For reference, I've for many years (35) lived in and around NYC/Brooklyn/New Jersey, LA, Las Vegas and Miami proper. Europe, I've been to Berlin, London, Paris, Strasbourg, Munich, and some I forget. It's a night and day difference and it baffles me that someone from there would want to live here. Cheers.
If you take a good SWE salary in Munich (example 80k), and compare it to an average/solid software shop in the states that gives 200k. Expenses can comparatively quadruple and you will still have much more at the end of the month to do with as you please. You can live in so many places in the states where this salary is realistic. But only a handful of places in Europe even have salaries that could come close as a concept. Switzerland that could get you there has even higher expenses and even there only FAANG offers such salaries.
And outside of software, doctors in the states make many multiples compared to European ones. Most blue collar workers make multiples, lawyers make multiples, pretty much any job you take you can make much more. I agree that life is better in Europe and I'd choose to live here 9/10 times, but that's down to mentality and the fact there's a reason we're less productive than you.
Many jobs pay really well in the US, but many more pay poorly. The top 10% are responsible for ~50% of consumer spending, and the typical American is not that well off.
Germany, like many other European countries, relies more on exports and less on domestic demand than the US. As a natural consequence, its immigration policy favors skilled immigration to keep top wages down. If the wages grow too quickly, your exports become more expensive than those of your competitors, and the entire economy suffers. And when the economy grows, it's better to use the surplus to raise typical wages than top wages.