You are completely missing the point here. Not only are you trying to argue against things that I did not say, but you are also comparing things that cannot.
What Europeans call "gross" salary is NOT what Americans call "gross" salary. And you are mixing them together, which is exactly what my comment was trying to prevent.
> the comparison of 80k euros being less than $150k, because retirement savings will come out of both numbers.
No, the 80k remuneration is AFTER half the retirement contribution.
> the French person will pay for healthcare in the form of higher taxes out of that 80k euros
No, most of the healthcare is actually in the employer part, which is already removed from these 80k.
In Europe, what people call "gross" is the employee part of the income. This part already had the employer part removed, which contains a part of medical care and retirement.
In US, especially with 401k, the employer part is pretty much non existent until the employee triggers a contribution.
What it means is that on the 80k that a European will call his "gross" salary, he will in fact have been paid around 140k, with 60k going to his mandatory retirement/medical care for the employer contribution. The taxes left on the 80k are only the employee part.
People in Europe usually don't add up the employer contribution part into account in what they call their "gross" salary because it's a mandatory part and often not displayed on the payslips.
This is not how it works in the US. The $150k that employees refer to as their "gross" income did not had the employer contribution deducted yet.
I am not _at all_ trying to compare the retirement system of US versus EU, or saying that one is better or not or whatever. All I'm saying is EU gross is not comparable to US gross, as these numbers do NOT contain the same deductions.
In your post, you are _consistently_ mixing the two gross numbers together, which is very wrong.