In Madrid where the average monthly pretax salary is below 1500 a shared room with four strangers costs 400-709 a month and small aprtments in bad neighborhoods cost 3000-4000 a square meter to buy.
Yes, but that cuts in the other direction. In the U.S., skilled work like subway construction will provide employer-paid healthcare. U.S. employers pay $1.3 trillion a year in healthcare benefits. You have to account for that on top of the reported wages. So that makes U.S. workers even more expensive relative to workers in Europe, where healthcare will be paid from taxes on the wages paid to employees.