[dwallin]

Of course we have higher Disposable Income in the US, it's a useless metric for these sorts of comparison purposes as it includes expenditures for things like healthcare, which in most other places is paid for by taxes (aka. not part of disposable income). A more useful metric would be Discretionary Income.

[rayiner]

The OECD economists are pretty smart cookies, and account for government services delivered in kind (like healthcare). The net adjusted household disposable income includes the value of government provided healthcare: https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/income/ (“Household adjusted disposable income includes income from economic activity (wages and salaries; profits of self-employed business owners), property income (dividends, interests and rents), social benefits in cash (retirement pensions, unemployment benefits, family allowances, basic income support, etc.), and social transfers in kind (goods and services such as health care, education and housing, received either free of charge or at reduced prices).”) So the income top line in European countries is higher than the actual income to account for the value of those services.