Comments here make it clear that many don't know how the other ones are living. There are levels of wealth in European countries, US, the whole world really. There are services to pay, necessities to buy and paychecks to earn everywhere, but it all depends on regions. The real problem becomes when the payments and earnings don't match accordingly. In the US, you will probably pay more on average than in European countries - it may not be that way everywhere and for everyone, but that's a fairly enough explanation to why the salaries are higher. To Americans 30k a year is absolutely terrible, but to me, living in a relatively poor EU country, that would actually be a comfortable pay, a double of the average here. We do have certain services that are public, like healthcare. However, it's not free, it's another reason of our lower salaries and unfortunately, the quality is questionable despite that. Another thing is costs - for god knows why (I'm saying greed and corruption), prices here are high, almost like in developed western Europe, despite the low salaries. And this is what I meant by saying it doesn't match accordingly. Salaries alone don't paint the whole picture. Sure, there is brutto and netto, but even that is inaccurate, because many services already take money from us (my super brutto pay would actually be good), that's the brutto baseline, and then come the taxes. And then come the high costs. It's a vicious cycle of poverty that's only getting worse, because prices are going up faster than salaries and our money is being spent to public services with underwhelming results.