In the U.S. it's a bit different because the category "benefits" often includes things that in other countries are part of the social system, such as health ins

In the U.S. it's a bit different because the category "benefits" often includes things that in other countries are part of the social system, such as health insurance, childcare, maternity/paternity leave, continuing education, etc. That can all admittedly be solved with money, given enough of a pay difference, though in some cases it would have to be a quite large pay difference. The stickiest part used to be the health-insurance part, which was hard to buy outside an employee risk pool if you had preexisting medical issues, but that's mostly been fixed (or at least papered over for now).