"It is interesting to note this is because people in the US have much less disposable income than people in other developed countries."
Is this a commonly known thing? First I've heard it. I would have figured it would be the opposite given our overall tax rate compared to somewhere like Sweden is infinitesimally smaller. Can you point to some analysis/citations for this?
It does seem to make sense in my mind as, anecdotally, when I was in Germany I noticed a large number of high end Audis and BMWs. Cars that are $80k in the US would be well over $100k in Germany. (This is perhaps an oversimplification of the situation given that there are a great deal more factors involved in the pricing of German-made cars within Germany vs. selling the same cars in a much more competitive foreign market like the US'.)
The tax rate is lower, but the places charging those taxes do generally use them for providing public services that individuals would be paying for directly or indirectly, so that likely offsets part of it.
Past there, I'd suspect that it comes down to society as a whole having a more positive outcome, while individuals potentially having slightly worse outcomes. If we lower everyone's income in taxes but reinvest that money in healthcare and mental health services, quality education, etc, then we lift a lot of unproductive members of society up and have them all producing for us as well. The middle class may earn slightly less, but we can basically chop the lower classes/poverty stricken individuals right out of the equation - Sweden has 1% of the population below the poverty line, while the US has 15% - that's going to skew the average upward quite a bit.
Is this a commonly known thing? First I've heard it. I would have figured it would be the opposite given our overall tax rate compared to somewhere like Sweden is infinitesimally smaller. Can you point to some analysis/citations for this?
It does seem to make sense in my mind as, anecdotally, when I was in Germany I noticed a large number of high end Audis and BMWs. Cars that are $80k in the US would be well over $100k in Germany. (This is perhaps an oversimplification of the situation given that there are a great deal more factors involved in the pricing of German-made cars within Germany vs. selling the same cars in a much more competitive foreign market like the US'.)