Originally Posted by After Shock Media

Um even without the sprawl, the fucked wages for many are a major factor.

Lets say:
Norway has 10.00 a gallon gas. New person working for McDonald's 1 hour = 24.00 and lets say round trip is 30 miles and persons car gets 30mpg. Well the first hour still placed them 14.00 ahead of round trip travel.

US has 4.75 a gallon gas. New person working for McDonald's 1 hour = 5.15 and lets say round trip is 30 miles and persons car gets 30mpg. Well the first hour still placed them .40 cents ahead of round trip travel.

Since many companies in the US do not want full time people, lets assume the person gets lucky and gets 30 hours a week. (5 days at 6 hours each). Gas sucks out 23.75 from that paycheck just for travel to work only. They earn 154.50 a week, minus the work travel and its now 130.75 (yes we are leaving taxes out of this for simple math)

Same person in same situation in Norway: Earns 720.00 a week, 50.00 a week in gas to work only. Leaving them 670.00 per week.

Person in Norway after travel expense makes 147.00 more in a week than the US worker earns in the entire month. Or shall we just say they earn 2307.00 more per month.

Keep in mind there are wages lower than 5.15 as well. Some are in the 7.25 or so range but still that does not alter anything that much so the 5.15 is best used for the example. Like I said taxes left out, but really they would not also matter much. Specially since people outside of US actually get stuff for their taxes.