Excuse me?! The USA has the best standards of living in the world. Better than EU or Japan or Canada or any othe industrial nation. For sure we have better standards of living than where you live in Germany.
Norway has the best standards of life as a nation.
And I wasn't talking about average but about differences - there are far more poor people in the US then there are in 'my area' (western germany in the area of the netherlands and belgium) but certainly the average income and the average life style in "the US" is much higher.
There are german regions in the east that you can only compare to africa though. Certainly the same is true for some Detroit Areas.