The issue for Americans is that living a pretty "normal" lifestyle is way more expensive compared to living very similar "normal" lifestyle in most other developed cities.

Easiest example would be groceries. If you live in a crazy expensive place like Manhattan, you could easily spend 4-5x more on groceries compared to a city like Warsaw. But it's not like you are getting better produce or products in Manhattan, you are getting same stuff, just paying way more.

And this is true for other day to day stuff too like Housing, Healthcare, Schools, etc.