[dmuneka]

I think it depends on where in the US. In NYC, I pay around 32% of my gross income in federal and local taxes, social security, medicare, etc. That's almost 4 months of my salary.

On top of that, I have to pay for health insurance, deductibles, and retirement savings, which I assume my French counterpart wouldn't have to separately pay for.

[jchampem]

Exactly. The first 25% I mentioned includes health insurance for your whole family with close to 0 deductibles (usually a few euros here and there), retirement plan and unemployment insurance (if you get fired, you can expect to get ~60% of your previous gross salary the first year, slowly decreasing after that) and at the very least 5 weeks of paid annual leave.