What numbers are you using for your COL comparison? Because each time I tried to compare these - to get a feel of what the same standard of living would cost me in North America - I always came up with about 1.7-2x at least ( ignoring the valley). So if you say it’s similar, we either mean different things, or use different sources. For comparison: 70k€ gross is already 60% more than median (which is 44k in 2024, according to stepstone data). According to census.gov, „Real median household income was $80,610 in 2023“. So while the median income might be an imperfect proxy and comparing stepstone data with census data might be incomplete, I thing a difference of nearly 100% suggests that you cannot directly compare German income with North American.