing that poorer people living just a few streets away from you can enjoy the same facilities I do (to a large extent), and are mostly going to be ok in life. I like living in Europe, where we're exposed to so much culturally. Etc.
So I can see both sides of this, but I am definitely on your side of the fence with regard material quality of life. My salary is high in the UK, I'm in the top percentile of earners, but without any family money, I'm never going to lead an extravagant life here. I'm going to struggle to retire early like my US peers would be able to.