[TMWNN]

>It seems very hard to compare the two figures. I guess the interesting way to compare them would be what's the disposable income you have to spend normalised against purchasing power. So gross salary, less taxes (payroll and any others if applicable), pension contributions, student loan repayments, medical insurance contributions (and other out-of-pocket expenses relating to that you may have to pay in a typical year), and then baseline cost-of-living (rent/mortgage payments), but there are so many variables there it seems very hard to be directly comparable.

At $45,284 the US has the highest household net disposable income per capita in the OECD (http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/united-states/), where "[disposable income](http://stats.oecd.org/glossary/detail.asp?ID=46)" is adjusted for purchasing power and accounts for healthcare and government benefits. By contrast Canada is $30,854 (http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/canada/), below the OECD average of $33,604.