That isn't true if you mean in terms of achieving the classic American dream… Canada, Germany, the Netherlands and others are moving more people out of lower/middle class to middle/upper class as a percentage. I do not know in terms of raw numbers but via % we are behind.
If you move to the USA from the developing world or even Eastern Europe, regardless of what job you do your salary immediately soars above whatever you made in your country of origin. Taxation on many consumer goods is also likely to be lower. (For example, electronics can be expensive elsewhere due to high import duties or VAT.) Of course, cost of living in the USA is also much higher, but nevertheless lots of immigrants feel that they have moved up in life just because of the higher wages and consumeristic lifestyle now available to them.
That would be terrible for anyone living there, as would the environment, and the environment of every country around that country, etc.
Regulation = Civilization, Taxes = Civilization, Safety Net = Civilization
Now that doesn't mean you want a regulatory nightmare, the USA has real problems with license monopolies and city regs in some areas, but you also don't want unrestricted capitalism like the USA has that destroys people, society, and the common environment. Europe has a lot of work to do as well but at least they grasp this fundamental concept. The middle ground between these two is always hard to nail perfectly.
Yet people in most of Western Europe (discounting Switzerland and Luxembourg and maybe Norway) are objectively poorer than even the poorest American states.
Yes. when I lived in Sweden, I noticed that Swedes in general have less stuff. Smaller housing, fewer cars, less ability to buy stuff, and even go out.
The average engineer salary was almost half (about 60%) of those in NYC and SF, while prices coffee/going out in Stockholm were almost the same as in NYC. Rent prices were lower though.
But, their quality of life seemed higher overall. Less stressful in general, more vacations and time off, more thoughtful planing of their cities, etc.
So, it seems like a tradeoff. If you are a blue collar or unskilled worker, Sweden would have been better, while you'd struggle in the US. But if you are a skilled worker (even blue collar, like plumber or electrician), you'd do better in the US.
I'd rather be a barista in Sweden than in the US, but I'd rather be an engineer in the US than in Sweden.
> If you are a blue collar or unskilled worker, Sweden would have been better,
The problem here is that for the Swedes to enjoy their social benefits, they cannot afford to have too many low skilled workers. The swedish economy is a high skilled economy, perhaps the highest skilled in the world. There are very few low-skill jobs, unlike the US which has an army of low skilled workers filling low skilled jobs. This is why the U.S. is able to absorb so many low skilled migrants whereas Sweden is having enormous problems finding jobs for their low skilled migrants. So while sure, you are better off being a low skilled worker in Sweden just as you are better off being a high skilled worker in the U.S., but that's because these two economies are structured very differently.
> The swedish economy is a high skilled economy, perhaps the highest skilled in the world. There are very few low-skill jobs, unlike the US which has an army of low skilled workers filling low skilled jobs. This is why the U.S. is able to absorb so many low skilled migrants whereas Sweden is having enormous problems finding jobs for their low skilled migrants.
How is that not backwards?
If you have 'an army of low skilled workers' then there's no room 'to absorb so many low skilled migrants', surely?
If you have 'a high-skilled economy' then surely you are 'having enormous problems' filling your low-skilled jobs, and welcome migrants?
Indeed, isn't Sweden famously highly accepting of migrants and in particular refugees? Presumably skewed low-skilled if at all?
(Neither Swedish nor American, so not pushing an agenda, just commenting. :))
> If you have 'an army of low skilled workers' then there's no room 'to absorb so many low skilled migrants', surely?
Why? The world doesn't work by laws of semantic symmetry. The Swedish economy is structured on automation, on lack of personal service roles, and on skilled industry. Swedish furniture manufacturers use robots and those on the shop floor that remain are required to have skills to operate those robots. Neither will you will find a huge pool of labor cutting people's lawns or being nannies or replacing roofs because there aren't many lawns to cut, roofs are made to last longer and be less labor intensive, and personal service is stygmatized. It's like Holland, which is the breadbasket of Europe but is a pioneer in agricultural automation and does not rely on large amounts of cheap migrant labor, whereas the US agricultural sector does. Even for something like restaurants, Swedish culture makes much less use of them -- e.g. San Francisco has 500 restaurants per 100K, But once you transition to a high skilled economy it becomes much harder to absorb low skilled workers.
Here, things like labor policies play a role. A high minimum wage, generous benefits and travel may pencil out for a high skilled worker that is willing to be paid 1/2 what they could get in the U.S., but they don't pencil out for a low skilled worker unless the low skilled worker's wages are high enough so that the various costs pencil out, which means there can't be too many of them as the services they provide will be more expensive means and thus have smaller utilization. That is why people complain about things like taxis, restaurant meals, bus trips, etc., costing a lot in Sweden, which is why Stockholm has 1/10 as many restaurants per 100K compared to Tokyo and 1/5 as many compared to San Francisco. Those high wages basically require a more capital intensive production processes and don't leave a lot of room for low skilled jobs.
Btw, that is one of the arguments for high minimum wages and generous benefits. The idea is that it will force firms to invest in more capital so that labor becomes more productive. That's the phenomena of McDonald's creating robot tellers and getting rid of workers. That's the process by which the revenue generated per worker is high enough to justify generous benefits. And the question with that approach is always can the economy transition to a high skilled economy or will there be a permanent underclass of unemployable low skilled workers. And Sweden has done a decent job of making this transition, although there is always a problem with high unemployment, it hasn't been the fiasco predicted, as most of the labor force has transitioned to high skilled work. But then that creates a problem when you dump a lot of low skilled workers on the economy -- they find themselves in the permanent unemployed class.
The U.S., on the other hand, has lower costs of employing labor and thus is able to absorb low skilled labor but the flip side is you do not have the same pressures towards automation and capital investment, so the US economy overall is much more mixed. It's not a high tech economy, it has a lot of low skilled jobs as well, and those low skilled jobs don't enjoy the same level of benefits.
It's a tough call which approach is "better". Culturally, the US will never become Sweden, but there are pros and cons of each approach.
dutch farming (especially kasbouw/greenhouses) are absolutely crazy.
in 2019, they exported roughly 95 billion euro's. And they are the second exporter globally. Mind you the country is absolutely tiny in comparison to the number one exporter (the USA).
Yes, it's really a miracle of what you can accomplish with intelligence and capital investment. Very high wages even for agricultural workers, a small labor pool, and massive yields.
The other catch I see is how ‘life changing’ your job as an engineer can be in us vs rest of the world. US definitely is the better bet for the young and risk taking.
You can always go back and settled wherever you want after making a ton of cash in the US (assuming it works out), reverse isn’t true as much.
It is easy to confuse a large splashy salary with what a real "life changing" job is for the majority of people. A salary that pays for a good life, real health care that actually covers you when you get sick, a real safety net that gets you back on your feet if something goes wrong, an environment run by the rule of law, an environment that isn't polluted, and a country that is building a real future for ALL the people and not just engineers.
Would you want your kids to grow up in the USA?
That is usually a good question to ask, as it shows if we are succeeding as a country. I think the USA is great if you are in the ~10% of the population who want to make loads of money, work 80 hours, and are in tech/lawyer/doctor. Everyone else is stuck in the same cultural mentality IMO, it's like living in a persistent guerilla war that you don't want to be fighting in.
I think there are two major factors to life quality that many American cities somehow missed or never really cared about enough, being able to stroll through cities by foot and decent work conditions (mostly reasonable work and commute times & holidays).
A friend of mine moved to L.A. in the early 2000s, he's still there, married to an American, but he burned out in his job there very quickly. No wonder, they were living in a small apartment with a baby in downtown L.A. and he had to commute for 3 hours daily. He got back at 10 to 11 PM and got up at 6 AM to get to work again - every workday, with almost no holiday. That's insane by European standards.
Also, social control is quite a bit stricter in a lot of (especially northern) european countries compared to the US.
Showing one's wealth is in bad taste, and bragging about status is considering being an outlier.
This is slowly changing (since about the 80's) but prior to that, showing off your middle class wealth as a status indicator was frowned upon in certain circles. especially considering the hardship most people endured during and after ww2.
I was raised in the USA and I was raised that showing one's wealth is in bad taste. In fact I think most of the midwest feels similar. I still do. The point of money isn't to show it off, it is to put it to good use.
There is a reason folks flock more to SF rather than to nowhere state. If you save 10%, it is still 20k saved compared to 8k. If you lose your job, there are 10 choices compared to one (or none), access to cutting edge of tech rather than reading about it on hacker news and so on.
Some other countries may have chosen to trade some personal income/wealth for other things.
Further, while there may be more money in general in the US, using averages skews things a bit due to inequality; social mobility is lower in the US than many other countries:
Yeah, but that's because USA basically swims in cash because since world uses dollar as core currency for the global economy USA has to print more dollars to match the growth of global economy to avoid deflation. And once it prints dollars it does with them what it pleases. Mainly buys ton of stuff from the world, but still keeps enough to maintain status of wealthy country.
It's no wonder people can get more cash it the country that basically prints it for the whole world.
Once the global economy start shrinking or the world moves to yuan or euro USA will descend to level of Eastern European country in a generation or two tops.
If there is a global switch to the euro or the yuan, American imports could become more competitive, leading to increased economic activity in the US. Dollar or not, the United States still has substantial industrial capability.
Services account for more than three quarters of the US economy, but its manufacturing sector, which still accounts for more than a tenth of its economy, is second only to that of China.
"Yet people in most of Western Europe (discounting Switzerland and Luxembourg and maybe Norway) are objectively poorer than even the poorest American states.
"
This is utter nonsense, how are you getting that?
Imagine that I offered you two deals:
1. You make $45k a year, but all your costs are 50% of the base rate. Plus health care is included that covers everything with no expenses, childcare is included, and college education is included.
2. You make $60k a year, but all your costs are 200% of the base rate. Health care isn't covered and covers nothing when you really get sick, childcare is $1500 a month per kid, and college is going to cost you half a million dollars.
Holistically Western Europe as a whole is doing way better for it's people.
"Recent studies suggest that there
is less economic mobility in the
United States than has long been
presumed. The last thirty years
has seen a considerable drop-off in
median household income growth
compared to earlier generations.
And, by some measurements, we
are actually a less mobile society
than many other nations, including Canada, France, Germany and
most Scandinavian countries. This
challenges the notion of America as
the land of opportunity"
Why is quality of life measured on consumption crap so heavily? Personally idgaf about useless doodads that waste resources and space in my home (or mind).
GDP per capita is lower, but household wealth is higher and when you add in all the benefits received (e.g. healthcare, pensions) you would get a pretty big difference between median household wealth in most of Western Europe and median HH wealth in the U.S., with western europe holding the advantage.
Comparing Europe and the U.S. is a complex business, and I find myself offending cheerleaders on both sides.
The "classic american dream" I believe involves being able to move up through hard work. At least in Canada, if we are moving people up class-wise it's by the government subsidizing them more than it is by rewarding hard work. So I believe the GPs point still stands.
Everyone in the world tries to move up through hard work, connections, and whatever advantages they are able to press.
"Recent studies suggest that there
is less economic mobility in the
United States than has long been
presumed. The last thirty years
has seen a considerable drop-off in
median household income growth
compared to earlier generations.
And, by some measurements, we
are actually a less mobile society
than many other nations, including Canada, France, Germany and
most Scandinavian countries. This
challenges the notion of America as
the land of opportunity"
I believe people who move to the US also like the comparably low bureaucracy, as well as opportunities in some sectors. Personally, I've lost my interest in moving to the US (or even visiting it) a long time ago, around the time of Bush Jr. for various reasons, but I'm still convinced that founding a successful company with low starting capital is easier in the US than almost anywhere else. The same is true for acting, music, show business and all the support like film cutting, audio engineering, special effects, etc. Despite the increased competition, your career prospects in these areas will probably be much higher if you move to L.A. or NY than if you stay somewhere else in the world.
America is certainly the country with the most opportunity for the most people.
A shift that has occurred from the 1950s to present is that there is less of a guarantee of an upper-middle-class lifestyle through a moderate [1] amount of effort.
That easier opportunity, however, was unique to the era. Prior to 1930, immigrants knew that America was a place for exceptionally hard work and tons of opportunity and freedom - that was the American dream. Not high taxation and government-funded class movement from lower-middle to upper-middle.
[1] 40 hours a week, one full-time job for an established corporate company supporting a family
You all work so hard for almost nothing (apart from 'stuff', that is now mostly made in China).
In Europe people have a much more relaxed attitude to work, yet somehow pretty much everyone has a very high quality of life - judged by quality of food, things working properly (e.g. washing machines and public restroom doors!), freedom from fear (e.g. of losing their job, getting ill, or interactions with the 'police'), and time to spend with people important to you.
Having grown up in (very) poor rural America (~3k population), gone to work/live in an urban area (close to 3 million metro population), and now live in an extraordinarily affluent but smallish (100k) midwest city, I really don't agree with your view of the US in the slightest.
[edit] I originally wanted to make the point that one of the things we buy is increased quality of life. Wrote the comment up and completely forgot to throw that in.
>You all work so hard for almost nothing (apart from 'stuff', that is now mostly made in China).
The hours of output from an individual varies greatly, from almost none to 120 hour work weeks (literally, I have seen the pay stubs). In addition, not all work is the same, and there are a _lot_ of cushy office jobs in which people may claim 40 hour weeks, have probably half of that is what one would call 'work.' You also imply that having a lot of things is somehow negative and that it's just 'stuff'. We buy plenty of stuff for plenty of reasons, which includes recreation and entertainment.
To further iterate on the point that it's not just 'stuff', there are a plethora of festivals, museums, theaters, outdoor spaces, theme parks, malls, and community gatherings. There is far more stuff to do than there is time in the day to do it here. I should also note, a lot of which is either completely free or at least pretty inexpensive.
To push the point home, it's also almost trivial to fly over to Europe. It's relatively normal among the middle class to take trips overseas. Airline tickets are not _that_ expensive after all.
>In Europe people have a much more relaxed attitude to work, yet somehow pretty much everyone has a very high quality of life
This is very true for many in America as well; a great deal many of the people I grew up with are still in poverty or working menial jobs... but they also are out boating every weekend in the summers, skiing in the winters, watching sports on huge flat screens. They may be cash-poor but are still reasonably rich in experiences. This is a tricky thing to measure from the economic lens alone.
> judged by quality of food
The food I've had in the US has ranged from Michelin star to Mac Donald's, both are fabulous, though one is more snobby. Perhaps in deeply rural areas with low populations, the food is more of the fast-food variety. Still, in most mid to large cities, the food has been consistently excellent across both price and quality offered.
> judged by things working properly (e.g. washing machines and public restroom doors!)
I don't think you could back this up by any data, and if I were to guess, this is based on some poor luck you had while visiting. Across the various places I've been, it's pretty unheard of not to have access to washers or dryers due to malfunction. Most areas have at least a couple of competing laundromats, and it costs no more than a couple of dollars to access them. Breakdowns happen to all equipment over time, and thankfully quality can be purchased if desired. If many still choose the initial price tag over that, so be it. Servicing a machine is cheap and easy, as is replacing one outright.
As for public restroom doors, I don't understand this at all as it hasn't been my experience in the slightest. Even in poor urban areas, doors work fine. I can assure you, the VAST majority of doors here work just fine!
> freedom from fear (e.g. of losing their job, getting ill, or interactions with the 'police'),
This entirely an individual thing; losing one's job isn't exactly the end of the world here either. Opportunity is all over the place. Maybe aside from suicidal people, everyone on earth fears getting ill. And maybe aside from high health care costs, assuming I didn't choose to pay for extra insurance, I'd still rather be 'poor' and uninsured here than most places in the world. It's not 'free' like many other countries, but if you're poor, you're typically not paying for procedures either. As for the police, is there a country where someone doesn't fear the police on some level? Is there any country that doesn't give them the right to put you in a jail cell? The statistics of unjustified police violence point to it being exceedingly rare, so much that when there is a case that it does happen, the people and media take to the streets, and every detail of the matter is covered nationally.
> and time to spend with people important to you.
All choices people make, nothing prevents someone in this country from spending more time with family. People who work insane hours wanting to provide more for themselves are making the decision to do so.
The United States is a _massive_ country, and I caution against painting it with such a broad brush. I'm not saying there are no issues, there are, but the ones you point out seem wrong to me. There are massive lifestyle differences here, and I don't see that as a particularly bad thing. If the people back in my hometown, for example, want to spend their days boating instead of working some stressful job, all the more power to them. If someone wants to burn the candle at both ends to acquire a boatload of money instead, that's great too. I suspect there is a far more significant amount of opportunity to both here than in Europe based on the data I've researched in the past.
No, taxation was not very high. Some tax rates were very high but they had an extensive range of deductions that don't exist today. The effective tax rates, what people actually paid as a percentage of gross income, were similar to today.
They lowered tax rates simultaneous with eliminating deductions, making the changes over time roughly neutral in terms of taxes paid.
I'm also curious to have more details. I'm Canadian and historically have been a big proponent of our country, to the point of smugness. But I'm currently very bearish on our future and curious to hear what others are thinking.
