To me, it's embarrassing that families in this country who earn $47,000 have a lower standard of living than a family who makes half of that in some places in Europe.
well, that's not true, so you can relax and enjoy your comfortable american standard of living.
well it is, actually. 35 European countries have a lower cost of living, 20 european countries possess a cost of living 1/2 of that of the united states, and of course most of those countries have centralized health care and other robust socalized government programs for it's citizens.
you can use the tool in the tweet i posted to see how those income levels are affected by each country's relative purchasing power. for example:
family of 3, 47K usd in the us = richer than 91.4% of the world's population
family of 3, 21.7K euro in france = richer than 83.7% of the world's population
family of 3, 21.7K euro in greece = richer than 88.3% of the world's population
and a family of three in the united states with a household income of 47K is eligible for obamacare subsidies that pay for most of their health insurance costs.