- national health care (dental might be exempted, but still capped after a certain amount)
- stable, cheap, state-subsidized public transport with great coverage
- school system equivalent to Sweden (though Sweden does arguably not have the best one in Europe I still encounter many shocking things when speaking to Americans)
- included in that: ability to go to university without being in debt for the rest of your life / without scholarships / without rich family
- clean cities, low crime rates, low to non-existent amount of guns in circulation
- widespread atheism, embracing science
- widespread high bandwidth, affordable internet access
I could list more things but I think this is enough for now. I'm not saying that all of these are without flaws or that we are the best at them, but the US lacking so many of these in a widespread manner makes me not consider it a first world country.
Edit: I forgot a big one!
- Employment security: No unfair terminations, regulated pay, overtime/nightshift/weekend pay regulated ...
Edit 2: This is in response to a "dead" comment I got. In case you've got show-dead disabled here's the comment
"..And where your tax rate is up to 60% of your income. http://www.theguardian.com/money/2008/nov/16/sweden-tax-burd... - polaris9000
Yes, our tax rates are much higher but that's not the whole story. If you compare average personal income between Sweden and the US (I couldn't find a source on median income) you have approximately 10k USD more in net-income in the US. I'm not an expert in finances so I won't try to adjust this for things like the gap between poor&rich (which would pull the US down a bit).
How much of these 10k are gone after spending them on all the things we get delivered through our taxes? (Health care, subsidised public transport, education and so on)
And one thing that doesn't directly affect everybody's life quality: How much better is our infrastructure (paid for / subsidised by taxes)? I'm speaking about everything ranging from streets to power grids to internet connections.
How much more stability do we have in our lives and how much better is the average life satisfaction?
I'm sure there is no canonical answer to any of these but I'm also sure that Sweden scores better on average (and remember that this was originally about Norway, which is doing much better than Sweden)