[savingsPossible]

Can you provide some links?

Searches understandably are finding more 'ordinary/necessary' expenses for business than for families

[pembrook]

America blows past the rest of the developed world on disposable income per capita and it’s not even close: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per...

And before someone chimes in “that’s because of the billionaires throwing off the average!” Look at the median disposable income chart. America is still at the top.

The median American is far wealthier than the median European person, even after accounting for things Americans normally complain about like healthcare, education costs, and retirement contributions.

This results in some crazy stats, like the fact the median Mississippi resident has more disposable income than the average UK resident (and that includes financial hub London). And again, this is AFTER accounting for healthcare, education, etc costs.

[jltsiren]

The median income on that page is the median disposable household income, divided by the square root of household size. Because American households are large for developed countries, measures like that overestimate the income of the median American relative to the median European.

There is an easy sanity check: Swiss GDP per capita is higher than in the US, both in absolute terms and in PPP terms. Their Gini coefficient is lower, meaning that the income distribution is more equal than in the US. If a comparison shows that the average/median disposable income is substantially higher in the US than in Switzerland, it is measuring something weird.

[jorvi]

> When taxes and mandatory contributions are subtracted from household income, the result is called net or disposable household income

I don’t understand why Americans always have such a fetish about bragging about their disposable income. Once you allocate for payments into the welfare state, the difference becomes a lot smaller.

And that’s not even mentioning the stark difference in quality of life, beyond “quality of life” graphs. Those graphs don’t account for having to wait 25+ minutes for the store to unlock steaks or vitamins from a security case. Or for mass tent camps in cities. Or Mmss drug deaths. Uncertainty of potable water. Access to and education on safe sex, abortion, etc. Walkability of cities.

Whenever I meet Americans traveling Europe, they virtually always rave about how much better life seems over here.

[insane_dreamer]

That's because there's much more that Americans have to pay out of their disposable income, especially college (their own debt or their kids), and medical care.