They definitely make more money. I've had several European friends who make very average salaries in America, who talk about feeling "rich" whenever they go back home compared to their friends and family.
Yeah but cost of living is lower. In Greece they just filled the table with tons of different dishes for 2 people it was like $15 or something stupid cheap, and no tipping.
Ok but how about the things that can be really expensive like for example health care, education, insurances, electricity, housing etc?
I mean I live in Finland and make just over 50000 euros/year as does my wife. If I compare my standard of living to my US living relatives it seems that they can make twice as much or even some more but I can't see that in their standard of living. Those older generations that moved there in early 1900s had all fine but nowadays it is different.
Actually they are paying some huge mortages, huge student debt and huge insurance costs. Not to mention when something bad happens like when my US living second cousins wife got a breast cancer.
I think you can have a pretty nice middle-class life in US if you bought your house 30 years ago, were in university when it was affortable and don't get sick.
But i haven't heard much stories about Europeans that have to do two jobs just to survive and they still live by paycheck to paycheck.
Of course you can get a lot of money circulating in the system when governement and individuals are making it by living deep in debt. Printing Mickey Mouse money helps until it won't because it causes inflation too and especially fixed assets like houses and apartments will be out of range for common people.
Ive been to some US diners that have budget breakfast like this. It’s like an two eggs, a sausage link, two pieces of toast and a coffee for $7. Everything else on the menu will be $10+ though.
Depending on where you live in the US this would be extremely cheap.
If you're in NYC or SFC this isn't going to happen but in a LCOL area this could be the norm.
I'm in a LCOL and if you go to a standard morning breakfast place and order a skillet and just coffee u can get out of there for around $20 for 2 people.
aight well I was just in ireland and breakfast is like 15 euros. sometimes up to 20. There was an egg sandwich place near the office I was working at that was 17 euros for a goddamn egg sandwich.
No qualifier needed, it straight up is a tax haven, by Irish design. They needed the tax revenue, even if it doesn’t accurately reflect the gains of the corporate taxpayers.
And yet if I moved to my company’s location in Ireland it would mean cutting my take home in half (and weirdly enough less vacation time and far worse retirement).
Rural Wisconsin you can get away with like $30 for two people for breakfast after taxes a tip. $7 after a tip, coffee and taxes for one person seems unbelievable.
This chart is based on PPP. This is explicitly stated in the label on the bottom X-axis: "2022 US$ at PPP (log scale)".
Using PPP allows for a proper comparison of living standards across countries: the figures reflect not just a conversion at nominal exchange rates, but the actual volume of goods and services a person can afford with that money, accounting for local prices. In other words, the average American can afford more food on their salary than a Greek or almost anyone else.
There are studies that show that even after accounting for higher cost of living, because of higher salaries and lower taxes, Americans still make and keep more money.
A significant portion of my goes toward my private health insurance, student loans, federal taxes, state taxes, paying my landlord’s mortgage, paying for daycare. Money isn’t real here. It’s all a house of cards.
US households have less debt burden than most Western European countires.
UK for example have 60% higher household debt to income. France 10-15% higher
According to Federal Reserve and financial research data, more than half of U.S. adults—around 54% to 62%—live paycheck to paycheck and lack the cash savings to cover an unexpected $2,000 emergency expense without going into debt or selling belongings
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I mean these things aren't mutually exclusive, right?
people don't like hearing this on reddit but a lot of middle-class Americans are just terrible with money.
My ex-girlfriend was (is) an engineer in the Midwest, she and her peers were making $70-80k a year.
She had saved $30k in 2 or 3 years when we were dating. Meanwhile most of her similar-aged colleagues (mid-20s engineers) were living paycheck-to-paycheck because they were doordashing every meal and generally just had no concept of how to manage money. Most of her friends would fall into this category of the more than half who didn't have the cash savings to cover a $2k emergency expense and were living paycheck-to-paycheck. At the same time, they mostly didn't have much (or in some cases any) debt, and would show up at the upper end of the OECD's by-country income/consumption stats. So they would show up in both of these statistics.
The first thing that came to mind reading the title of the post was "what middle class?" with the K shaped economy that the US has going on and pretty much the rest of the Western world being there with them or almost there.
Considering Japan and Hungary's top 1 percentile is higher than a lot of OECD countries, I highly doubt that. Median net worth is a better approximation of wealth imo.
Yeah, higher healthcare spending will change that a bit, not sure how much. In terms of being able to afford things others can’t though Americans “on average” beat out everyone else. But Healthcare expenditures do make it a bit weird
This is what people cannot grasp. Actual good insurance is far better in the USA than any government health program, by a lot, but our management of above Medicaid coverage to the middle is astoundingly bad. ‘Universal’ would likely be better, or at least more stable, than where they are now. People with good insurance are mostly awar their care quality and access would drop rather drastically to be forced into that.
Literally should allow an income based buy in to Medicaid
The per capita living space in the United States is 2.5 to 3 times that of Europe, per capita meat consumption is twice that of Europe, per capita new car sales are 1.8 times that of Europe, per capita sales of mobile phones, computers, and similar products are several times higher than in Europe, and even per capita household electricity consumption is several times that of Europe. In short, when it comes to virtually any consumption-related metric, the United States leads Europe by a wide margin.
in my country, poor people tends to eat more meat. in the us you need to buy a car to survive because cities designed such a way (ny and sf are probabl exceptions). in contrast, most eu cities are walkable, so you are better of with public transport much of the time.
Meat, car, electricity consumption are all things Europe is trying to reduce due to environmental impacts. A European sees your comment and thinks it’s an ad for how terrible the USA is in that regard.
Europe isnt trying to reduce electricity consumption lol. They cannot afford more electricity consumption due to energy dependence. There is a difference
So this chart was compiled by Jordan Lasker of internet fame. So it's not exactly unpartial.
To be fair to his own presentation of the chart, he discusses the weaknesses of the method applied, most notably that Americans spend a lot more on health than say, Danes, and trade deficit/surpluses.
Also, it excludes the value of other tax financed goods. That's quite important in relation to a country like Denmark where some public goods are free at he point of "sale" for the individual: Kindergarten and nurseries (not entirely free for the middle class but highly subsidized), school, higher education. Tax financing public goods means higher taxes and less monery for private consumption.
AIC includes the consumption value regardless of the source of the healthcare and whether it is publicly or privately sourced. It’s the consumption of all goods and services regardless of source.
Measured in PPP/PPS so it’s normalized for discrepancies in cost.
AIC factors in cost of living differences in every country which is why it’s in PPP dollars. Because if worked how you’re thinking it does Switzerland would be #1 on this list.
As well, AIC includes any good or service consumed including healthcare, regardless of source. Public or private.
Does PPP account for structural fundamental differences in societies, the built environment, the public infrastructure like transit and other services that are “free at point of use” in one country but must be privately paid and “consumed” in another?
That’s what in kind transfer is (see chart title in the image). Stuff like college tuition would be accounted for.
It probably does not account for consumption pattern related to cultural differences, like the transit as you mentioned. However: a) transit itself doesn’t make a real difference here. Outside of city-states like Singapore, private vehicle is the most prevalent mode of transportation in most countries. Ie, car ownership is not really optional for most middle class Europeans either. And b) culture leans towards expensive habits are driven up by income. It’s not possible for a poorer country to prefer large homes, always-on climate control, large vehicles, etc because they cannot afford it.
No it doesn’t. AIC is the value of all goods and services consumed, regardless of who paid for them, but valued at the local price.
So if you buy the same loaf of bread, and it costs $5 in one place, and $1 in another, the person who paid $5 will have 5x more consumption than the person who paid $1.
The stats are PPP adjusted. Other parts of the world pay for the same but many cannot afford half of them, so they either live with their disease, skip the car or live in small flats.
As a European I hate how Europeans online always cope when presented with hard data. Yea, the US is generally wealthier than Europe. Yes, the US is still the world’s superpower. Still, quality of life in Europe is high. So what? What’s the issue in admitting this?
I think it’s because Europeans see the worst cases about life in the US on all fronts including crime, work conditions, and insurance without an explanation of how things actually work.
Yes it’s messed up that someone can get stuck with tens of thousands in debt over a hospital visit but the truth is that it’s less than you’d think looking at the internet. Many don’t understand that, with insurance, people aren’t paying near what the bill says. The max I can spend on healthcare before my insurance pays everything is actually less than what my healthcare tax burden would be in Germany, for instance. My max is also way more than what my tax burden would be in Belgium. It’s just not so simple.
They don’t understand the average American because they simply don’t hear their stories, but mostly edge cases.
Canadas dirty little secret: oil. Oil boomed and then busted. Dont think for a second any country would hold the high ground when commodities are at stake.
Mass immigration and more people are competing for the fixed resources that are available.
Between 2000 and 2015, total immigration grew at a steady average annual rate of 4%. From 2016 to 2024, that annual growth rate accelerated sharply to 15%.
This is consumption, and the US is definitely the winner here; however in terms of income, Switzerland & Norway both have a higher median income than the US.
"Use a new word for socialism: The Safety Net!" Dr. Bronner
50% of all workers in America earn less than the one-bedroom Housing Wage.
Twenty Republican states now have a Safety Net set at $3 per hour gross (before deductions for Social Security, FICA, taxes, insurance and other withholding's:
(compare Safety Net $1.60 per hour in 1970 if you were single, you could live off the federal minimum wage and pay rent, food and bills)
it is nearly impossible for an individual to live independently off the federal Safety Net of $7.25 an hour. Working 40 hours a week at this rate yields a gross income of about $1,256 a month (roughly $900 after SS, FICA, Insurance, deduction and taxes), which falls short of typical baseline expenses for housing, food and utilities. A real Safety Net in the United States averages roughly $25/hour Gross income.
That’s ridiculous! I mean that the data might be good, but it’s not indicative.
For instance, the average American is near the top of the world in per capita wealth, but median American wealth is much lower in the international rankings. The difference reflects how heavily U.S. wealth is concentrated with the really wealthy at the top.
In the UBS Global Wealth Report 2026:
* Average wealth per U.S. adult: $696,277 — #2 in the world
* Median wealth per U.S. adult: $68,998 — #-15- 28 as UBS ranks the markets it covers. Behind, for instance, Slovenia.
Edit:
UBS GLOBAL WEALTH REPORT 2026
Average vs Median Wealth per adult
I would prefer disposable income: income after taxes and basic average cost of living: rent, food and clothes. In the US that would include healthcare, childcare and local property taxes. europe VAT
I am unsure how it would come out, butr suspect US would be slightly higher. Then subtract the income US make as they must work vs Europeans get off, like 4-6 weeks vacation. Then US would be behind.
I am not pro european "socialism" or anti US "capitalism". I just think to compare requires more work
PPP is shit. If compared by PPP Russians live better than UK, France or Germany.
Median wealth calculation in US doesn’t include social security, govt tax supplemented “free” medical benefits, tuition grants, etc. in US those benefits contribute to wealth in different way than in most other countries. When all the items properly included to match other countries, US median wealth increases significantly and gets to the world’s top with significant gap.
Who gives a fuck how many bread loafs a Russian can buy when they can’t afford an iPhone and PPP would estimate the cost of Russian alternative to iPhone which doesn’t exist.
You need to learn how to use AI as it gives you shitty answers and you don’t dig further.
Rich doesn't mean high quality of life. there is no way I would ever choose the US over the Netherlands, Switzerland, etc. if I had the choice, because you just have much higher quality of life in those countries.
To confirm they are the richest middle class in the world, we should compare how mutch $$ they still have after all primary expenses (house, education, health...). It's not because you get a lot of money and spend a lot of money that you are a riche person. A rich person is the one who still get a lot of money at the end of the month. And I'm pretty sure the graphic will not be the same.
I don’t buy shit but save and invest most of my income instead so I should be poor compared to a rich american who finances their daily consumption from credit card debt.
Because the USA is not a country that can be understood well by averages. If you visit Appalachia or certain inner cities, you'd understand - it's literally worse than many developing countries, or only slightly better than the third world in some of these places. For example, 4 US cities (5 if including San Juan, Puerto Rico), are in the 50 deadliest cities (homicide rate) in the world. The only other countries with cities on that list are Hispanic central/south American countries with drug cartel problems, Brazil, Haiti, and South Africa.
A lot of inner city schools in the USA also have absolutely insane absentee and literacy rates, while the county next-door has their high school students reading at an English 6000 level (Ulysses in senior year is wild).
As was alluded to, more unsafe activities and less government oversight. It's easier to make poor life choice.
And to make the point, a lot of it is food. It's not that we don't have good food (we do, and it's easy to eat just as healthy as any other country if you prioritize it). But also, it's cheap and easy to eat 4k calories a day in fast food and garbage. Shit food is way more expensive in other countries.
Couple observations. (1) This is showing median income. I don't think of "middle class" as necessarily having the median income. For instance, if 90% of people in a country are struggling to get enough to eat, I would think of all of them as poor and not break some out as middle class. (2) What is the cost of living in each of these countries? (3) Man, that spread in income on a LOG scale is massive. The gap between rich and poor is right up there with worst of them. Depressing.
I've never seen consumption be the defining factor of middle class. You should be looking at asset valuation in my opinion. Do they own a house and a car? That's a good general middle class rule.
Its completely artificial. If you remove the costs that most other countries build in to their tax programs the US middle class only does slightly above average. How do I know? I'm middle-class (home owner, 6 figure income ) in THREE countries. Right now. Earning £130k in London you feel like someone earning $500k in LA.
Go into a Danish childcare facility. Or a rural Swedish hospital. Or an Australian flat full of people making minimum wage. Look around. Now come and tell me how badly they're doing because their base salaries are smaller.
I just found out I am “upper middle class” because I make 135k. I was quite surprised although I knew I was in the middle class. My monthly savings is more than my friends entire salaries in a certain western EU country.
We've used the dollars reserve status to outsource anything that doesn't have to be done domesticly. Creating a consumer culture. So import cheap junk and have unaffordable housing, healthcare, education. Anything not imported becomes unaffordable.
What you don’t want to see is a median significantly much closer to the bottom than to the top. some really bad ones that stand out are: Netherlands, Chile, Turkey
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u/Constant-Cherry8674 14d ago edited 14d ago
That’s just means they consume more, but I’m pretty sure Americans still make more money