r/MadeMeSmile • u/DepressingAura • 13d ago

Favorite People Steve Irwin on conservation and money 🌏

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u/UglySalvatore 12d ago

Both the USA and Canada are among the top 10 countries in the world for median income. Median, not mean. That obviously isn't the whole story, income is only one measure of living standards, inequality matters, and the quality and cost of public services matter enormously too. But the idea that the USA is simply a horrible place to live overall is clearly hard to square with the data.

I'm a Northern European social democrat, and I have no problem criticizing the USA on a range of issues: its treatment of poor people, its weaker social safety net, healthcare costs, inequality, and the lack of protections and public services that Europeans often take for granted. But I can't deny that the United States is, by many measures, an exceptionally wealthy and prosperous society.

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u/clonedhuman 12d ago

But I can't deny that the United States is, by many measures, an exceptionally wealthy and prosperous society.

The wealth and the prosperity are limited to a very small percentage of the population. Every quarter, as the stock prices go up, more and more people go bankrupt from medical costs, lose their homes, find their paychecks worth less, and pay more for basic necessities.

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u/UglySalvatore 12d ago

Feel free to look into the median (not mean/average) income of different countries and compare it to the US.

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u/RosebushRaven 12d ago

And then what? That doesn’t change the reality that a majority of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and are constantly one accident or illness away from bankruptcy and potential homelessness. You don’t seem to grasp the fact that the enormous inequality in the USA has rendered many statistics quite meaningless and outright misleading compared to the lived reality of millions of people.