If the U.S. is richer than Saudi Arabia, how come Saudis live more lavishly than Americans

You mean like these wealthy folks, living in lavish comfort?

Most nations have rich people and poor people. Saudi Arabia's economy is what's known as an extractive economy, where most of the nation’s prosperity depends on extracting a natural resource (oil, in this case) and selling it to other places. Now, extractive economies tend to be the worst for wealth inequality. The bulk of the nation's income flows to those who control the natural resources. In Saudi Arabia, that's a relatively small number of very large families. They become very, very rich. The rest of the nation fares much more poorly. Extractive economies do create jobs, local people work in drilling and refining operations, and having that much money flowing around creates at least some jobs, but the prosperity is wildly uneven. As a result, a fifth of the population lives below the poverty line, while the richest have insane wealth.

The short version is that the average Saudi Arabian does not live more lavishly than the average American. The super-wealthy do, because they control an insanely outsized portion of the nation's wealth. And since internet slideshows and tourism brochures like showing garages full of Bentleys and gold-plated toilets more than they like showing slums and poor villages, we get the impression that Saudis are all rich, when they very certainly are not.

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