>>64206408
>you pay more on car payments, credit cards, healthcare, phone etc.
the specific basket of goods cost varies so widely between countries that such a statement is impossible to substantiate without literally months' worth of research so you're talking out of your ass

but I'm not going to go into that. let's tentatively accept what you say as true. well, according to the OECD, the US PPP modifier is only 1.2x above the OECD average. given that Europeans pay 16% more tax, this means most of that cancels out.
(it's likely that for Americans, most of this additional expenditure is on healthcare.)
but this doesn't cancel out the overall higher gross median salaries Americans enjoy.

in short, the typical Frenchman earns €48,000, and the typical American $60,000
the state takes about €17,000 and $20,000 in taxes, respectively
leaving €31,000 and $40,000 net
even if things are cheaper for the Frenchman by 20%, or about €6,000, the American still earns 10% or about $4,000 more than he does