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If you want to do a real comparison then you have to include the cost of healthcare.

Yes, but that cuts in the other direction. In the U.S., skilled work like subway construction will provide employer-paid healthcare. U.S. employers pay $1.3 trillion a year in healthcare benefits. You have to account for that on top of the reported wages. So that makes U.S. workers even more expensive relative to workers in Europe, where healthcare will be paid from taxes on the wages paid to employees.

Total compensation in the U.S. construction industry is about $46/hour on average: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/ecec.pdf. That's almost $92,000 for a 2,000-hour year.

people making this argument always forget the most critical aspect - people generally need healthcare when they are not working, almost always when retired.

Your argument is then essentially that people should be working indefinitely.

We’re talking about how labor costs impact subway construction costs. Retirees aren’t relevant to that. (And the U.S. has universal healthcare for them anyway.)

Yes that is another reason, high healthcare costs for employing workers means higher construction costs in the USA.

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