The US doesn't spend less on social welfare then most European countries per capita [1], it actually spends more than Netherlands and Japan who are renowned for their public transport.
Maybe the same problem like in healthcare, where the US spends _a lot_ of money but there are lots of middlemen companies (including insurances) siphoning off the money, and also charge the customers?
Looks like all this money that is spent for some reason doesn’t reach the target somehow, or only a small fraction of it. Sounds insanely wasteful compared to non-privatized operations, as if the system is designed to make private individuals rich instead of focussing on solving the original problem
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_social_we...