Further - for tens (hundreds?) of millions of people in Europe, in countries such as Hungary, Serbia, Poland, Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Moldova, Russia, Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia - even parts of Greece and Italy - earning 21000 EUR per year is an unobtainable dream for working in a grocery store.
EU/EEA countries, selected average monthly wages:
Portugal : 1158 EUR Estonia : 1201 EUR Latvia : 925 EUR Lithuania : 851 EUR Poland : 1102 EUR Czech Republic : 1149 EUR Slovakia : 980 EUR Hungary : 955 EUR Romania : 787 EUR Croatia : 1081 EUR Bulgaria : 586 EUR Greece : 1092 EUR
(source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_...)
Summary - Detroit/Michigan wages are three to five times higher than all of the above EU/EEA countries.
No figures are PPP adjusted (but clearly there is a very large gap between Detroit/Austrian-grocery-store-wages compared to much of the EU/EEA).
If we don't want to stick to the EU (btw, you originally referred to "Europe"), using the examples proffered so far:
Mexico 664 EUR per month vs Ukraine 264 EUR per month
Mexico and Ukraine I cannot comment because I know little about it.
There are some poor countries like Bulgaria and Romania. Most of Europe is doing just fine. Like you have poor Europe you also have poor US cities and countries and if you compare the poor parts you will find them not all too different.
> If you're making ~$60,000 or more in the US, you are overwhelmingly going to have good health insurance. If you're making $140,000, you're going to have great health insurance. I fail to see how universal healthcare is a lure in this case.
Even if you have great insurance the knowledge that whatever happens to you, you are fine is an amazing feeling. Also knowing that everybody (with exceptions like people who are there illegally and not entitled to healthcare) having coverage adds to your personal quality of life tremendously.
> The US has a far more progressive income tax system than most of the developed European nations
It’s not about how progressive the system is but how much you pay and get for it. In the US you need disposable income to get qualitatively high services and most of those are individual things. Eg: public transit and things like that are hard to get and underfunded.
> Grocery stores in Europe do not pay better than in the US.
A grocery store worker in central Europe earning minimum wage or equivalent gets social security, child support, maternity leave of a year, a guaranteed job after returning and a dystem that supports their children and partner. It’s not the money that matters but what you get.
In Austria for instance someone working in a grocery store has a minimum wage of 21000 eur a year minimum, guaranteed increases every year. A 38 euro work week with guaranteed overtime pay, a guaranteed weekend (and at least every secon saturday off), one year of maternity/paternity money and time off, 5 weeks of holiday, two months of notice, unemployment insurance, guaranteed salaries in case of bancruptcy and much more.