Most of the US is significantly south of much of continental Europe (not just Scandinavia), as a point of comparison. We (broadly) experience longer days in the winter than Europeans.

Stockholm has 1973 hours of sunshine a year, compared to 2100 hours in Seattle. The US has more sun, but not enough for a significant difference.

GP is talking about winter sunlight, not year-round numbers. (Longer summer days don't help seasonal affective disorder.) Stockholm sees about 6 hours of daylight at winter solstice, while Seattle sees 8.25.

And Seattle is sort of cherry-picked -- it's one of the northern-most cities in the continental US, representing 1.2% of the US population (including the full metro area). LA sees 9.75 hours of daylight on the solstice. Honolulu sees 10.75 hours.

The US population-weighted centroid is approximately Missouri[1], which sees 9.5 hours of daylight on the solstice -- more than 50% more than Stockholm.

[1]: https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/news/mar22/center-population.h...

You seem to be mixing up daylight and sunshine hours.

Sunshine is what helps alleviate seasonal affective disorder.