You need to factor in that only ~30% of workers work full-time.

Men with a bachelor's degree who work full-time have a median income is ~$89k - (basically the entire demographic of these TSMC workers).

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/wkyeng.pdf

The statistic I gave was for solely full-time workers in the US.

Keep in mind the plant they are talking about is in AZ, where median wages and cost of living are generally lower than California.

Medium individual income in AZ is ~37k. I'm not sure how many Americans would give up a 40hour/week job for a 996 that pays 13k more.

AZ minimum wage is 14.70. If it was 996 and you somehow only got straight time for working 72h a week, it would pay 55000. Assuming there's no overtime exemption it would be $67000. I'm pretty sure it's not a 996 in AZ.

Why does it have to be 996 at TSMC in the US?

Very easily if they need to pay overtime here. I'd be very surprised to find an argument of $37k being exempt in any state.

They will indeed burn themselves out, but that's their choice of work/life balance vs. pay.

By how much? Where I live in IA McDonalds is starting at $17/hour, which is not that much behind California. (and both states are large enough to expect some variation depending on where you live)