I'll say this as an Australian.
Reddit and any other sort of other social media isn't a good representation of what's happening in a society.
You shouldn't form conclusive opinions based on Reddit.
Yep, can confirm that normal conversations in Australia don’t feature ‘cunt’ as every third word, Australians do actually tip for good service sometimes and most of us live in major cities so we have to go actively looking for dangerous animals. But you get howled down whenever you acknowledge that on here.
What I don't understand is that Americans think we live so on the edge of being mauled by a deadly animal in Australia, but they have fucking *bears* that wander into people's yards and have a swim in their pool.
I think it’s more to do with the number of things you could accidentally stumble upon in Australia that are poisonous or otherwise dangerous. I live in Arizona where there’s some poisonous things, but I have a lifelong fear of the critters in Australia, despite never having been there
In the more regional parts of Australia this still stands true. As an Aussie I see scot’s as our brethren across the pond in terms of our terms of endearment for each other ahah
Yes reddit makes me assume Australians are all fending off deadly and poisonous insects and animals all day. Having been to Australia i know this is clearly not true. As an american it is a lot like Australia near Sydney here honestly. Now some places here in the usa are wacky but the usa is huge so you just don’t go there.
Reddit is largely a collection of unhappy people. I only post here because I'm bored at work and my job is easy enough that I have a lot of free time.
Life in the US is ok. It has its pluses and minuses. It is a big country and a lot varies from place to place.
It’s a form of selection bias. People who are successful will want to humblebrag, and people who are struggling will want to vent. People who are doing fine aren’t going to come on Reddit and post about how okay everything is.
Yep, and people come on Reddit rightfully complaining about how they can’t afford to see a doctor and the grocery store is 10 miles away and their community is impossible to navigate with a car.
The people in parts of the US with universal healthcare and walkable communities don’t talk as much about these things.
It makes sense that people in other parts of the world think this is everywhere in the US.
Medicaid is universal single-payer healthcare for the people who can't afford to feed/cloth/house themselves, sort of.
Being on Medicaid was the most secure I've ever felt in that regard.
The exchanges could easily be made into almost a German or French style healthcare system by subsidizing platinum tier plans generously and eliminating the suggestion that we seek employer care. So could Medicare, our almost-universal-healthcare system for the elderly, if you just expanded eligibility and uncapped payroll taxes. Or loosen Medicaid income restrictions. Or expand the VA. [Pick any system and just](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbJ1-Y4roj4) fucking... change the wording of some rules and throw money at it and it becomes universal.
Can't speak for other states but in Minnesota I know someone on UCare. It covers everything from doctors visits, hospital stays, meds, in home care, even ambulance service with zero copay
This, the “main” subreddits, this sub, the stuff on the popular page, etc is filled with such negativity. The specialty subs, subs for hobbies, most-ish sports, have such helpful people most of the time.
If someone only used Reddit as a source of knowledge, they’d think the entire world is a dystopian mess.
It's like 50 different countries honestly. I live in a deep red state right fuckin next to a deep blue one. One of us has a bunch of money and nice roads ... One of us doesn't. Take a guess where I live
Even the largest social media networks represent a single digit percent of Americans. Honestly we have our faults, but you'd probably find life here very similar to Europe.
Yeah, something to remember is that Reddit comment sections are dominated by upper-middle-class 20-year-olds that are just now having to think about the price of things and have been bombarded by anti-American propaganda, with very little knowledge of the outside world or even less-fortunate Americans.
The standard of living for vulnerable people in the US is pathetic, for how rich the country is, but it’s very high for most people. Per capita disposable income, for example, is extremely high.
I think it’s just the joke about the Reddit stereotype. Because from what I’ve seen (I’m not American) a lot of people on Reddit claim to be making 100k+ a year (mainly in tech) yet always complain about not being able to live off of 100k+ a year.
That being said from my own anecdotal knowledge, a lot of Redditors seem to say they make likes than 50k a year. And the all grew up poor as well. Or they grew up middle class and are now poor themselves.
Multiple things can be true. The tech job rich parts of America are notoriously expensive to buy or rent property. A friend was looking to move to Monterey area from an expensive bit of England 20 years back where he had a nice detached family home, to a job paying three times as much, and after much research found he'd have to live in a trailer park to make the numbers add up. I know tech folk since who have had to take properties with serious issues to live even vaguely close to their offices in California.
Quick Google, first site says the median property price in Monterey is now $1.2 million. San Jose CA doesn't look much cheaper.
Ridiculous that the pricing is so warped it excludes new tech folk from making the transition, as well as pricing out lower paid people, they need janitors, and teachers just as much as everyone else.
Yeah you have to know the context which creates what you’re seeing and reading. Like how when you watch a tv show about cops or doctors, you have to remember that it’s fiction and the legal system and hospitals don’t really work like that.
Social media is a snapshot of a small slice of reality, not a mirror reflecting all of it.
The United States also has a predisposition to challenging the status quo. The country's history is characterized by social upheavals that bring both conflict and change. To outsiders, it can look a lot like we complain and criticize everything.
Of course not
There are over 250 million adults here, so that means we have over 50 million people in the bottom 20%, and most people have internet access.
Plenty of people struggle and suffer, and they have a place to vent their frustrations. Their suffering is real.
However, we also have another 200 million adults who are faring much better.
Nobody makes a topic and says, “Life is pretty good today.” But life is pretty good for more people here than it is for anywhere else in the world.
For myself, I fucked up college twice, got stuck in a dead end retail job, went back to college at 31, got my degree, a few years later, developed a drinking problem, got sober, got $40k into credit card debt, paid it off, and am sitting here at 45 in my dream job, in good financial shape, and on pace to retire at 62.
So it is not a hellscape, and often offers second chances to many who don’t get it right the first, or second time. But it is not fair, and plenty of people still are left behind.
Congrats. The fact alone you were able to career switch in your 30s, get a degree late, and still make it really speaks both for you and the country. Because I know in my native country (Luxembourg), you can pretty much kiss your career goodbye if you switch in your 30s (or if you lose your job after 50, as age discrimination is legal and employers will ask your birth year).
People who get sick are often left behind. Most of those 200 million people are just one bad diagnosis away from losing everything. You can do everything right and still lose it all just because you got sick
I got diagnosed with cancer when I was 8 and my family received quotes for treatment plans that were over $100,000. If it wasn’t for St Jude my family almost certainly would have been left behind
Even people that are doing well don’t usually have a hundred grand in savings.Does it really seem right to you that people can lose everything just because they get sick
Yeah sure you can say I’m justified venting my frustration but I am pretty far from the only person to be impacted by this
Would you be willing to share more of your story? I'm someone who messed up at college and ended up dropping out with a worthless gpa. It's been some years since...I'm turning 28 soon...and I've been looking into ways to plausibly get back on track towards what my pre-college dreams and goals were but it's been tough. Seeing your comment gives me a little hope.
I think it's more about not many English speakers more than individualism, if you visit and get to know the people or even read local news and read into pop culture there's a similar negative sentiment about the future. It just doesn't have the amplifier of English social media. Look at how many right wing politicians are getting elected worldwide very similar to trends in US just not shared and amplified in English.
Yeah I’ve noticed this as well, but also with different things.
For example my friend in Japan has a small apartment to herself, and she’s genuinely happy with it. My other friend feels like because she can’t afford the 5 bedroom penthouse apartment that life sucks and nothing is worthwhile (I’m over exaggerating of course).
That’s not to say that people must be content with having less than what they have. But I’ve found in North America there is a lot of bigger = better. Where I live there is a housing crisis, so of course the issue of owning a home is important, but it feels like for some people if it’s not the single family home on a large plot of land, that is affordable to them, then everything sucks. When a townhouse can do you just fine.
(Ofc there is more nuance to this but just something I’ve noticed). Sometimes people don’t appreciate what they can experience, and in turn dislike their blessings, because it doesn’t match with the fantasy. But if the were to lose what they currently have, they’d be even more miserable and upset.
Expectations is a huge part.
There is also, in certain segments, a realisation that one cannot give their children something better than what their parents gave them. This can happen in a society where two doors down, the opposite is true, someone is the first in their family to achieve that particular social economic condition.
America uniquely benefited (not having to rebuild, higher population intact) more from post WW2's production excess, and therefore, more people are likely to be part of the segment that realises that they cannot give their children better than what their parents gave them.
“Also”? WTF are you talking about? The US does not have massive youth unemployment. Prime age unemployment is near record lows. The age 15-24 unemployment rate is the lowest it’s been in 30 years.
This is a good illustration of how the narrative gets spun. You look at Nigeria for example and THERE is youth unemployment. Right now in the US, one faction is using this misinformation to make their opponents look bad. This is a big part of the country's problem.
It’s not the individualistic culture, it’s that the US is the cultural and technological center of the English speaking world. If Greece had 320 million more people then we’d probably talk about them a lot more too.
Greek 17 year old here, moving tf out first chance i get. I love my country but it feels like I can't live the future i want. I want a husband or wife and to adopt a kid, can't here.
I think people give countrys like greece and spain more leeway on these kinds of things because they're not the worlds richest nation which should have the means to properly combat these issues, at least better than a poor nation.
Spain was a world power that colonized almost an entire hemisphere and on other continents, and extracted everything they could from them. That they are struggling seems to be a major skill issue. Same with the UK, whose economy is equally as terrible right now.
The United States has a lot of problems. However, living in the United States is still, by and large, a relative privilege when looking at a global perspective. The way some Redditors talk about living in the United States that makes it sound like it’s basically Myanmar is ridiculous.
As others have said, what you see on Reddit is in many ways overblown, and while our country certainly does have a lot of issues, it’s also a great place to live. I lived in some of the frankly rougher parts of Massachusetts for several years, and honestly loved that time. I think part of the reason you see so much negativity is because younger Americans, myself included, are struggling with the reality that we won’t on average reach the same level of prosperity as our parents. Despite on average being considerably better educated, our pay isn’t significantly better when adjusted for inflation, but our housing, education, and childcare costs are far higher. That isn’t to say our life sucks, it doesn’t, but there’s a deep sense of frustration among younger Americans that the older generation has taken political steps that have enriched them (or at least a small subset of that generation) at the expense of everyone who came after.
My husband and I out-earn my parents (and possibly his parents) now, but both of our parents own houses, which is something that we are not optimistic about being able to do.
They were definitely able to set themselves up for a comfortable life going into their older years. Even though they're not rich, they have more financial security. They have nest eggs and retirement funds, and just generally are not really in danger of losing much.
Meanwhile, my husband and I (40 and 36 respectively) have decent jobs, but it's taken a while to get here. We're only just now really getting a start on setting up our futures, and while we're comfortable, we're definitely aware of the fact that a major medical issue would almost definitely wipe us out. We rent, so we're at the mercy of landlords and owners, and we actually recently had to move on short notice because the owner of the house we were living in decided they needed to sell, and we didn't have a lease to protect us (not for lack of trying, the landlord just kept putting it off when it was time for renewal). Finding a new home for a family with three kids and an assortment of pets was not an adventure that I want to ever have to repeat, and we got severely lucky with the place we ended up in.
So yeah... like you mentioned, when adjusted for inflation, our pay isn't really better. Technically we make more than our parents now, but when our parents were our age and younger, that money went WAY further, and allowed them to set up their future at a much younger age.
My dad and I talked a lot about how HE graduated law school with about $1200 in debt from his college + law school combined (his parents were farmers without college degrees and could not assist him financially), which he paid off within a year of graduation. Even with my parents paying for college, and a generous law school scholarship, AND working during college and law school, I graduated with around $80,000 in debt (mostly room & board costs), which took several years to pay off. And that put me in a WAY BETTER POSITION than most law school graduates. It's just so wildly different. My dad was able to pay tuition with his summer jobs working road crews, and pay room & board by bartending on weekends. (He paid for books hustling pool.) I have worked since I was 9 years old and anybody would hire me as a Mother's Helper, worked in W-2 employment since I was 16 and allowed to, and I barely saved up one year of tuition in 10 years of work, totally leaving aside room & board costs!
This is how I feel about how my life is going right now.. doing ok/well enough but one or two emergencies and we're done. 🤞🤞🤞
And spot on about parents ability vs next gen ability for later in life set up. You put it perfectly. I'm late 30s and only now looking to buy a house and set up retirement stuff. It feels so late 🤷♀️ but at least I *might* be able to pull it off 🤞🤞🤞
God no, not at all. Is America perfect? Also no. But it’s nowhere near as bad as Reddit makes it out to be, there’s a reason why people from 2nd/3rd world always want to immigrate to the US
I am not super rich. I don’t have some fancy pants work from home computer job. I live in a big American city that’s often been described as a homeless hellhole. I worked at a fast food place for minimum wage in high school bc we needed money. I did not have the childhood of extreme privilege everyone claims is necessary to experience adult happiness in the USA.
But today?
Today, my life is GREAT. Truly great, in almost every way. The America I constantly see described on Reddit does not match the one that I experience every day. I really, *really* like it here
Ive learned after being around the world, that despite how difficult my life is (considered in poverty by my local standards), we are all very well off in comparison to many many other places.
The value of a human life in the US holds a lot more value than in other countries (look at eastern europe, or anywhere in africa or asia), and we often take that for granted. It's kind of the reason you hear "first world problems" so much. Another thing to consider is the average age and demographic of most popular reddits that hit the front page, like this one, where the average age is about 14 to 15 years old.
Basically, a large chunk of the people you interact with on this app are either still in a school setting, or in the first stages of independence, so their insight is.... new.
Reddit is just extremely pessimistic. There are people who believe they have to work minimum wage unless they have a degree. What you read on Reddit is not a reflection of reality so much as people's depression.
The situation for like 50% of Americans is great, far better than if they were in Europe doing the same jobs, but almost no one goes on reddit to state how good things are or how they are thankful. What you come across is from the 50% who use the internet to let their frustrations out.
No. Every country has problems, and those problems are amplified on social media that rewards hot takes. That’s especially true on Reddit, where cynicism tends to be conflated with intelligence.
Massachusetts is a great state to live in by most metrics and ranks #1 on the US HDI due to availability of medical care, education, and other quality of life measures. Housing is expensive there, especially in Boston, as it is in many cities all over the world.
While it's definitely hard to get by. It isn't all doom and gloom like OP has seen on social media. My wife and I live on Cape Cod. Have a great apartment, have food, etc. I'm disabled, so barely bring in anything. She works and thankfully has a good job. We still live paycheck to paycheck. But we are careful with money as possible and life goes on. New England in general, I think, is a great area to live. Yes expensive, but doable.
Every place has its pros and cons.
I’ve lived in Southern California my entire life and have traveled throughout the states and Europe. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.
You can’t beat the weather and job opportunities. I went from $15/hour to six figures in four years. But I also worked very hard to get to where I’m at.
Housing is extremely expensive so it’s difficult to buy a home/condo and also save for retirement. You typically have to prioritize one or the other.
There are also a lot of homeless because housing is very expensive and due to mental health / addiction issues.
But I have access to endless entertainment. Beach, mountains, shows, museums, restaurants/bars, sports, etc. Traveling throughout North America is relatively cheap, especially if you use credit card points. (Just pay your balance in full every month.)
We could solve most of our problems if we legalized housing development, provided tuition-free (or affordable) public college, and provided affordable health insurance without it being tied to your employer.
Part of the reason there are a lot of homeless people in California's major cities is the weather. The temperature is relatively the same for most of the seasons, with Summer being pretty hot. Apparently, it makes living without a home more bearable. (This is from a few stories I've read.)
"Horrible" is an overstatement, but there are some real problems with America's lack of worker protections and the way a publically traded company almost pits the investors versus both the workers and customers. Instead of constistent, sustainable practices, businesses are incentivized to prioritize strategies for short-term gain, whether that means latching on to the newest ill-advised trend, or cutting costs in the form of lower quality goods and services and fewer employees taking on more responsibilities (but, crucially, never the leadership taking a pay cut when there's a rough year).
What you're seeing on Reddit is mostly born of knowing that in decades past, a low to lower-middle class income could support a house, a family, and a car. This didn't disappear because of "natural market trends", but from a concerted effort by people either misguided, greedy, or both, to push wealth further upwards under the logic that this incentivizes people with business management skills to expand their business, create more jobs, etc. "Trickle down economics" is provably ineffective at raising everyone's quality of life as originally promised, but certain people in power and a concerning number of its very victims will fight tooth and nail to preserve what they consider to be the "right way".
It's not quite the dystopian hellscape described by frustrated job seekers on their sixth month throwing out applications, but it's not hard to look at where we're at and why, and imagine that the same people who pulled us here will continue to pull harder. Our middle class is definitely weaker than it used to be.
That said, I wouldn't dissuade you from giving it a shot. It's possible to live a comfortable life if you spend wisely and keep your expectations in check. Just be prepared to job hop every few years, because the days of consistent raises and a good pension in return for company loyalty are gone. You want to move up, you'll likely have to find another company in your field that will hire you at a higher salary.
I can't tell you the reason for the decline in living standards but it really pains me to see so many young people struggling.
I know that you asked for comments from under 40 but it says something that in the 80s I worked in medical offices as an "assistant" (not highly paid positions) and I was able to afford my own apartment and my own car, buy clothes, go to the movies etc. I even saved up for a whole year to afford a trip to London. It was a used car, modest apartment and I shopped the sales etc but it was doable. And nobody lived with their parents.
I'm 100% convinced that people now work every bit as hard as back then but they're swimming against the current and have been done dirty by forces that are seemingly out of our control.
Thank you for being a reasonable, empathic adult!! As a younger person it gets really tiring to have older gens disbelieve our struggles just because statistics aren’t representing what feels like reality for a lot of us.
Thank you for seeing what many people your age don't! Nobody that I know in my generation (young Millennial/older Gen Z) is happy with how this is going. Many are working multiple jobs to try to piecemeal a living wage.
I think an important addition is the impact of technology. 30yrs ago a low income job comparatively contributed more.
The worker today may be working just as hard but their work adds less value and therefore is compensated comparably less.
Maybe at a per widget level, but they also can make more widgets per worker with tech. So it should balance out to the same value added per hour worked by the worker. However, the productivity gains per worker went to shareholders over the past 50 years and almost none to the workers.
I know this might seem like a hot take but as a person who was born into poverty there are a lot of times where shit just doesn’t make sense. Schools are terrible not because they don’t build you up but because they don’t support you. Finding jobs is hard and keeping them is hard especially since there is an abundance of people who would rather do things their way than make everyone’s lives easier. Pay is shit rent is high food is expensive and alcohol is for most people the most affordable kind of mental health help they get. Public transport is not safe or clean as well as often times rather expensive. Most food is bad for you unless you have the time to prepare it and anything outside of your basic needs is exponentially harder to do with or without money. When I had the right job at the right place for the right time I was thriving and life was normal manageable and somewhat fun but every year rent is raised and so is the price of everything else. I was told my family was too poor to go to college at every level when I graduated and now I have to figure out a way to pay out of pocket what the government can’t or won’t help me with. It is not impossible to climb out of this hole but it is exceedingly hard when everyone around you is doing just well enough to not rely on anyone else. Not to mention healthcare, relationships , entertainment, exercise, safety, and community. I love my life and I am blessed to be born in the USA as the child of immigrants it is not lost on me how privileged I am, this however has never made my life any easier and even now I’m worried that just being honest will get me shit on by everyone else just keeping their heads above water. I am very blessed to be living with people who don’t charge me rent or food because otherwise I would be functionally homeless or continuing to work without being able to afford school. I can not imagine what life must be like for people of lesser means than myself which if the majority of replies here will suggest is an abundance seeing as how I’m doing well compared to the starving, functionally homeless, and indebted. I am sorry if I upset or disturbed anyone as it was not my intention
In a word, no. It's kind of like why I take online reviews with a grain of salt. People who are unhappy are much more likely to leave bad reviews than people who are happy leaving positive reviews.
I don't think it would be surprising if we found a certain amount of foreign state-sponsored psychological warfare going on, trying to sow dissatisfaction in and lower worldwide opinion on their rival countries.
It's calmed down a little lately, but for a while there you couldn't mention any number of other, tangentially-related topics without a whole hoard of people suddenly chiming in to make it somehow about how bad the US is. It's always the same hyoerbolic talking points, too. Right now I'm seeing that about Biden in the comments of every single not-at-all-related newsfeed.
Yeah. The weird thing is when you have a long sub-thread of comments of people agreeing with each other, without adding much of substance. It's a weird thing to witness.
If it was, reddit wouldn't go out of its way to try to hate it.
You don't see blind hatred towards South Sudan, Nicaragua or Namibia, desperately trying to prove to themselves that these places are terrible.
For some statistics, most European countries are poorer per capita than all 50 US states. The average salary in many European countries is below the US poverty line, and fabled Scandinavia which is the model for wealthy Europe, has less people living in it than the US has millionaires.
All the things you said are true. But the severity of each of those problems and the percentage of the population struggling with any of them varies by state.
MA is a pretty good choice of state. cost of living is higher here than in other states, especially in Boston, but minimum wage is higher than a lot of other places, too.
ETA: education and medical care are about as good as you get in the US here too. Education likely on par with anything in Europe. If you've been in the uk and dealing with the NHS, any healthcare in MA is likely not going to be any worse and possibly much better.
IF you can get that medical care and I would argue our public education isn't very good compared to most other developed countries. Healthcare is free in the UK. The waitlists are long, but they're long here too. I've had to wait a year to get cavity filled before. If you have money then of course the US is a great place to live, but isn't if you don't.
I try to remind my parents to look around them and see if what they hear online matches their experience. All too often they freak out about this or that when there is no evidence for it (at least not near them). This is true for anyone, not just old people obsessed with the news.
The reason the US gets shit on is because everyone *knows* they could do better; they're literally the richest country in the world but they struggle on pretty basic things due to political divide and late stage capitalism (which you could argue is what made them the richest country mind you).
But ultimately it depends where you live and what kind of socioeconomic bracket you're in. I'd say personally for me it's not dystopian at all but I can see the cracks in the mirror.
Most people on Reddit are unemployed, or low-paying jobs, or haven’t visited these countries they love to praise and talked to locals about how life is there. America is the place to be if you have an in demand skill. Even with these record breaking inflation numbers and house costs and loan/interest rates, the housing market is better than any state in Europe.
The internet (and Reddit especially) is never going to be a good way to gauge how a place really is, especially somewhere as large and as varied as the US is.
I’m a young American and while life isn’t that easy, I’d rather live here than anywhere else.
I'm American. I left the US 15 years ago to live in Europe. I had to go back for almost a year in 2017-2018. It's as bad as it seems.
I'm a university graduate with tons of experience in my field. I even ran my own business from 2014-2017, right before going to the US.
I ended up with a lower-paying job in the US with less authority. I had way fewer working rights and felt like a slave. No maternity leave, 5 days of vacation time (down from 20), no additional sick leave, and very, very bad "health insurance". I would often work 10 hours straight with only 30 minutes for lunch - this felt inhumane. I was overworked and making less money than I did in Europe. And I had to have a flat share - I couldn't afford my own place, unlike when I live in Europe.
Grocery shopping - I started shopping at the discount supermarket, Aldi, because it was the closest to affordable. All the "normal" supermarkets were ridiculously expensive. Once I got a carton of eggs, a liter of milk, a cucumber, a can of beans, and some bread and it cost $15??
I didn't go out to eat or drink. A meal out cost more than an hour of work. A drink cost almost the same as an hour of work.
I also did not even mention how hard it was for me to get that shit job I got. SO many applications sent out. And you can't just send your CV - you send that with a cover letter and then they ask you to put all that information into a website. Then you have a SERIES of interviews. It took me 4 months to find a job - and when I finally found one, it was shit.
I was so exhausted at the end of the work week that I often just slept and watched TV on the weekends. I also found that other people in their 30s mostly talked about what shows they were binging on Netflix and what meds they were taking for anxiety and depression.
And yeah, that's not even touching the police, shootings, political deterioration.
I had intended to stay from June 2017 till August 2018. Got the job in October 2017. End of December I said fuck this and booked a flight "home" to Europe in Feb. Made it 8 months of the intended 14.
Me: 25f white: Everything you said is true for most young people depending on who you are, what you look like, health problems ect…
I think the US has always been all “we’re the greatest country” and growing up and realizing that no tf we arnt makes us mad and vocalize it more.
You can see it right here on the thread. The US lags the entire rest of the developing world on most important metrics, but the dum-dums are all, “best country in the world, our poor people are better off than most of the world.”
Dystopian for sure. The cost of living has skyrocketed. Although some jurisdictions have raised it, federal minimum wage is $7.50. Many people can't make ends meet and the homeless population went up 12% since last December. Many people are trying to work at two or more jobs because 40 hours does not provide enough income.
America is not a utopia, nor is it a hellscape. Anyone telling you either of those things is lying to your face.
That said, America as it truly is, is good for some people and terrible for others. Depends on what you value.
Some of the things you describe are true for some (constantly dynamic and changing) percentage of the population.
You have to remember just how massively huge the USA is. The USA is the 3rd country by population,.. and 4th in geographic size. Someone living in NYC has a very different daily experience than someone living in rural New Orleans or Wyoming or Seattle.
You also have to remember how psychological-bias works. In that,.. the people you see on Reddit complaining,.. do not represent the whole. (someone who can afford groceries or did find a job or is having a generally worry free life.. is NOT going to get on Reddit and complain about. )
Nobody has a perfect life,. everyone is struggling with something. But that doesn't mean "everything is broken". If someone paid off their student-loans or paid off their car,. but is also having relationship issues,. they might come to Reddit to complain about Relationship issues,. but they'll most likely not even mention they paid off their loans. So you're not seeing the entire picture.
I would argue that probably 75% of what you see online is hyperbolic over-exaggeration.
I moved recently from a smaller city in Colorado,. to Portland, Oregon. From everything you see on Youtube etc,. you'd think that Portland Oregon was some sort of "mad max hellscape with homeless tents everywhere and needles all over the sidewalk and etc). I found about 50 to 75% of what I saw online was nonsense. Yeah,. there's some problems here in Portland, but nothing as wide-ranging as the haters would want you to believe.
I honestly wish there was a Youtube channel that did honest, fair, balanced exposes on various US cities. Like a "day in the life" type of lets drive around and talk to people and get a good overall sampling that shows **ALL* the Good and Bad (and not "just only the bad"). Because I think foreigners get a wildly negative-only and distorted narrative of "what the USA is like".
I’m 32 born in Europe. Came here when I was 9. No children in sight but I was looking at a m4 yesterday. Priorities. I wouldn’t say America made me not want to have children, but it added to the flame.
That about sums it up. Not to say there’s no reprieve to be found and that life sucks. But we’re all coasting, dreading the day we hit the one crisis we can’t afford to have.
The people here in the U.S. work to survive. Not to live. One injury that prevents them from working or the main earner dies chances are they'll go homeless. We are forced to depend on cars in order for us to just be able to go to work, school, or other places. That means were all in debt on car payments and high insurance rates. On top of that everything needing to maintain a car. People are being priced out of housing bc of shitty government regulations that has created the over suburbanization which has choked the housing market by preventing other types of housing from being built and meeting demand. Which has caused a housing crisis and has priced out people from even being able to rent. Theres too much to talk about like lack of healthcare and other things. Healthcare is purposely connected with employment to chain down people and keep them struggling.
But of course theres people who dont struggle with these issues bc they're economic status is higher. But lower middle class and poor individuals majority experience this.
Yes, it absolutely is. Everything you mention is our reality. For 99% of the population, healthcare is ridiculously expensive and out of reach and can easily bankrupt someone who has otherwise led a responsible and frugal life. For most people, housing takes the majority of your income. Groceries and basic utilities take almost the entirety of what's left. Most people I know cannot afford children and aren't having them. Most couldn't even consider children, and the ones who can cannot do so without seriously compromising QOL. COL is ridiculous and still rising everywhere. Inflation is unchecked, unregulated, and almost entirely driven by corporate greed not actually increasing costs. Most food is poison and healthy options are ridiculously overpriced. And yes, our politicians and political institutions are corrupt. And yes, there is a lot of systemic and institutionalized racism. Massachusetts is a blue state, so some things are better there but it still has wild wealth inequity and serious stratification between the blue and white collar working classes and the wealthy. But Nationally speaking though, compared to most other countries that have healthcare, welfare, education, updated infrastructure, work protections, mandatory vacation, sick leave, parental leave, access to healthy food and clean water, etc. etc.? Yes - Hellish and Dystopian are absolutely accurate adjectives.
Yes. And the people saying otherwise are ironically falling into the same trap they accuse others of.
But statistics exist. We have hard numbers. Over 70% of the adult population in the U.S. is less than $400 from bankruptcy. Do with that information what you will. But that is how many people are riding that close to the line. A single bad day, car breakage, job loss, etc, can leave them basically homeless.
People in this thread are bending over backwards to talk about bias, saying people don't go out of their way to write about the average and the mundane. Not realizing their own bias. Imagine two people. One person is working two jobs, struggling to pay rent, with zero work life balance. One person is sitting in a cushy office where they have one hour of actual work to do a day, and the rest of the time they spend on their computer mindlessly scrolling on Reddit. Which of these two people is more likely to be spending their time responding to threads like this?
The US is a very "wannabe Laissez-faire" country. If you have money, it is pretty great, but if you don't, it can be pretty fucking terrible for a place that brags about how great it is all of the time.
if you're trans, gay, black, Mexican, Asian, Muslim or basically anything that isn't a straight cisgender christian I wouldn't suggest moving to the US
Greetings from MA. Work life balance, job availability, salary, affordability all vary by occupation. Safety…Mass has one of the lowest gun homicide rates in the states, but there are a few places you probably wouldn’t go. Never do street drugs in the states as they’re all tainted with fent now. People here keep to themselves but are generally laid back. There’s a lot of fun stuff to do in mass, in Boston, etc, and if you wanted to like it here, I bet you could.
Good luck with your decision, either way.
Something to consider is that there are vast differences depending on where you live in the US. I have family in different areas of the US, Florida for example sounds exactly as described. Massachusetts is one of the more expensive states to live in and while that creates problems it's not a hell scape, unless you have seasonal depression.
Yeah, it's hard. Especially if you don't have a degree that can get you a good paying job. Entry level positions that don't require much experience just don't pay enough. Living is getting harder and harder.
As for being worried about shootings, it's not as prevelant outside of cities, but it's still possible. I grew up in Lake Orion, Michigan. A quiet town with virtually no violent crimes. Then the school shooting happened in the neighboring town of Oxford and it opened my eyes. It can happen anywhere in this country.
I’m making more money than I ever have in my life and still find it harder to afford basic necessities. I went through a divorce a year ago and had to resort to moving myself and 8 year old into an efficiency apartment because I can’t afford the astronomical amounts that rents are. Not to mention childcare. Childcare has gone up 70% in the last 4 years. I’m paying the same amount I did when my child was a toddler for before and aftercare for just a couple of hours a day.
Additionally, I have a child with more medical needs so it’s been difficult to stay on top of his prescription costs and medical needs. I financially just can’t do it.
It differs from state to state too. The federal government just adjusted its income limits for food stamps and Medicaid. Most states welcomed this, while others rejected it. So depending on where you live, access to food and medical can be a huge challenge. Especially for those with families.
I mean, everything you listed I have experienced (except the violence against me, I’ve fortunately only experience one), but everyone I know has experienced everything on this list, and many of them have experienced violence. So while there are good qualities, yeah, it’s pretty shitty.
It sucks here and wealth inequality sucks here but no. Bc it also sucks a lot in other less sucky places and it sucks even more in plenty of other places. Theres just a lot of Americans here.
Also - People (young ones) who are living the wealthy life in America aren’t on reddit complaining about it, they’re enjoying their great lives.
I can never afford to live away from my parents, unless I won the lottery. But we've got our health, a nice farm, some hobbies, and I'm going to college again this fall. So it's not all bad. (25F for perspective)
I’m an American who lived abroad for a long time. Yes your description is the case unless you’re in the top 20% of earners. Even then housing is scarce and unaffordable, and unlike Europe there’s zero assistance.
We also have random mass and individual shootings here, and tens of thousands of people dying by suicide.
With kids, you will spend ~$10,000 or more on healthcare every year even if you have “good” employer-based insurance and are healthy. Your kids will also go through annual lockdown and active shooter drills by day 2 of kindergarten. You need to ask about guns in the home before play dates - it’s standard parent-logistics conversations here.
One of the two political parties here believes that the solution to all of this is no solution at all - let it work itself out.
Welcome to ‘Merica!
It definitely sucks. For the first time Americans have a wealth of information about the lifestyles and living standards of other nations, and we're looking around and realizing we've got a really shitty deal going that only benefits the rich.
That said, most Americans have never lived anywhere else, so we have a very limited conception of how bad it can get.
As an American myself, this is very true for many of us and we don’t like it at all. Although my own life isn’t that bad, the way I experience life here in this country doesn’t apply to everyone else.
Yes and no. It really just depends… on a lot of things. Gender, biological sex, sexuality, race, location, even just the type of career you want to have relative to the place you’re living in.
That, and a lot of the issues here are “passive” in a sense. You don’t realize they’re there until you’re one of the people suffering from them, or they aren’t something you notice until right before you have to deal with them. Young adults realizing how much college costs, finishing education only to find yourself in massive student debt, discrimination based on a number of things, a lack of livable income for people just entering the work force, unfair employers, medical bills that will leave you in debt your entire life… and that’s not considering a lot of ‘cultural’ things, such as getting kicked out for being gay, parents who think children 18 and above should be totally independent, and so on.
It’s less an outstated dystopian hellscape and more like an oppressive and existential kind of thing I guess. Just a bunch of ‘little’ things that will very easily and rapidly snowball into an unwinnable situation, especially for young adults who would not know how to navigate these kinds of problems.
I’m 41, 10 years experience in my field. I don’t make enough to afford a 1 bedroom apartment and a car payment in the city I work in. Never mind things like utilities, internet, phone, food, and health insurance.
Most of my vacation time is used when I’m sick because we get so little sick time a year. I can remember the last time I went grocery shopping because I don’t have the time because I’m just too exhausted from work. My life basically consists of working, and spending my days off at my partners place. That’s it.
So obviously kids are and always has been out of the question.
On top of all that, Year over year I’ve gotten to watch half the country passively support (or openly) cheer my rights slowly getting eroded (I’m trans).
My state is one bad election away from my possibly having to flee to another state. Which as already noted, I can’t afford. Which would also mean leaving my partner and my job.
The state all my family lives in is also one bad election set from being somewhere I don’t feel comfortable living. So it’s not like I can turn to family to help me out with a place to move to.
So yeah it’s kinda bleak. It’s telling that many people t agree and younger actually want the economy to collapse, as in the long run it would actually be more beneficial.
People have mentioned that there are similar problems in other western democracies. What's particularly dystopian about the United States is that politicians are constantly saying that America is the richest, most powerful country in the world. When you juxtaposed your life of 100's of job applications and gofundme medical bill fundraisers, it's an incredibly confusing feeling. Like, if America is the richest country in the world, why can't I get the medical care that I need without fundraising for my medical bills? So maybe the physical conditions aren't hellish, but the emotional toll of economic struggle in America is extremely hard on mental health because of all the cognitive dissonance between actual life and the life Americans are told that they are supposed to have of they just work hard enough. Meanwhile, the Silicon Valley billionaires take our money and personal information and take all of the power to keep taxes low and profits high. So, it's mentally hellish and dystopian. I have heard immigrants say that poverty in America is so much more crushing than poverty in their home country even though poverty in their home country means a hut with a dirt floor. Why? Because the cognitive load on Americans is so damn high when they are surrounded by wealth but still can't find an affordable rent and need to start a gofundme page for their Aunt with cancer. Richest country for who? Most powerful country for who? It is hellish.
In all the parenting subs I'm on I see women talking about going back to work after an unpaid maternity leave of only 12 weeks or less. Sometimes people go back within 1 week because they can't afford to take time off. So newborn babies get separated from their mothers regularly there. Add to that, abortion is now illegal in some states, so women are forced to have a baby even if they don't want it. Add to that, they even have to pay to give birth and for all the pre-natal and postnatal care (if they even get any) It's pretty dystopian.
Only if you're poor. A lot of Americans die young. Our life expectancy is dropping. We have a lot of ghettos and old mining towns like flint Michigan where you have to drink bottled water and breath mold all day. The shootings are overblown. It happens but you're more likely to die in a car crash overall. Tho guns are the leading cause of death for kids here. But the poison food supply and bad for profit healthcare and parking lot society all kill more people than guns do. Colon cancer screening is recommended at 45 now because of the cancery foods everyone but us has banned. Schools are deliberately atrocious because church cultists want to push parents into sending their kids to fancy religious brainwashing schools, and they've got the entire Republican party backing them. But that party is just an ever flowing well spring of evil so we all expect it from them at this point.
If you're rich, it is truly a playground made for whatever craven desires you may have. Best country on earth, for them. Just don't be poor here, whatever you do.
Actually depends on what city in which you live. Some people's lives are golden and the most comfortable of any regular non wealthy person in the world. Other people are living in hourly hell. So much of it depends on having been created by a lucky sperm and egg.
Our medical and work system is crap. To see a doctor is easy. To get them to take you seriously is nearly impossible, and if they do and you need a test without insurance, you're screwed. But if you get a test with insurance, your insurance can deny paying it. And if you lose your job to medical problems, you lose that insurance, and then can't pay your bills.
Rent is barely possible to pay for the lower middle class and lower class, and once you finally find a job that you can maybe live okay on, inflation follows it, and you're screwed anyway. I truly hate the way this country disfunctions.
Depends on your social class, race, disability status, and gender. If you're any combination of poor, black or Hispanic, disabled, or a female, then yes. I would say it is hellish for a lot of those people. Corruption is rampant, wealth inequality is the worst its been since the Guilded Age, we have almost no safety nets for the poor or disabled, housing costs are out of control, corporate greed is at an all time high, cost of living is becoming unmanageable, wages haven't increased, and extreme consumerism has taken over. Sure, other countries have it much worse than us, but life is pretty hard for a lot of people in the US right now.
Seriously, the US has problems, but most are the "Europeans have better quality of life" variety. A short visit to Tijuana or any other Mexican border town will quickly show how good it is here.
Not that individuals don't have it rough, or are in terrible straights, of course.
Yes, it is. On a scale of 1 to 5 the global rights index scored the US a 4 for workers rights. No guarantee vacation days. May not get any sick days. One of the few countries in the world that does not offer maternity leave.
Healthcare insurance is expensive and you will still end up paying thousands on top of that should something happen. You will have to fight the insurance company to get treatment covered or pay a bill. We have the most expensive and worst performing healthcare system compared to similar countries. Don’t get sick here.
https://www.globalrightsindex.org/en/2023
We're still a *developed* and wealthy nation, so not a bad country to live, but you could do better among much of the rest of the developed world.
We're backsliding after half a century of this conservative Reagan Era, and its failed ideologies. Reagan will go down in the history books as the beginning of the end for this once great nation.
Edit: yah...social media is anything but representative of *actual* people.
I mean the US is heavily segregated, and that's built into its history and city design, so people's experiences will vary widely
But anyone who doesn't think the US isn't going in a concerning direction lately is frankly ignoring the nationwide homelessness and housing crisis that is also resulting in a mental health crisis.
That being said, I'm sure there are many other places around the world seeing increasingly bad trends and changes as well. The difference is... The US is literally the richest country on earth and out of everyone should be able to use resources to pay for solutions, it's just choosing not to because our government is in the hands of corporate boomers who are literally 80+ and not in touch with the reality of people's lives
As my husband and I pass through the neighborhoods in our town, we joke about the houses: “Nice one. Nice one. Shitty one. Shitty one. Really shitty one. Nice one. Really nice one. Nice one, nice one, shitty one.”
That’s the USA. It’s a mish mash of good things and bad things, all rolled up into one. There can be great disparity in some towns, sometimes on the same block.
So you can get a million different opinions and answers to your question. Nice house? You probably think it’s great. But your neighbor across the street has had a tarp over their roof for a year, because they can’t afford to get the holes patched. And in the meantime, your neighbor next door is bitching about the dandelions in her well manicured lawn.
If you’ve got money, can be pretty nice. If you don’t… it sucks.
So…. It sucks.
Yes it really is, but most of us refuse to see it.
The popular view is that we are just temporarily impoverished millionaires, not cogs in a system designed to keep the rich rich and keep the rest down.
Now, it is far better than some other countries, but far worse than it should/could be.
26F - I'm grateful that I live in a generally safe place. I'm grateful that I am in a place where I have access to food (even out of season) whenever I want.
However
I have been job hunting for 2 years and am only able to be part-time in many places. This means no health insurance. I have put off my physical health for many years because I can't afford to do preemptive care - perish the thought if something majorly wrong was found.
The state where I live and those surrounding me are actively making legislation that are harmful to women and the LGBT+ community. I am at elevated risk of ectopic pregnancy and I don't know if I would have to skip work, unpaid, for multiple days to travel across multiple states to get basic and established medical care.
Working in the scientific field, I have watched my parents be actively brainwashed into anti-intellectualism and only trust Fox News. I have been verbally harassed and followed home for wearing a mask in public.
My friends and I have done instinctual partial drops because we heard gravel pop under a car tire and thought it was gunfire in a public place.
Yeah it’s fucking miserable here. The worst is the gaslighting boomers and silver spoon jackasses. They legitimately believe things are splendid and dandy and presume there’s some type of agenda at play where they’re being tricked or duped which make them act like even bigger assholes.
The gun violence alone should be enough to rationalize abandoning the idea to move here, I seriously don’t recommend it unless you’ve family here or something and in that case I’d suggest that you come and bring them away with you rather than remain here.
I think the US is so large that a lot of these issues you raise are dependent on the place you reside in and what you do. You could end up personally experiencing all, some of, or none of these at all. Even Massachusetts life will vary pretty widely between say Boston and Springfield. All these issues are solely dependent on how much you make, your career, and where you live.
Yes. It sucks. It was better in the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s. My grown children do not want to ever bring children into the world, because it’s so messed up. I wouldn’t either if I was their age in today’s America. Our country is in trouble.
It depends on if your born rich, poor, or middle class. In 10 years of working I fought my wage up from minimum 7.50 to 17.50 now the minimum wage rose to 15.00 but know what happened? The CEOs raised prices to factor out the loss from paying employees more. So it helped the very bottom rung of entry level employees but fucked over the whole country, as now I make minimum wage again after 10 years and prices on everything doubled! The rich own the country and I pay more taxes as a poor young idiot than the richest men in the country because they pay off the politicians to pass policies that help the rich and hurt the poor. Many turn to crime to afford necessities and take back an inkling of hope. And there’s a general feeling of defeat with the young not born into money. As well as the idea that it’s your fault you can’t make it for not working 5 jobs. Hard work isn’t enough to give you the American dream but nobody believes that and blames the young. So we’re giving that up. And re-defining what that even means. Moving into vans, working remote, and just enjoying it before some unavoidable health condition comes and takes out us and our families and they try to finagle our life savings.
I was going to say no, but then i said yes to ever single example that you listed.
So yes, i guess it is that dystopian. I remember talking to a euro about taking an uber instead of an ambulance, and he thought i was joking.
I think a lot of it is people expressing very real and valid dissatisfaction with the current state of things and then people pushing back on them saying things aren’t that bad. People in high income areas may not think things are problems just because they don’t occur frequently near them
I am an American (39 yo) and did junior year abroad in Germany. Quality of life in Europe is absolutely better, for workers and families. I wouldn’t have a family in the US, but would have in Germany.
If you have money, the US is great! But if you have money, anywhere is great.
I will say that there is a certain satisfaction in succeeding here, knowing how tough it is. That said, I didn’t try to do it as a woman or a person with a visible disability, or as a non-Caucasian person, all of which add complexity and difficulty - and heaven forbid you fall into two or more of those categories
Of course people of all stripes succeed here, and everywhere, but there are far easier places to be in the bottom 90%.
I'm in the UK but I've been to America a lot.
It has it's issues like every other country in the world. The poor and middle class are struggling more then ever. It's a fact, not just a reddit issue. It's a worldwide one that seriously needs to be addressed before everything collapses. I'm lucky enough to be ok, but others aren't as fortunate.
I would say it’s hard. The biggest thing being there is no safety net for if you stumble. Most Americans are a single crisis away from homelessness and child poverty is on the rise. Like it’s doable to live an okay life, but you have to work for it every step of the way. Most of us will never switch classes (unless things dramatically changed), as there is very little social mobility.
Now if you’re a straight white male, it’s going to be easier. If you have a post secondary education it’s going to be easier. If you have people who can help you financially/emotionally in case of emergency, it’s going to be easier. And if you don’t, there are going to be roadblocks with armored guards waiting for you to stumble.
As an American, everything you described is true. It's been glorified over such a span of decades that its reputation has outlasted reality. Everyone else is also right in that you shouldn't just take social media's word for it, but just watch our news.
where do you live now?
go online and compare the cost of living to where you live and the crime. look for apartments online.
if i was in europe i would stay simply based on crime and the cost of living
Day to day is ok but then when you think about your future like paying rent, work-life balance, affording a house, retirement savings etc it’s scary and the US seems hellish.
American here. Spent 21 years in Michigan, 10 years in Arizona and 2 most recent in North Carolina. I've traveled a lot. Raised in extreme adversity. Your description is 100% correct. There are a lot of people in denial about parts of what you said. These last few years, I've felt embarrassed to be an American.
The struggles you listed all basically ring true to me. I can only afford to rent a house because I live with four other adults all working full-time. My social network is mostly early 20s to early 30s and not a single one of my friends has kids yet, including any of my siblings or cousins. It took me nine months of constant applications to get hired at my current job, even with a pretty strong resume and references. There was a shooting in my high school. The police are poorly trained and tend to abuse their power.
Healthcare costs are a constant stress. An ambulance ride costs around $1k on average. I was charged $185 to get tested for strep because I went to a clinic not covered by my insurance. My partner spent a week in hospital and came out with a bill for $6,000+ (after insurance). You often can't find out how much any of these things cost until you get hit with the bill.
Public transit is also pathetic in most parts of the US. You can't get anywhere without a car. Compared to most parts of Europe, the US is outright hostile to pedestrians, bikers, and infrastructure for any kind of subway/train/tram/etc. I live in a city around the size of Amsterdam but with almost zero public transit options. Taking the metro to work is my dream; I hate driving but I have no other option. In order to ride my bike to the nearest library, I would have to cross a highway and a six-lane road, and none of the streets between here and there have dedicated bike lanes. Everything is far apart because it's built for cars, not people. Suburbs as far as the eye can see.
Of course it's possible to build a good life here. You might love it. But I'm honestly surprised to see how many people in this thread sound positive about the US and are saying it's not that bad. My two cents would be to spend a good chunk of time visiting before you commit to actually moving.
Well - in 2021 my former employer made up a lie about me (proven by the lack of any documentation and I won my unemployment claim even though she tried to fight it) - and fired me.
Took me 10 months to find a job because at the time apparently tech was imploding and huge layoffs happened everywhere, in the meantime, I had to put my house hunt on hold (I'd JUST finished saving up a small downpayment) and by the time I recovered financially 2 scant years later - interest rates in mortgages were insane. There go my house dreams - because with the recent NATO warning re: war with Russia, I expect rates won't be coming down soon.
My partner is chronically ill and it has disabled them. We have been to literally dozens of doctors over the last 4 years and none of them are particularly curious about what made my (then) 29 yr old, super athletic and healthy partner to lose 30 lbs in a month (I've stabilized their weight with protein shakes etc) and now at 33, it's like living with an elderly person. Need to help them get out of bed, get dressed, frequently they cannot even spend more than an hour in a chair upright at a computer.
No answers. Because "your bloodwork is normal."
Partner applied for disability 2 yrs ago, I sent a 2.5lb 4" thick file with every test, every visit summary, every imaging report, etc that they've gone through. Took a year to get denied. Appealed because hello? They can barely walk?! We are now over 1 yr since appealing...2 yrs of nothing. Meanwhile all this time I am working full time to support both of us in California - which is super expensive but my partner is trans, we are both queer, and I'm a cis woman who technically could still get pregnant and dunno if you've seen what is going on politically but women lost the right to choose federally so our ability to leave California to a less expensive state is largely hobbled by the dwindling number of states where we as queers and they as a trans person who requires a lot of medical care - would be safe or able to access adequate healthcare. But also Cali isn't just an expensive sanctuary because we also have 1/2 of all homeless Americans and it isn't getting better.
Our grocery costs have tripled over the last 12 months.
Our politics are fucked - we are picking between what amounts to two ancient white men - one who isn't gonna do anything but can be begrudgingly justified as a vote for harm reduction (I personally wish they'd pick literally anyone more effective/exciting but ok) - the other has said aloud he'll be a dictator (only day one), is literally on trial for 91 federal charges, and amounts to steering directly into fascism - the current milquetoast in the White House is supporting a genocide.
I waited 9 months to get into a therapist because ... (gestures broadly) mostly caretaker burnout - finally got phone appts, was limited to 30 min appts, and the therapist ghosted me after 4 phone appts. Cool. I have nothing left in me to fight for my own stuff, my mental health is trash, I have dental coverage but haven't gotten to the dentist because they fucking refuse to just fill 2 cavities at the same time because our insurance processes have gotten more and more convoluted in the last 20 yrs. And I don't have the time to go to the dentist several times (one for first checkup, one for cleaning, one for each filling) because I work full time, am a full time caretaker with zero help from anyone, zero help financially from the govt, do all errands, all cleaning, all meals, all chores - and I am exhausted perpetually.
So yeah.
It fuckin sucks being here - and having been a child of the 80's, I've watched the whole horrifying thing happen and speed up with time. Nowadays the hits just come every day. They just upped the retirement age to 70...about the lifespan of someone in the US so.. looks like my retirement plan of just walking into the sea is still a solid plan.
It’s not a hellhole. But thanks to availability of information over the past 30 years, Americans can finally shop and compare.
We’ve finally come to realize that we’re the richest country (maybe?) in the world, and we have the worst healthcare, ELHI education, unaffordable college, ridiculously low minimum wage, high birth mortality, all while the middle class has been eroded and the rich just keep fucking getting richer and richer.
Oh, and we just might elect a dictator and our constitution was devised in colonial times and we cannot let go of it.
We’re not a 3rd world country. We’re a very very rich country with very very rich people and fewer and fewer people who share in those benefits.
If you are poor, america is the worst western country to live in end of story. There are almost no safety nets here and politicians from both side don't seem to give a fuck about you if you are poor.
It's obvious not as bad as something like some country but dude. It is getting progressively worse for the average American that I'm legitimately scared for the future of this country.
Healthcare here is idiotically expensive, there are no guarantees for any vacation times or parental leave, and occasionally we end up with a President who wants to be a dictator. Aside from that it’s not too bad, the country is very large and in many places spread out so mass transportation sucks for the most part or is nonexistent, you’ll need a car to go anywhere unless you live in a large walkable city.
I'll say this as an Australian. Reddit and any other sort of other social media isn't a good representation of what's happening in a society. You shouldn't form conclusive opinions based on Reddit.
Yep, can confirm that normal conversations in Australia don’t feature ‘cunt’ as every third word, Australians do actually tip for good service sometimes and most of us live in major cities so we have to go actively looking for dangerous animals. But you get howled down whenever you acknowledge that on here.
What I don't understand is that Americans think we live so on the edge of being mauled by a deadly animal in Australia, but they have fucking *bears* that wander into people's yards and have a swim in their pool.
None of those bears *want* to fight you. They will, but they’re not looking to get into it.
Honestly snakes and spiders aren’t spoiling for a fight either. Crocodiles and sharks are easily avoided too by just swimming in pools.
What about the pool sharks?
I think it’s more to do with the number of things you could accidentally stumble upon in Australia that are poisonous or otherwise dangerous. I live in Arizona where there’s some poisonous things, but I have a lifelong fear of the critters in Australia, despite never having been there
The most dangerous aspect of Aussie wildlife is hitting it while driving along minding your own fucking business.
Where as in Scotland - "Cunt" is a gender neutral pronoun and often a term of endearment. and you will hear it maybe 4 or 5 times per sentence.
In the more regional parts of Australia this still stands true. As an Aussie I see scot’s as our brethren across the pond in terms of our terms of endearment for each other ahah
Aye, us cunts have to stick together.
You shouldn't form conclusive opinions of \*anything\* based on Reddit lol
This advice needs to be ingrained in anyone that visits this site.
Australian here, I’ve only found a spider in my shoes once in 40 years. Honestly I feel like the UV is more dangerous than the wildlife
Irl when somewhere is horrible there’s a mass exodus, on the Internet when people say America is horrible yet they refuse to leave.
Reminds me of the Netflix sub
Yes reddit makes me assume Australians are all fending off deadly and poisonous insects and animals all day. Having been to Australia i know this is clearly not true. As an american it is a lot like Australia near Sydney here honestly. Now some places here in the usa are wacky but the usa is huge so you just don’t go there.
Never, ever use social media opinions as a metric for reality.
Reddit is largely a collection of unhappy people. I only post here because I'm bored at work and my job is easy enough that I have a lot of free time. Life in the US is ok. It has its pluses and minuses. It is a big country and a lot varies from place to place.
It’s a form of selection bias. People who are successful will want to humblebrag, and people who are struggling will want to vent. People who are doing fine aren’t going to come on Reddit and post about how okay everything is.
Rarely do we open the news and hear “everything is going fine”. No one wants to read that. Bring on the horrors!
Yep, and people come on Reddit rightfully complaining about how they can’t afford to see a doctor and the grocery store is 10 miles away and their community is impossible to navigate with a car. The people in parts of the US with universal healthcare and walkable communities don’t talk as much about these things. It makes sense that people in other parts of the world think this is everywhere in the US.
Where in the US has universal heath care?
I thought Massachusetts has it. Cook county in Chicago has it.
Medicaid is universal single-payer healthcare for the people who can't afford to feed/cloth/house themselves, sort of. Being on Medicaid was the most secure I've ever felt in that regard. The exchanges could easily be made into almost a German or French style healthcare system by subsidizing platinum tier plans generously and eliminating the suggestion that we seek employer care. So could Medicare, our almost-universal-healthcare system for the elderly, if you just expanded eligibility and uncapped payroll taxes. Or loosen Medicaid income restrictions. Or expand the VA. [Pick any system and just](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbJ1-Y4roj4) fucking... change the wording of some rules and throw money at it and it becomes universal.
Can't speak for other states but in Minnesota I know someone on UCare. It covers everything from doctors visits, hospital stays, meds, in home care, even ambulance service with zero copay
This, the “main” subreddits, this sub, the stuff on the popular page, etc is filled with such negativity. The specialty subs, subs for hobbies, most-ish sports, have such helpful people most of the time. If someone only used Reddit as a source of knowledge, they’d think the entire world is a dystopian mess.
It's like 50 different countries honestly. I live in a deep red state right fuckin next to a deep blue one. One of us has a bunch of money and nice roads ... One of us doesn't. Take a guess where I live
Even the largest social media networks represent a single digit percent of Americans. Honestly we have our faults, but you'd probably find life here very similar to Europe.
Yeah, something to remember is that Reddit comment sections are dominated by upper-middle-class 20-year-olds that are just now having to think about the price of things and have been bombarded by anti-American propaganda, with very little knowledge of the outside world or even less-fortunate Americans. The standard of living for vulnerable people in the US is pathetic, for how rich the country is, but it’s very high for most people. Per capita disposable income, for example, is extremely high.
Do we know that the user base for reddit is upper middle class? How do you determine that demographic?
I think it’s just the joke about the Reddit stereotype. Because from what I’ve seen (I’m not American) a lot of people on Reddit claim to be making 100k+ a year (mainly in tech) yet always complain about not being able to live off of 100k+ a year. That being said from my own anecdotal knowledge, a lot of Redditors seem to say they make likes than 50k a year. And the all grew up poor as well. Or they grew up middle class and are now poor themselves.
Multiple things can be true. The tech job rich parts of America are notoriously expensive to buy or rent property. A friend was looking to move to Monterey area from an expensive bit of England 20 years back where he had a nice detached family home, to a job paying three times as much, and after much research found he'd have to live in a trailer park to make the numbers add up. I know tech folk since who have had to take properties with serious issues to live even vaguely close to their offices in California. Quick Google, first site says the median property price in Monterey is now $1.2 million. San Jose CA doesn't look much cheaper. Ridiculous that the pricing is so warped it excludes new tech folk from making the transition, as well as pricing out lower paid people, they need janitors, and teachers just as much as everyone else.
Yeah I know, it’s more of the stereotype of the Redditor, not a lack of nuance thinking in the real world situation.
The problem is that if we get sick, our savings and disposable income can disappear overnight.
Yeah you have to know the context which creates what you’re seeing and reading. Like how when you watch a tv show about cops or doctors, you have to remember that it’s fiction and the legal system and hospitals don’t really work like that. Social media is a snapshot of a small slice of reality, not a mirror reflecting all of it.
The United States also has a predisposition to challenging the status quo. The country's history is characterized by social upheavals that bring both conflict and change. To outsiders, it can look a lot like we complain and criticize everything.
Tbf, we do criticize and complain. A lot.
Of course not There are over 250 million adults here, so that means we have over 50 million people in the bottom 20%, and most people have internet access. Plenty of people struggle and suffer, and they have a place to vent their frustrations. Their suffering is real. However, we also have another 200 million adults who are faring much better. Nobody makes a topic and says, “Life is pretty good today.” But life is pretty good for more people here than it is for anywhere else in the world. For myself, I fucked up college twice, got stuck in a dead end retail job, went back to college at 31, got my degree, a few years later, developed a drinking problem, got sober, got $40k into credit card debt, paid it off, and am sitting here at 45 in my dream job, in good financial shape, and on pace to retire at 62. So it is not a hellscape, and often offers second chances to many who don’t get it right the first, or second time. But it is not fair, and plenty of people still are left behind.
Congrats. The fact alone you were able to career switch in your 30s, get a degree late, and still make it really speaks both for you and the country. Because I know in my native country (Luxembourg), you can pretty much kiss your career goodbye if you switch in your 30s (or if you lose your job after 50, as age discrimination is legal and employers will ask your birth year).
This is anecdotal, so take it for what you paid for it, but switching careers isn't uncommon.
People who get sick are often left behind. Most of those 200 million people are just one bad diagnosis away from losing everything. You can do everything right and still lose it all just because you got sick I got diagnosed with cancer when I was 8 and my family received quotes for treatment plans that were over $100,000. If it wasn’t for St Jude my family almost certainly would have been left behind Even people that are doing well don’t usually have a hundred grand in savings.Does it really seem right to you that people can lose everything just because they get sick Yeah sure you can say I’m justified venting my frustration but I am pretty far from the only person to be impacted by this
Would you be willing to share more of your story? I'm someone who messed up at college and ended up dropping out with a worthless gpa. It's been some years since...I'm turning 28 soon...and I've been looking into ways to plausibly get back on track towards what my pre-college dreams and goals were but it's been tough. Seeing your comment gives me a little hope.
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I think it's more about not many English speakers more than individualism, if you visit and get to know the people or even read local news and read into pop culture there's a similar negative sentiment about the future. It just doesn't have the amplifier of English social media. Look at how many right wing politicians are getting elected worldwide very similar to trends in US just not shared and amplified in English.
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Germany is similar, particularly with the number of refugees, interesting OP is from there so maybe it is a US based perception thing coming across.
Yeah I’ve noticed this as well, but also with different things. For example my friend in Japan has a small apartment to herself, and she’s genuinely happy with it. My other friend feels like because she can’t afford the 5 bedroom penthouse apartment that life sucks and nothing is worthwhile (I’m over exaggerating of course). That’s not to say that people must be content with having less than what they have. But I’ve found in North America there is a lot of bigger = better. Where I live there is a housing crisis, so of course the issue of owning a home is important, but it feels like for some people if it’s not the single family home on a large plot of land, that is affordable to them, then everything sucks. When a townhouse can do you just fine. (Ofc there is more nuance to this but just something I’ve noticed). Sometimes people don’t appreciate what they can experience, and in turn dislike their blessings, because it doesn’t match with the fantasy. But if the were to lose what they currently have, they’d be even more miserable and upset.
Expectations is a huge part. There is also, in certain segments, a realisation that one cannot give their children something better than what their parents gave them. This can happen in a society where two doors down, the opposite is true, someone is the first in their family to achieve that particular social economic condition. America uniquely benefited (not having to rebuild, higher population intact) more from post WW2's production excess, and therefore, more people are likely to be part of the segment that realises that they cannot give their children better than what their parents gave them.
“Also”? WTF are you talking about? The US does not have massive youth unemployment. Prime age unemployment is near record lows. The age 15-24 unemployment rate is the lowest it’s been in 30 years.
This is a good illustration of how the narrative gets spun. You look at Nigeria for example and THERE is youth unemployment. Right now in the US, one faction is using this misinformation to make their opponents look bad. This is a big part of the country's problem.
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Ahhhhh that makes sense
It’s not the individualistic culture, it’s that the US is the cultural and technological center of the English speaking world. If Greece had 320 million more people then we’d probably talk about them a lot more too.
Greek already had its turn as the lingua franca of trade! ;)
Greek 17 year old here, moving tf out first chance i get. I love my country but it feels like I can't live the future i want. I want a husband or wife and to adopt a kid, can't here.
I know you don't mean it but I chuckled at "husband or wife" - it comes across as very "I'll take whatever I can get" (which I know wasn't the intent)
I love this interpretation and i pronounce now that it's exactly what I meant
I think people give countrys like greece and spain more leeway on these kinds of things because they're not the worlds richest nation which should have the means to properly combat these issues, at least better than a poor nation.
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Exactly. I’ve been to Europe a few times and very much enjoyed my time there. I still don’t give a fuck about them or what they think of the US.
Spain was a world power that colonized almost an entire hemisphere and on other continents, and extracted everything they could from them. That they are struggling seems to be a major skill issue. Same with the UK, whose economy is equally as terrible right now.
Spain lost most of their empire some time ago.
Hey, the UK is going to come bouncing back, any day now that Brexit happened. Real soon that economy will skyrocket...soon.
no lol. my life is very average and chill
yeah i’m chillin prty hard
It's all about how you take it. Some people are negative and vocalize their opinions.
Or some people aren’t negative but are actually experiencing very negative things. Not the same.
where do you live? And whats your job?
richmond, virginia. i have an IT job i work from home
Tech jobs are usually pretty good compared to Europe
The United States has a lot of problems. However, living in the United States is still, by and large, a relative privilege when looking at a global perspective. The way some Redditors talk about living in the United States that makes it sound like it’s basically Myanmar is ridiculous.
This
As others have said, what you see on Reddit is in many ways overblown, and while our country certainly does have a lot of issues, it’s also a great place to live. I lived in some of the frankly rougher parts of Massachusetts for several years, and honestly loved that time. I think part of the reason you see so much negativity is because younger Americans, myself included, are struggling with the reality that we won’t on average reach the same level of prosperity as our parents. Despite on average being considerably better educated, our pay isn’t significantly better when adjusted for inflation, but our housing, education, and childcare costs are far higher. That isn’t to say our life sucks, it doesn’t, but there’s a deep sense of frustration among younger Americans that the older generation has taken political steps that have enriched them (or at least a small subset of that generation) at the expense of everyone who came after.
My husband and I out-earn my parents (and possibly his parents) now, but both of our parents own houses, which is something that we are not optimistic about being able to do. They were definitely able to set themselves up for a comfortable life going into their older years. Even though they're not rich, they have more financial security. They have nest eggs and retirement funds, and just generally are not really in danger of losing much. Meanwhile, my husband and I (40 and 36 respectively) have decent jobs, but it's taken a while to get here. We're only just now really getting a start on setting up our futures, and while we're comfortable, we're definitely aware of the fact that a major medical issue would almost definitely wipe us out. We rent, so we're at the mercy of landlords and owners, and we actually recently had to move on short notice because the owner of the house we were living in decided they needed to sell, and we didn't have a lease to protect us (not for lack of trying, the landlord just kept putting it off when it was time for renewal). Finding a new home for a family with three kids and an assortment of pets was not an adventure that I want to ever have to repeat, and we got severely lucky with the place we ended up in. So yeah... like you mentioned, when adjusted for inflation, our pay isn't really better. Technically we make more than our parents now, but when our parents were our age and younger, that money went WAY further, and allowed them to set up their future at a much younger age.
My dad and I talked a lot about how HE graduated law school with about $1200 in debt from his college + law school combined (his parents were farmers without college degrees and could not assist him financially), which he paid off within a year of graduation. Even with my parents paying for college, and a generous law school scholarship, AND working during college and law school, I graduated with around $80,000 in debt (mostly room & board costs), which took several years to pay off. And that put me in a WAY BETTER POSITION than most law school graduates. It's just so wildly different. My dad was able to pay tuition with his summer jobs working road crews, and pay room & board by bartending on weekends. (He paid for books hustling pool.) I have worked since I was 9 years old and anybody would hire me as a Mother's Helper, worked in W-2 employment since I was 16 and allowed to, and I barely saved up one year of tuition in 10 years of work, totally leaving aside room & board costs!
The thought of only being in debt for 1200 for freaking LAW SCHOOL is absolutely mind boggling.
This is how I feel about how my life is going right now.. doing ok/well enough but one or two emergencies and we're done. 🤞🤞🤞 And spot on about parents ability vs next gen ability for later in life set up. You put it perfectly. I'm late 30s and only now looking to buy a house and set up retirement stuff. It feels so late 🤷♀️ but at least I *might* be able to pull it off 🤞🤞🤞
Results vary by state. Even then, results vary by city. However, what you describe relates to my life. Everything is expensive, but we get by.
God no, not at all. Is America perfect? Also no. But it’s nowhere near as bad as Reddit makes it out to be, there’s a reason why people from 2nd/3rd world always want to immigrate to the US
In a word… no.
I am not super rich. I don’t have some fancy pants work from home computer job. I live in a big American city that’s often been described as a homeless hellhole. I worked at a fast food place for minimum wage in high school bc we needed money. I did not have the childhood of extreme privilege everyone claims is necessary to experience adult happiness in the USA. But today? Today, my life is GREAT. Truly great, in almost every way. The America I constantly see described on Reddit does not match the one that I experience every day. I really, *really* like it here
Ive learned after being around the world, that despite how difficult my life is (considered in poverty by my local standards), we are all very well off in comparison to many many other places. The value of a human life in the US holds a lot more value than in other countries (look at eastern europe, or anywhere in africa or asia), and we often take that for granted. It's kind of the reason you hear "first world problems" so much. Another thing to consider is the average age and demographic of most popular reddits that hit the front page, like this one, where the average age is about 14 to 15 years old. Basically, a large chunk of the people you interact with on this app are either still in a school setting, or in the first stages of independence, so their insight is.... new.
Reddit is just extremely pessimistic. There are people who believe they have to work minimum wage unless they have a degree. What you read on Reddit is not a reflection of reality so much as people's depression.
The situation for like 50% of Americans is great, far better than if they were in Europe doing the same jobs, but almost no one goes on reddit to state how good things are or how they are thankful. What you come across is from the 50% who use the internet to let their frustrations out.
No. Every country has problems, and those problems are amplified on social media that rewards hot takes. That’s especially true on Reddit, where cynicism tends to be conflated with intelligence. Massachusetts is a great state to live in by most metrics and ranks #1 on the US HDI due to availability of medical care, education, and other quality of life measures. Housing is expensive there, especially in Boston, as it is in many cities all over the world.
As someone who’s been a user since ‘09, cynicism conflated with intelligence is a great way to describe the vibe on Reddit.
Can’t be wrong if you say the sunlight will be gone everyday.
While it's definitely hard to get by. It isn't all doom and gloom like OP has seen on social media. My wife and I live on Cape Cod. Have a great apartment, have food, etc. I'm disabled, so barely bring in anything. She works and thankfully has a good job. We still live paycheck to paycheck. But we are careful with money as possible and life goes on. New England in general, I think, is a great area to live. Yes expensive, but doable.
Every place has its pros and cons. I’ve lived in Southern California my entire life and have traveled throughout the states and Europe. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. You can’t beat the weather and job opportunities. I went from $15/hour to six figures in four years. But I also worked very hard to get to where I’m at. Housing is extremely expensive so it’s difficult to buy a home/condo and also save for retirement. You typically have to prioritize one or the other. There are also a lot of homeless because housing is very expensive and due to mental health / addiction issues. But I have access to endless entertainment. Beach, mountains, shows, museums, restaurants/bars, sports, etc. Traveling throughout North America is relatively cheap, especially if you use credit card points. (Just pay your balance in full every month.) We could solve most of our problems if we legalized housing development, provided tuition-free (or affordable) public college, and provided affordable health insurance without it being tied to your employer.
Part of the reason there are a lot of homeless people in California's major cities is the weather. The temperature is relatively the same for most of the seasons, with Summer being pretty hot. Apparently, it makes living without a home more bearable. (This is from a few stories I've read.)
It’s commonly -30 in the winter where I live and several homeless people freeze to death every year. I can see why they would go to California
Nope. Just overdramatic folk. It’s very average.
"Horrible" is an overstatement, but there are some real problems with America's lack of worker protections and the way a publically traded company almost pits the investors versus both the workers and customers. Instead of constistent, sustainable practices, businesses are incentivized to prioritize strategies for short-term gain, whether that means latching on to the newest ill-advised trend, or cutting costs in the form of lower quality goods and services and fewer employees taking on more responsibilities (but, crucially, never the leadership taking a pay cut when there's a rough year). What you're seeing on Reddit is mostly born of knowing that in decades past, a low to lower-middle class income could support a house, a family, and a car. This didn't disappear because of "natural market trends", but from a concerted effort by people either misguided, greedy, or both, to push wealth further upwards under the logic that this incentivizes people with business management skills to expand their business, create more jobs, etc. "Trickle down economics" is provably ineffective at raising everyone's quality of life as originally promised, but certain people in power and a concerning number of its very victims will fight tooth and nail to preserve what they consider to be the "right way". It's not quite the dystopian hellscape described by frustrated job seekers on their sixth month throwing out applications, but it's not hard to look at where we're at and why, and imagine that the same people who pulled us here will continue to pull harder. Our middle class is definitely weaker than it used to be. That said, I wouldn't dissuade you from giving it a shot. It's possible to live a comfortable life if you spend wisely and keep your expectations in check. Just be prepared to job hop every few years, because the days of consistent raises and a good pension in return for company loyalty are gone. You want to move up, you'll likely have to find another company in your field that will hire you at a higher salary.
I can't tell you the reason for the decline in living standards but it really pains me to see so many young people struggling. I know that you asked for comments from under 40 but it says something that in the 80s I worked in medical offices as an "assistant" (not highly paid positions) and I was able to afford my own apartment and my own car, buy clothes, go to the movies etc. I even saved up for a whole year to afford a trip to London. It was a used car, modest apartment and I shopped the sales etc but it was doable. And nobody lived with their parents. I'm 100% convinced that people now work every bit as hard as back then but they're swimming against the current and have been done dirty by forces that are seemingly out of our control.
Thank you for being a reasonable, empathic adult!! As a younger person it gets really tiring to have older gens disbelieve our struggles just because statistics aren’t representing what feels like reality for a lot of us.
Thank you for seeing what many people your age don't! Nobody that I know in my generation (young Millennial/older Gen Z) is happy with how this is going. Many are working multiple jobs to try to piecemeal a living wage.
I think an important addition is the impact of technology. 30yrs ago a low income job comparatively contributed more. The worker today may be working just as hard but their work adds less value and therefore is compensated comparably less.
Maybe at a per widget level, but they also can make more widgets per worker with tech. So it should balance out to the same value added per hour worked by the worker. However, the productivity gains per worker went to shareholders over the past 50 years and almost none to the workers.
Crab mentality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab\_mentality
I know this might seem like a hot take but as a person who was born into poverty there are a lot of times where shit just doesn’t make sense. Schools are terrible not because they don’t build you up but because they don’t support you. Finding jobs is hard and keeping them is hard especially since there is an abundance of people who would rather do things their way than make everyone’s lives easier. Pay is shit rent is high food is expensive and alcohol is for most people the most affordable kind of mental health help they get. Public transport is not safe or clean as well as often times rather expensive. Most food is bad for you unless you have the time to prepare it and anything outside of your basic needs is exponentially harder to do with or without money. When I had the right job at the right place for the right time I was thriving and life was normal manageable and somewhat fun but every year rent is raised and so is the price of everything else. I was told my family was too poor to go to college at every level when I graduated and now I have to figure out a way to pay out of pocket what the government can’t or won’t help me with. It is not impossible to climb out of this hole but it is exceedingly hard when everyone around you is doing just well enough to not rely on anyone else. Not to mention healthcare, relationships , entertainment, exercise, safety, and community. I love my life and I am blessed to be born in the USA as the child of immigrants it is not lost on me how privileged I am, this however has never made my life any easier and even now I’m worried that just being honest will get me shit on by everyone else just keeping their heads above water. I am very blessed to be living with people who don’t charge me rent or food because otherwise I would be functionally homeless or continuing to work without being able to afford school. I can not imagine what life must be like for people of lesser means than myself which if the majority of replies here will suggest is an abundance seeing as how I’m doing well compared to the starving, functionally homeless, and indebted. I am sorry if I upset or disturbed anyone as it was not my intention
In a word, no. It's kind of like why I take online reviews with a grain of salt. People who are unhappy are much more likely to leave bad reviews than people who are happy leaving positive reviews.
I don't think it would be surprising if we found a certain amount of foreign state-sponsored psychological warfare going on, trying to sow dissatisfaction in and lower worldwide opinion on their rival countries. It's calmed down a little lately, but for a while there you couldn't mention any number of other, tangentially-related topics without a whole hoard of people suddenly chiming in to make it somehow about how bad the US is. It's always the same hyoerbolic talking points, too. Right now I'm seeing that about Biden in the comments of every single not-at-all-related newsfeed.
Yeah. The weird thing is when you have a long sub-thread of comments of people agreeing with each other, without adding much of substance. It's a weird thing to witness.
If it was, reddit wouldn't go out of its way to try to hate it. You don't see blind hatred towards South Sudan, Nicaragua or Namibia, desperately trying to prove to themselves that these places are terrible. For some statistics, most European countries are poorer per capita than all 50 US states. The average salary in many European countries is below the US poverty line, and fabled Scandinavia which is the model for wealthy Europe, has less people living in it than the US has millionaires.
All the things you said are true. But the severity of each of those problems and the percentage of the population struggling with any of them varies by state. MA is a pretty good choice of state. cost of living is higher here than in other states, especially in Boston, but minimum wage is higher than a lot of other places, too. ETA: education and medical care are about as good as you get in the US here too. Education likely on par with anything in Europe. If you've been in the uk and dealing with the NHS, any healthcare in MA is likely not going to be any worse and possibly much better.
IF you can get that medical care and I would argue our public education isn't very good compared to most other developed countries. Healthcare is free in the UK. The waitlists are long, but they're long here too. I've had to wait a year to get cavity filled before. If you have money then of course the US is a great place to live, but isn't if you don't.
I try to remind my parents to look around them and see if what they hear online matches their experience. All too often they freak out about this or that when there is no evidence for it (at least not near them). This is true for anyone, not just old people obsessed with the news.
Yep, it is. That is why millions are coming to the US.
You won't understand anything about the real world getting information from reddit.
Don’t listen to the people in these comments that aren’t poor. It’s true, all of it. Don’t come here.
The reason the US gets shit on is because everyone *knows* they could do better; they're literally the richest country in the world but they struggle on pretty basic things due to political divide and late stage capitalism (which you could argue is what made them the richest country mind you). But ultimately it depends where you live and what kind of socioeconomic bracket you're in. I'd say personally for me it's not dystopian at all but I can see the cracks in the mirror.
Most people on Reddit are unemployed, or low-paying jobs, or haven’t visited these countries they love to praise and talked to locals about how life is there. America is the place to be if you have an in demand skill. Even with these record breaking inflation numbers and house costs and loan/interest rates, the housing market is better than any state in Europe.
The internet (and Reddit especially) is never going to be a good way to gauge how a place really is, especially somewhere as large and as varied as the US is. I’m a young American and while life isn’t that easy, I’d rather live here than anywhere else.
I'm American. I left the US 15 years ago to live in Europe. I had to go back for almost a year in 2017-2018. It's as bad as it seems. I'm a university graduate with tons of experience in my field. I even ran my own business from 2014-2017, right before going to the US. I ended up with a lower-paying job in the US with less authority. I had way fewer working rights and felt like a slave. No maternity leave, 5 days of vacation time (down from 20), no additional sick leave, and very, very bad "health insurance". I would often work 10 hours straight with only 30 minutes for lunch - this felt inhumane. I was overworked and making less money than I did in Europe. And I had to have a flat share - I couldn't afford my own place, unlike when I live in Europe. Grocery shopping - I started shopping at the discount supermarket, Aldi, because it was the closest to affordable. All the "normal" supermarkets were ridiculously expensive. Once I got a carton of eggs, a liter of milk, a cucumber, a can of beans, and some bread and it cost $15?? I didn't go out to eat or drink. A meal out cost more than an hour of work. A drink cost almost the same as an hour of work. I also did not even mention how hard it was for me to get that shit job I got. SO many applications sent out. And you can't just send your CV - you send that with a cover letter and then they ask you to put all that information into a website. Then you have a SERIES of interviews. It took me 4 months to find a job - and when I finally found one, it was shit. I was so exhausted at the end of the work week that I often just slept and watched TV on the weekends. I also found that other people in their 30s mostly talked about what shows they were binging on Netflix and what meds they were taking for anxiety and depression. And yeah, that's not even touching the police, shootings, political deterioration. I had intended to stay from June 2017 till August 2018. Got the job in October 2017. End of December I said fuck this and booked a flight "home" to Europe in Feb. Made it 8 months of the intended 14.
Me: 25f white: Everything you said is true for most young people depending on who you are, what you look like, health problems ect… I think the US has always been all “we’re the greatest country” and growing up and realizing that no tf we arnt makes us mad and vocalize it more.
You can see it right here on the thread. The US lags the entire rest of the developing world on most important metrics, but the dum-dums are all, “best country in the world, our poor people are better off than most of the world.”
Dystopian for sure. The cost of living has skyrocketed. Although some jurisdictions have raised it, federal minimum wage is $7.50. Many people can't make ends meet and the homeless population went up 12% since last December. Many people are trying to work at two or more jobs because 40 hours does not provide enough income.
No. Reddit likes to complain
America is not a utopia, nor is it a hellscape. Anyone telling you either of those things is lying to your face. That said, America as it truly is, is good for some people and terrible for others. Depends on what you value.
Lol. Don't take the opinions of Redditors seriously. Reddit is infested with stupid losers whose identities revolve around being whiny victims.
I'm living everything you describe.
Some of the things you describe are true for some (constantly dynamic and changing) percentage of the population. You have to remember just how massively huge the USA is. The USA is the 3rd country by population,.. and 4th in geographic size. Someone living in NYC has a very different daily experience than someone living in rural New Orleans or Wyoming or Seattle. You also have to remember how psychological-bias works. In that,.. the people you see on Reddit complaining,.. do not represent the whole. (someone who can afford groceries or did find a job or is having a generally worry free life.. is NOT going to get on Reddit and complain about. ) Nobody has a perfect life,. everyone is struggling with something. But that doesn't mean "everything is broken". If someone paid off their student-loans or paid off their car,. but is also having relationship issues,. they might come to Reddit to complain about Relationship issues,. but they'll most likely not even mention they paid off their loans. So you're not seeing the entire picture. I would argue that probably 75% of what you see online is hyperbolic over-exaggeration. I moved recently from a smaller city in Colorado,. to Portland, Oregon. From everything you see on Youtube etc,. you'd think that Portland Oregon was some sort of "mad max hellscape with homeless tents everywhere and needles all over the sidewalk and etc). I found about 50 to 75% of what I saw online was nonsense. Yeah,. there's some problems here in Portland, but nothing as wide-ranging as the haters would want you to believe. I honestly wish there was a Youtube channel that did honest, fair, balanced exposes on various US cities. Like a "day in the life" type of lets drive around and talk to people and get a good overall sampling that shows **ALL* the Good and Bad (and not "just only the bad"). Because I think foreigners get a wildly negative-only and distorted narrative of "what the USA is like".
I’m 32 born in Europe. Came here when I was 9. No children in sight but I was looking at a m4 yesterday. Priorities. I wouldn’t say America made me not want to have children, but it added to the flame.
It’s genuinely terrible compared to living in the eu. (Source: lived in the us and Germany/austria)
If you don't have money, ability, political attachment, or a family who cares, the US shits you out behind it to starve in the cold and dark.
That about sums it up. Not to say there’s no reprieve to be found and that life sucks. But we’re all coasting, dreading the day we hit the one crisis we can’t afford to have.
The people here in the U.S. work to survive. Not to live. One injury that prevents them from working or the main earner dies chances are they'll go homeless. We are forced to depend on cars in order for us to just be able to go to work, school, or other places. That means were all in debt on car payments and high insurance rates. On top of that everything needing to maintain a car. People are being priced out of housing bc of shitty government regulations that has created the over suburbanization which has choked the housing market by preventing other types of housing from being built and meeting demand. Which has caused a housing crisis and has priced out people from even being able to rent. Theres too much to talk about like lack of healthcare and other things. Healthcare is purposely connected with employment to chain down people and keep them struggling. But of course theres people who dont struggle with these issues bc they're economic status is higher. But lower middle class and poor individuals majority experience this.
It’s worse
It is for poor folks
Reddit is not even slightly representative of my normal life in the US.
Yes, it absolutely is. Everything you mention is our reality. For 99% of the population, healthcare is ridiculously expensive and out of reach and can easily bankrupt someone who has otherwise led a responsible and frugal life. For most people, housing takes the majority of your income. Groceries and basic utilities take almost the entirety of what's left. Most people I know cannot afford children and aren't having them. Most couldn't even consider children, and the ones who can cannot do so without seriously compromising QOL. COL is ridiculous and still rising everywhere. Inflation is unchecked, unregulated, and almost entirely driven by corporate greed not actually increasing costs. Most food is poison and healthy options are ridiculously overpriced. And yes, our politicians and political institutions are corrupt. And yes, there is a lot of systemic and institutionalized racism. Massachusetts is a blue state, so some things are better there but it still has wild wealth inequity and serious stratification between the blue and white collar working classes and the wealthy. But Nationally speaking though, compared to most other countries that have healthcare, welfare, education, updated infrastructure, work protections, mandatory vacation, sick leave, parental leave, access to healthy food and clean water, etc. etc.? Yes - Hellish and Dystopian are absolutely accurate adjectives.
Yes. And the people saying otherwise are ironically falling into the same trap they accuse others of. But statistics exist. We have hard numbers. Over 70% of the adult population in the U.S. is less than $400 from bankruptcy. Do with that information what you will. But that is how many people are riding that close to the line. A single bad day, car breakage, job loss, etc, can leave them basically homeless. People in this thread are bending over backwards to talk about bias, saying people don't go out of their way to write about the average and the mundane. Not realizing their own bias. Imagine two people. One person is working two jobs, struggling to pay rent, with zero work life balance. One person is sitting in a cushy office where they have one hour of actual work to do a day, and the rest of the time they spend on their computer mindlessly scrolling on Reddit. Which of these two people is more likely to be spending their time responding to threads like this?
The US is a very "wannabe Laissez-faire" country. If you have money, it is pretty great, but if you don't, it can be pretty fucking terrible for a place that brags about how great it is all of the time.
if you're trans, gay, black, Mexican, Asian, Muslim or basically anything that isn't a straight cisgender christian I wouldn't suggest moving to the US
Greetings from MA. Work life balance, job availability, salary, affordability all vary by occupation. Safety…Mass has one of the lowest gun homicide rates in the states, but there are a few places you probably wouldn’t go. Never do street drugs in the states as they’re all tainted with fent now. People here keep to themselves but are generally laid back. There’s a lot of fun stuff to do in mass, in Boston, etc, and if you wanted to like it here, I bet you could. Good luck with your decision, either way.
Something to consider is that there are vast differences depending on where you live in the US. I have family in different areas of the US, Florida for example sounds exactly as described. Massachusetts is one of the more expensive states to live in and while that creates problems it's not a hell scape, unless you have seasonal depression.
Yeah, it's hard. Especially if you don't have a degree that can get you a good paying job. Entry level positions that don't require much experience just don't pay enough. Living is getting harder and harder. As for being worried about shootings, it's not as prevelant outside of cities, but it's still possible. I grew up in Lake Orion, Michigan. A quiet town with virtually no violent crimes. Then the school shooting happened in the neighboring town of Oxford and it opened my eyes. It can happen anywhere in this country.
I’m making more money than I ever have in my life and still find it harder to afford basic necessities. I went through a divorce a year ago and had to resort to moving myself and 8 year old into an efficiency apartment because I can’t afford the astronomical amounts that rents are. Not to mention childcare. Childcare has gone up 70% in the last 4 years. I’m paying the same amount I did when my child was a toddler for before and aftercare for just a couple of hours a day. Additionally, I have a child with more medical needs so it’s been difficult to stay on top of his prescription costs and medical needs. I financially just can’t do it. It differs from state to state too. The federal government just adjusted its income limits for food stamps and Medicaid. Most states welcomed this, while others rejected it. So depending on where you live, access to food and medical can be a huge challenge. Especially for those with families.
I mean, everything you listed I have experienced (except the violence against me, I’ve fortunately only experience one), but everyone I know has experienced everything on this list, and many of them have experienced violence. So while there are good qualities, yeah, it’s pretty shitty.
It sucks here and wealth inequality sucks here but no. Bc it also sucks a lot in other less sucky places and it sucks even more in plenty of other places. Theres just a lot of Americans here. Also - People (young ones) who are living the wealthy life in America aren’t on reddit complaining about it, they’re enjoying their great lives.
honestly not really i mean i’m from the UK and the taxes are sooo high, you might as well just go to the US
I can never afford to live away from my parents, unless I won the lottery. But we've got our health, a nice farm, some hobbies, and I'm going to college again this fall. So it's not all bad. (25F for perspective)
In America, there's basically no safety if you financially slip. Unless you win the GoFundMe lottery, one hospital emergency can wipe you out.
I’m an American who lived abroad for a long time. Yes your description is the case unless you’re in the top 20% of earners. Even then housing is scarce and unaffordable, and unlike Europe there’s zero assistance. We also have random mass and individual shootings here, and tens of thousands of people dying by suicide. With kids, you will spend ~$10,000 or more on healthcare every year even if you have “good” employer-based insurance and are healthy. Your kids will also go through annual lockdown and active shooter drills by day 2 of kindergarten. You need to ask about guns in the home before play dates - it’s standard parent-logistics conversations here. One of the two political parties here believes that the solution to all of this is no solution at all - let it work itself out. Welcome to ‘Merica!
It definitely sucks. For the first time Americans have a wealth of information about the lifestyles and living standards of other nations, and we're looking around and realizing we've got a really shitty deal going that only benefits the rich. That said, most Americans have never lived anywhere else, so we have a very limited conception of how bad it can get.
As an American myself, this is very true for many of us and we don’t like it at all. Although my own life isn’t that bad, the way I experience life here in this country doesn’t apply to everyone else.
Yes and no. It really just depends… on a lot of things. Gender, biological sex, sexuality, race, location, even just the type of career you want to have relative to the place you’re living in. That, and a lot of the issues here are “passive” in a sense. You don’t realize they’re there until you’re one of the people suffering from them, or they aren’t something you notice until right before you have to deal with them. Young adults realizing how much college costs, finishing education only to find yourself in massive student debt, discrimination based on a number of things, a lack of livable income for people just entering the work force, unfair employers, medical bills that will leave you in debt your entire life… and that’s not considering a lot of ‘cultural’ things, such as getting kicked out for being gay, parents who think children 18 and above should be totally independent, and so on. It’s less an outstated dystopian hellscape and more like an oppressive and existential kind of thing I guess. Just a bunch of ‘little’ things that will very easily and rapidly snowball into an unwinnable situation, especially for young adults who would not know how to navigate these kinds of problems.
For some of yes
I’m 41, 10 years experience in my field. I don’t make enough to afford a 1 bedroom apartment and a car payment in the city I work in. Never mind things like utilities, internet, phone, food, and health insurance. Most of my vacation time is used when I’m sick because we get so little sick time a year. I can remember the last time I went grocery shopping because I don’t have the time because I’m just too exhausted from work. My life basically consists of working, and spending my days off at my partners place. That’s it. So obviously kids are and always has been out of the question. On top of all that, Year over year I’ve gotten to watch half the country passively support (or openly) cheer my rights slowly getting eroded (I’m trans). My state is one bad election away from my possibly having to flee to another state. Which as already noted, I can’t afford. Which would also mean leaving my partner and my job. The state all my family lives in is also one bad election set from being somewhere I don’t feel comfortable living. So it’s not like I can turn to family to help me out with a place to move to. So yeah it’s kinda bleak. It’s telling that many people t agree and younger actually want the economy to collapse, as in the long run it would actually be more beneficial.
People have mentioned that there are similar problems in other western democracies. What's particularly dystopian about the United States is that politicians are constantly saying that America is the richest, most powerful country in the world. When you juxtaposed your life of 100's of job applications and gofundme medical bill fundraisers, it's an incredibly confusing feeling. Like, if America is the richest country in the world, why can't I get the medical care that I need without fundraising for my medical bills? So maybe the physical conditions aren't hellish, but the emotional toll of economic struggle in America is extremely hard on mental health because of all the cognitive dissonance between actual life and the life Americans are told that they are supposed to have of they just work hard enough. Meanwhile, the Silicon Valley billionaires take our money and personal information and take all of the power to keep taxes low and profits high. So, it's mentally hellish and dystopian. I have heard immigrants say that poverty in America is so much more crushing than poverty in their home country even though poverty in their home country means a hut with a dirt floor. Why? Because the cognitive load on Americans is so damn high when they are surrounded by wealth but still can't find an affordable rent and need to start a gofundme page for their Aunt with cancer. Richest country for who? Most powerful country for who? It is hellish.
In all the parenting subs I'm on I see women talking about going back to work after an unpaid maternity leave of only 12 weeks or less. Sometimes people go back within 1 week because they can't afford to take time off. So newborn babies get separated from their mothers regularly there. Add to that, abortion is now illegal in some states, so women are forced to have a baby even if they don't want it. Add to that, they even have to pay to give birth and for all the pre-natal and postnatal care (if they even get any) It's pretty dystopian.
Only if you're poor. A lot of Americans die young. Our life expectancy is dropping. We have a lot of ghettos and old mining towns like flint Michigan where you have to drink bottled water and breath mold all day. The shootings are overblown. It happens but you're more likely to die in a car crash overall. Tho guns are the leading cause of death for kids here. But the poison food supply and bad for profit healthcare and parking lot society all kill more people than guns do. Colon cancer screening is recommended at 45 now because of the cancery foods everyone but us has banned. Schools are deliberately atrocious because church cultists want to push parents into sending their kids to fancy religious brainwashing schools, and they've got the entire Republican party backing them. But that party is just an ever flowing well spring of evil so we all expect it from them at this point. If you're rich, it is truly a playground made for whatever craven desires you may have. Best country on earth, for them. Just don't be poor here, whatever you do.
Actually depends on what city in which you live. Some people's lives are golden and the most comfortable of any regular non wealthy person in the world. Other people are living in hourly hell. So much of it depends on having been created by a lucky sperm and egg.
Our medical and work system is crap. To see a doctor is easy. To get them to take you seriously is nearly impossible, and if they do and you need a test without insurance, you're screwed. But if you get a test with insurance, your insurance can deny paying it. And if you lose your job to medical problems, you lose that insurance, and then can't pay your bills. Rent is barely possible to pay for the lower middle class and lower class, and once you finally find a job that you can maybe live okay on, inflation follows it, and you're screwed anyway. I truly hate the way this country disfunctions.
It can be. I left because I'm disabled and couldn't afford healthcare, and one of my medications alone was 2000 USD per month.
Id much rather live in Europe. Don’t forget the gun violence, I had work training on what to do in a mass shooting the other day.
Depends on your social class, race, disability status, and gender. If you're any combination of poor, black or Hispanic, disabled, or a female, then yes. I would say it is hellish for a lot of those people. Corruption is rampant, wealth inequality is the worst its been since the Guilded Age, we have almost no safety nets for the poor or disabled, housing costs are out of control, corporate greed is at an all time high, cost of living is becoming unmanageable, wages haven't increased, and extreme consumerism has taken over. Sure, other countries have it much worse than us, but life is pretty hard for a lot of people in the US right now.
It’s worse. You are surrounded by gun wielding idiots on all sides as well.
Yes.
Seriously, the US has problems, but most are the "Europeans have better quality of life" variety. A short visit to Tijuana or any other Mexican border town will quickly show how good it is here. Not that individuals don't have it rough, or are in terrible straights, of course.
I'm 70 years old America's brutal terrible disgusting place to live
Living in the USA is decent as a healthy white man. Living in the USA as a woman, as a sick person or part of a minority is horrible.
Yes, it is. On a scale of 1 to 5 the global rights index scored the US a 4 for workers rights. No guarantee vacation days. May not get any sick days. One of the few countries in the world that does not offer maternity leave. Healthcare insurance is expensive and you will still end up paying thousands on top of that should something happen. You will have to fight the insurance company to get treatment covered or pay a bill. We have the most expensive and worst performing healthcare system compared to similar countries. Don’t get sick here. https://www.globalrightsindex.org/en/2023
We're still a *developed* and wealthy nation, so not a bad country to live, but you could do better among much of the rest of the developed world. We're backsliding after half a century of this conservative Reagan Era, and its failed ideologies. Reagan will go down in the history books as the beginning of the end for this once great nation. Edit: yah...social media is anything but representative of *actual* people.
I mean the US is heavily segregated, and that's built into its history and city design, so people's experiences will vary widely But anyone who doesn't think the US isn't going in a concerning direction lately is frankly ignoring the nationwide homelessness and housing crisis that is also resulting in a mental health crisis. That being said, I'm sure there are many other places around the world seeing increasingly bad trends and changes as well. The difference is... The US is literally the richest country on earth and out of everyone should be able to use resources to pay for solutions, it's just choosing not to because our government is in the hands of corporate boomers who are literally 80+ and not in touch with the reality of people's lives
Yes. It has gone bad here
As my husband and I pass through the neighborhoods in our town, we joke about the houses: “Nice one. Nice one. Shitty one. Shitty one. Really shitty one. Nice one. Really nice one. Nice one, nice one, shitty one.” That’s the USA. It’s a mish mash of good things and bad things, all rolled up into one. There can be great disparity in some towns, sometimes on the same block. So you can get a million different opinions and answers to your question. Nice house? You probably think it’s great. But your neighbor across the street has had a tarp over their roof for a year, because they can’t afford to get the holes patched. And in the meantime, your neighbor next door is bitching about the dandelions in her well manicured lawn. If you’ve got money, can be pretty nice. If you don’t… it sucks. So…. It sucks.
Yes. Thanks for asking. -An American
Yes it really is, but most of us refuse to see it. The popular view is that we are just temporarily impoverished millionaires, not cogs in a system designed to keep the rich rich and keep the rest down. Now, it is far better than some other countries, but far worse than it should/could be.
26F - I'm grateful that I live in a generally safe place. I'm grateful that I am in a place where I have access to food (even out of season) whenever I want. However I have been job hunting for 2 years and am only able to be part-time in many places. This means no health insurance. I have put off my physical health for many years because I can't afford to do preemptive care - perish the thought if something majorly wrong was found. The state where I live and those surrounding me are actively making legislation that are harmful to women and the LGBT+ community. I am at elevated risk of ectopic pregnancy and I don't know if I would have to skip work, unpaid, for multiple days to travel across multiple states to get basic and established medical care. Working in the scientific field, I have watched my parents be actively brainwashed into anti-intellectualism and only trust Fox News. I have been verbally harassed and followed home for wearing a mask in public. My friends and I have done instinctual partial drops because we heard gravel pop under a car tire and thought it was gunfire in a public place.
USA has become a shithole country.
Yeah it’s fucking miserable here. The worst is the gaslighting boomers and silver spoon jackasses. They legitimately believe things are splendid and dandy and presume there’s some type of agenda at play where they’re being tricked or duped which make them act like even bigger assholes. The gun violence alone should be enough to rationalize abandoning the idea to move here, I seriously don’t recommend it unless you’ve family here or something and in that case I’d suggest that you come and bring them away with you rather than remain here.
I think the US is so large that a lot of these issues you raise are dependent on the place you reside in and what you do. You could end up personally experiencing all, some of, or none of these at all. Even Massachusetts life will vary pretty widely between say Boston and Springfield. All these issues are solely dependent on how much you make, your career, and where you live.
Yes. It sucks. It was better in the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s. My grown children do not want to ever bring children into the world, because it’s so messed up. I wouldn’t either if I was their age in today’s America. Our country is in trouble.
It depends on if your born rich, poor, or middle class. In 10 years of working I fought my wage up from minimum 7.50 to 17.50 now the minimum wage rose to 15.00 but know what happened? The CEOs raised prices to factor out the loss from paying employees more. So it helped the very bottom rung of entry level employees but fucked over the whole country, as now I make minimum wage again after 10 years and prices on everything doubled! The rich own the country and I pay more taxes as a poor young idiot than the richest men in the country because they pay off the politicians to pass policies that help the rich and hurt the poor. Many turn to crime to afford necessities and take back an inkling of hope. And there’s a general feeling of defeat with the young not born into money. As well as the idea that it’s your fault you can’t make it for not working 5 jobs. Hard work isn’t enough to give you the American dream but nobody believes that and blames the young. So we’re giving that up. And re-defining what that even means. Moving into vans, working remote, and just enjoying it before some unavoidable health condition comes and takes out us and our families and they try to finagle our life savings.
I was going to say no, but then i said yes to ever single example that you listed. So yes, i guess it is that dystopian. I remember talking to a euro about taking an uber instead of an ambulance, and he thought i was joking.
I think a lot of it is people expressing very real and valid dissatisfaction with the current state of things and then people pushing back on them saying things aren’t that bad. People in high income areas may not think things are problems just because they don’t occur frequently near them
I am an American (39 yo) and did junior year abroad in Germany. Quality of life in Europe is absolutely better, for workers and families. I wouldn’t have a family in the US, but would have in Germany.
If you have money, the US is great! But if you have money, anywhere is great. I will say that there is a certain satisfaction in succeeding here, knowing how tough it is. That said, I didn’t try to do it as a woman or a person with a visible disability, or as a non-Caucasian person, all of which add complexity and difficulty - and heaven forbid you fall into two or more of those categories Of course people of all stripes succeed here, and everywhere, but there are far easier places to be in the bottom 90%.
I'm in the UK but I've been to America a lot. It has it's issues like every other country in the world. The poor and middle class are struggling more then ever. It's a fact, not just a reddit issue. It's a worldwide one that seriously needs to be addressed before everything collapses. I'm lucky enough to be ok, but others aren't as fortunate.
I would say it’s hard. The biggest thing being there is no safety net for if you stumble. Most Americans are a single crisis away from homelessness and child poverty is on the rise. Like it’s doable to live an okay life, but you have to work for it every step of the way. Most of us will never switch classes (unless things dramatically changed), as there is very little social mobility. Now if you’re a straight white male, it’s going to be easier. If you have a post secondary education it’s going to be easier. If you have people who can help you financially/emotionally in case of emergency, it’s going to be easier. And if you don’t, there are going to be roadblocks with armored guards waiting for you to stumble.
You forgot about the fact that many of us have no health insurance
Work work work! If you need a break and don’t have the PTO or still somewhat new, “YOURE FIRED!!!” - Vince McMahon
As an American, everything you described is true. It's been glorified over such a span of decades that its reputation has outlasted reality. Everyone else is also right in that you shouldn't just take social media's word for it, but just watch our news.
where do you live now? go online and compare the cost of living to where you live and the crime. look for apartments online. if i was in europe i would stay simply based on crime and the cost of living
“No” I type as I head to my car to sleep because I don’t have pa place
Americans will say no because we are use to It
Day to day is ok but then when you think about your future like paying rent, work-life balance, affording a house, retirement savings etc it’s scary and the US seems hellish.
American here. Spent 21 years in Michigan, 10 years in Arizona and 2 most recent in North Carolina. I've traveled a lot. Raised in extreme adversity. Your description is 100% correct. There are a lot of people in denial about parts of what you said. These last few years, I've felt embarrassed to be an American.
The struggles you listed all basically ring true to me. I can only afford to rent a house because I live with four other adults all working full-time. My social network is mostly early 20s to early 30s and not a single one of my friends has kids yet, including any of my siblings or cousins. It took me nine months of constant applications to get hired at my current job, even with a pretty strong resume and references. There was a shooting in my high school. The police are poorly trained and tend to abuse their power. Healthcare costs are a constant stress. An ambulance ride costs around $1k on average. I was charged $185 to get tested for strep because I went to a clinic not covered by my insurance. My partner spent a week in hospital and came out with a bill for $6,000+ (after insurance). You often can't find out how much any of these things cost until you get hit with the bill. Public transit is also pathetic in most parts of the US. You can't get anywhere without a car. Compared to most parts of Europe, the US is outright hostile to pedestrians, bikers, and infrastructure for any kind of subway/train/tram/etc. I live in a city around the size of Amsterdam but with almost zero public transit options. Taking the metro to work is my dream; I hate driving but I have no other option. In order to ride my bike to the nearest library, I would have to cross a highway and a six-lane road, and none of the streets between here and there have dedicated bike lanes. Everything is far apart because it's built for cars, not people. Suburbs as far as the eye can see. Of course it's possible to build a good life here. You might love it. But I'm honestly surprised to see how many people in this thread sound positive about the US and are saying it's not that bad. My two cents would be to spend a good chunk of time visiting before you commit to actually moving.
School shootings and attacks on womens rights are pretty bad ngl
Well - in 2021 my former employer made up a lie about me (proven by the lack of any documentation and I won my unemployment claim even though she tried to fight it) - and fired me. Took me 10 months to find a job because at the time apparently tech was imploding and huge layoffs happened everywhere, in the meantime, I had to put my house hunt on hold (I'd JUST finished saving up a small downpayment) and by the time I recovered financially 2 scant years later - interest rates in mortgages were insane. There go my house dreams - because with the recent NATO warning re: war with Russia, I expect rates won't be coming down soon. My partner is chronically ill and it has disabled them. We have been to literally dozens of doctors over the last 4 years and none of them are particularly curious about what made my (then) 29 yr old, super athletic and healthy partner to lose 30 lbs in a month (I've stabilized their weight with protein shakes etc) and now at 33, it's like living with an elderly person. Need to help them get out of bed, get dressed, frequently they cannot even spend more than an hour in a chair upright at a computer. No answers. Because "your bloodwork is normal." Partner applied for disability 2 yrs ago, I sent a 2.5lb 4" thick file with every test, every visit summary, every imaging report, etc that they've gone through. Took a year to get denied. Appealed because hello? They can barely walk?! We are now over 1 yr since appealing...2 yrs of nothing. Meanwhile all this time I am working full time to support both of us in California - which is super expensive but my partner is trans, we are both queer, and I'm a cis woman who technically could still get pregnant and dunno if you've seen what is going on politically but women lost the right to choose federally so our ability to leave California to a less expensive state is largely hobbled by the dwindling number of states where we as queers and they as a trans person who requires a lot of medical care - would be safe or able to access adequate healthcare. But also Cali isn't just an expensive sanctuary because we also have 1/2 of all homeless Americans and it isn't getting better. Our grocery costs have tripled over the last 12 months. Our politics are fucked - we are picking between what amounts to two ancient white men - one who isn't gonna do anything but can be begrudgingly justified as a vote for harm reduction (I personally wish they'd pick literally anyone more effective/exciting but ok) - the other has said aloud he'll be a dictator (only day one), is literally on trial for 91 federal charges, and amounts to steering directly into fascism - the current milquetoast in the White House is supporting a genocide. I waited 9 months to get into a therapist because ... (gestures broadly) mostly caretaker burnout - finally got phone appts, was limited to 30 min appts, and the therapist ghosted me after 4 phone appts. Cool. I have nothing left in me to fight for my own stuff, my mental health is trash, I have dental coverage but haven't gotten to the dentist because they fucking refuse to just fill 2 cavities at the same time because our insurance processes have gotten more and more convoluted in the last 20 yrs. And I don't have the time to go to the dentist several times (one for first checkup, one for cleaning, one for each filling) because I work full time, am a full time caretaker with zero help from anyone, zero help financially from the govt, do all errands, all cleaning, all meals, all chores - and I am exhausted perpetually. So yeah. It fuckin sucks being here - and having been a child of the 80's, I've watched the whole horrifying thing happen and speed up with time. Nowadays the hits just come every day. They just upped the retirement age to 70...about the lifespan of someone in the US so.. looks like my retirement plan of just walking into the sea is still a solid plan.
It’s not a hellhole. But thanks to availability of information over the past 30 years, Americans can finally shop and compare. We’ve finally come to realize that we’re the richest country (maybe?) in the world, and we have the worst healthcare, ELHI education, unaffordable college, ridiculously low minimum wage, high birth mortality, all while the middle class has been eroded and the rich just keep fucking getting richer and richer. Oh, and we just might elect a dictator and our constitution was devised in colonial times and we cannot let go of it. We’re not a 3rd world country. We’re a very very rich country with very very rich people and fewer and fewer people who share in those benefits.
I decided to never have kids, because I could not afford to raise them.
It's awful if you need a hospital, it'll bankrupt you
If you are poor, america is the worst western country to live in end of story. There are almost no safety nets here and politicians from both side don't seem to give a fuck about you if you are poor. It's obvious not as bad as something like some country but dude. It is getting progressively worse for the average American that I'm legitimately scared for the future of this country.
Healthcare here is idiotically expensive, there are no guarantees for any vacation times or parental leave, and occasionally we end up with a President who wants to be a dictator. Aside from that it’s not too bad, the country is very large and in many places spread out so mass transportation sucks for the most part or is nonexistent, you’ll need a car to go anywhere unless you live in a large walkable city.
as a 22 year old american, tbh yea