[asukumar]

You are correct that most of Western Europe is ahead at the first decile, but you are incorrect to imply that it’s at the top 1% that the advantage goes away. In fact, the US meets the richest EU countries at the 50th percentile (meaning the median person is equally better off) and at the 90th percentile, you are much much better off in the US - it’s not comparable. The fact is, for everyone middle class (not by a local definition of middle class - literally middle) or above, the US will have you significantly better off. https://www.ft.com/content/ef265420-45e8-497b-b308-c951baa68...

[FredPret]

Your linked article looks at PPP income.

Here are two that compare wealth, showing the US 50th percentilers doing significantly better than European ones. US median wealth according to this is $162k: https://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/economic_b....

And it's hard to get this data for Europe but looking at the "Median" column for this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_distribution_in_Europe it looks like the US middle class would slot into fourth place, just below Denmark which is at 165k, and far ahead of say, Germany, which is at 65k.

[dathinab]

Through the argument here is more about living standards then how "well of" someone is from a materialistic POV.

Like one thing I realized is that it seems that you need to earn way more in the US to have a similar level of living quality/standard compared to the EU. As far as I can tell I probably would need to earn ~50% more to have the same quality of live level in the US compared to where I live now. Through it probably depends a lot on where you are in the US/EU.

[ryandrake]

Isn't the USA middle class shrinking though? We're quickly bifurcating into a "really better off" group and a "really worse off" group, with little in the middle.