*grabs can opener*
*opens Costco-sized can of worms*
Long story short, it's a question of individualist/vs. community-minded, and money vs. quality of life. Of course, money DOES have an impact on quality of life, if only to buy you freedom that much sooner. ;)
I've done some traveling, mostly to poorer countries, haven't had the chance to hit Europe yet... but I have been the "tour guide" for other Europeans coming to the area. From a dollars and cents perspective, it depends on the manner in which you want to live. If you want to live like an upper middle class American, this country is probably the cheapest place to do so. If you are used to a simpler life, you might live cheaper, but you will find fewer protections here. On the whole, our core attitudes are different on what should be up to "society" to cover and what should be left for the individual to handle. Neither is entirely right, neither is entirely wrong, it's just a cultural difference. The bitch about cultural differences is that little wrench in your mind when you realize that another society's setup is actually preferable to them, chosen by them even, rather than something they do only because they can't be like YOUR culture! ;)
US vs other bits of the industrialized world? It depends a lot on the location of the jobs you would be able to get. If you can manage to get/keep a good paying job in a rural/suburban area, the US is great. I grew up in a relatively rural area of the Rust Belt. It was a region ranking in the lowest real estate costs in many national rankings. No jobs there, so I moved near D.C. when my husband got a job there. Now I'm on a decent career track, but am stuck in the land of sky-high housing prices and commuter hell.
Mind you, I'm not a fan of city life and that will color my comments. I hear comments that US worker protections generally suck compared to its peers. I would love to see better maternity leave policies in this country but that will be a while in coming, if ever. However, all those extra worker protections in Europe can make it that much harder to get on the career ladder. There are also numerous articles about how European women find themselves shut out of advancement due to those "benefits." Pick your poison.
I DO envy the more generous paid time off that our friends across the pond get. That probably fuels a lot of the "early retirement" desires here. How many Europeans to we find wandering around here, vs. vice versa, especially for those older than college age? We, collectively, are a very workaholic culture. You have to fight that tendency in almost any well-paid job. But at least you have the *chance* to make that money, and you don't have to spend it all on dreck.
If you rent, tenant protections can be rather hit-or-miss depending on your region. Parts of Europe/UK also seem to have more housing subsidy options that extend help beyond the poorest folk.
Food and clothes tend to be cheaper here. The gap narrows with good quality food/clothes. Visitors here love our restaurants, thinking them a great deal even after accounting for tipping. But, again, worker protections.
Fewer options for Internet service/slower speeds/not available at all, depending on where you are located. This is the downside of low population density.
Greater weather extremes, depending on your location- it's easier to take the moral high road on air conditioning if your region rarely tops 80 degrees.
Cars- running them is relatively cheap here. The downside is that they are needed far MORE here. In so many places here you are taking your life in your hands if you try to walk/bike somewhere. The roads are just not designed for it.
Housing- outside of a few very expensive markets, renting an apartment puts you a notch or two lower on social standing. The build quality of our apartments is also worse, and therefore noisier. Since our rental housing tends to include more people who are not, er, "career minded" the noise can be an issue.
Education- hoo boy, what a can of worms. Since our education system is mostly locally-funded, your neighborhood/town matters a lot. "Europe" doesn't have as wide a disparity of school quality as here. There is a 30% disparity in housing prices between the "nice" school districts and the more marginal ones- and the nice school districts have higher property taxes rates on top of that. I will withhold comment on the various idiotic fads at play in our education system. While US scholars have thought up great ideas in education theory, no one listens to them here. Instead, they've implemented the theories in Japan or other countries, to *their* benefit.
College- you've heard the rants before, I am sure. I think we shoot ourselves in the foot by making it so costly to get the training needed to make a living (which doesn't necessarily mean the university system).
Crime rate- again, if you manage to live in the suburbs or the nicer city neighborhoods it is less of an issue. Depending on your region of residence, the judicial system may have very different views in terms of defining the allowable threshold and means of self-defense. Michigan is not Maryland in SO many ways...
Culture- Everyone is a product of their own culture and that colors their views regarding any particular aspects of it. I grew up in small town Midwest, then came to the East Coast and hit some culture shock. Most of the US is very open and friendly in attitude- to the point where we unsettle various kinds of Europeans. In the less populated areas this attitude is even more so, but the urbanized areas have people more standoffish- it's the nature of the environment.
More people here are openly religious than in western Europe, and being openly, "aggressively" atheist might be a social liability in some quarters. Most of us figure "live and let live"- the shrill people of both sides are over-represented in public discourse.
Another aspect of culture is time-sense. Basically, how many minutes past posted time is considered late/tardy? Southern Europe and Northern Europe have very different answers to that question. While the US has more of an Anglo/German attitude on that front, the west coast seems a bit more relaxed on it. Different attitudes on this fuel the "$nationality drives me nuts" statements.
But it boils down to your own risk tolerance, and some serious introspection on your cultural assumptions. The US offers a greater range of risk vs. reward, but there are several gaping cracks in our social support system. One of the biggest is work/family balance. The "starting a family" phase is one of the worst scenarios for being in the US, if the wife needs to/wants to work after having a child. There is little financial subsidy and even less working accommodations for families with small children. Subsidized childcare is rare, and daycare in many places is as much or more than tuition at the state university would be (and this is at inflated US tuition rates).
I am at the start a family point myself, and am scared sh*tless about falling into the career black hole that is motherhood. Daycare in my region is around $1100-$1200/month, in other places even more. Unless you and your spouse could afford a full time nanny here, or have one parent stay home for years, I'd consider waiting until you have children and have them past infancy before making a move. Especially if both parents expect to work. And I hope the college tuition spiral breaks at some point in the next 10-15 years, else you'll want to start saving for the kid's tuition while they're still in diapers.*
*others here argue that it isn't necessary to fund a kid's higher education. Fine. But if we're comparing quality of life/options in Europe vs. the US, though, this is a very big detail to include in comparison.