There is a lot of anecdote based arguments here but I think its better to look at different indices trying to capture these kind of trends: - https://en.wikipe

There is a lot of anecdote based arguments here but I think its better to look at different indices trying to capture these kind of trends: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report - http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/life-satisfaction/ http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/life-satisfaction/ - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where-to-be-born_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where-to-be-born_Index - https://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/rankings_by_country.jsp https://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/rankings_by_country.j... While none of these rankings are perfect they show clear trend that some of the European countries are doing better than US. Also you should keep in mind that money is not everything. (Which is why we have the above stats anyway). People have friends and family and a way of life that they might not be willing to abandon. As other have mentioned before migration to US is non-trivial and requires quite and effort. In contrast to that you can move much easier within EU. Which is what is happening anyway - if you want high salary you go to Switzerland / London / Paris or any other high income area and you can do so without being treated as an immigrant.