This isn't the whole explanation, unfortunately (I really want to understand this relationship). A beer costs more in Norway, a good loaf of bread would be $6 (although you could probably get a cheap one for $2-3), a studio apartment in Oslo would be $300k-ish.

So the biggest price difference is in the rents, or the housing prices. I would probably increase my savings by a factor of five or more if I had a salary like the ones cited in this thread :)

Obviously it's supply and demand, I just wonder which side of the equation is skewed and why.

In Norway you get everything for free, education, healthcare, retirement, etc. I'm sure that's part of the difference

That isn't it; all the things you mentioned are paid through very heavy taxation, and all numbers we've been discussing are gross salary.

You could probably attribute a 14% difference through the "employer tax" which the US doesn't have (which is taken out of your paycheck before the gross salary number is cited), and arguably another 4% due to mandatory retirement savings. But it doesn't make up for it when the difference is 50%-75%.

Yeah, but when you retire in Norway, you will be taken care of. Not so in the US, so you need to save for that from that extra 50%.