I worked for varios European companies in the US traveling often and for long periods of time to Europe for work. I must say at least in places like Austria an

I worked for varios European companies in the US traveling often and for long periods of time to Europe for work. I must say at least in places like Austria and Germany things like groceries, utilities and eating out seem to be considerably cheaper (and much better). I'm currently paying $250 per month for water in the US for a household of three and this is not in San Francisco. We also work more hours in general. My counterparts in Germany had over 30 vacation days and at least one holiday per month. Taxes here are lower, but just because we pay other big expenses ourselves such as health care. But the real hit comes when you add kids. In Germany it seems you are given even more paid time off work to spend time with your kids and travel with them which is awesome, besides your employer picking up some of the bills like education. Forget that in the US. Here you are on your own. $chool, extra curricular activitie$, nannie$. Money money money. Some european countries enjoy very high standards of living and great services and infrastructure, and that cannot possibly be free. So salaries as a metric alone are meaningless, at the end of the day what matters is how much money is left in the bank after you pay all the bills to keep up with a certain life style. In the US a decent, not even a good life style costs a lot of money, almost like a hidden tax you need to pay.