Exactly. The income includes retirement and unemployment benefits but doesn't include other public benefits such as public healthcare, public education, public transportation. Being "after tax" it discounts for taxes that are usually higher in Europe but it doesn't discount for expenses that Americans generally have to pay with their income after tax but which many or most Europeans pay via tax (or don't have to pay at all) such as health care, college, third or fourth family car, higher cost for religious activities, higher cost for litigation, higher cost for private security etc.).

It is difficult to make good comparisons without taking the public spending into account or deducting for the part of the private income that Americans must allocate to expenses that are paid over the taxes Western European countries.

For most Europeans the value of free or almost free public benefits such as public healthcare, public education (from kindergarten to university), public transportation, low crime rate etc. is substantial.

Having lived in three European countries (Scandinavian, Iberian and now in the Balkans) and in the US (New York) I have maintained for years that American median wealth seems smaller than Western European wealth and that there is a huge public investment backlog in the US: Roads, airports, subways, railroads, hospitals, schools etc. is very outdated in many places (probably because much of it was built decades before similar infrastructure in Europe).

In America I felt like we would have to struggle just to make it into what felt like "middle class life". In Western Europe middle class life is a base from where people build their lives.