That figure leaves off the cost of healthcare (both premiums and services) for the US but includes it for Finland. So you aren't comparing like with like.

Finland pays $4,033, and the US $9,892 per capita (2016) for healthcare according to OECD figures. Since 2016 healthcare costs in the US have continued to increase faster than the rate of inflation.

The figure includes employer-paid and government-paid insurance for both countries. 80% of health expenditures in Finland are paid by the government or employers, and almost 90% in the U.S. https://www.oecd.org/health/health-systems/OECD-Focus-on-Out....

The income figures don't include out-of-pocket healthcare costs, but those are relatively small in both countries: about $1,100 per person per year in the U.S. and it looks like $800-900 per person in Finland. (Which by the way lines up nicely with your figures above, applying the fact that 20% of expenditures in Finland are out of pocket, versus about 11% in the U.S.)

Note that the data linked above is from the "mid-2000s" while we are using healthcare expenditures from 2019. A fairer comparison with more updated data is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c.... Here, the U.S. median household income is almost 30% higher in 2016, or $7,740 per year. The difference in out-of-pocket healthcare expenses for a three-person household reduces that to about $7,000 per year.

>Workers are benefiting from it, at least financially. The median income in the U.S. is more than 20% higher than in Finland, adjusted for cost of living

The difference is useless in the U.S. as its eaten away but healthcare, college costs, and several other kind of expenses...

Not to mention the quality of life, infrastructure, etc those extra 20% get you (even if they weren't eaten away) is way worse...

See above re: healthcare expenses. College costs are also small in comparison to a lifetime of earning thousands of dollars less. Most college graduates in the US have no debt, and the median debt for those that do is $10,000-25,000. Higher American salaries make that up in just a few years. Finnish National pension isn’t any more generous than Social Security, and other expenses are tiny in comparison.

As to “quality of life”—that’s subjective. If I wanted to live in a 900 square foot house without air conditioning, like the average Finn, I’d move back to Bangladesh.

There are 44.2 million borrowers who owe a total of over $1.5 trillion in student debt. That's a 35K average, but there are people owing 50K and 100K.

Not sure where you see the "higher salaries making that up in just a few year", since ex-students are saddled with debt for decades after graduation, and tons of young people can't find decent jobs. Low unemployment doesn't mean "enough paying jobs".

>As to “quality of life”—that’s subjective.

Well, not really.

>If I wanted to live in a 900 square foot house without air conditioning, like the average Finn, I’d move back to Bangladesh.

Well, if you mainly have Bangladesh experience to compare to, it's no wonder why America looks like such a wonderland to you.

For the average American it would be a huge upgrade to live "like the average Finn", even if they don't have the larger (shoddily built, average American houses are the worst I've seen in the west, and I'm not even getting into trailer parks and ready-mades) house.