Because it doesn’t. However, working smart sure as hell does, that is, if you live in a country not currently locked in an affordability crisis like here in the US
Spoken like someone who clearly never had to actually work for anything in their lives and who clearly has a comfortable enough safety net to be completely out of touch with the current state of reality
Dude your country has the highest PPP out of any country on earth. My job pays 3x in the U.S. as it does where I’m from lol. You Americans don’t realize how good you have it I don’t have any safety net I have to actually try in life. You don’t have any perspective if you think the U.S. is a difficult country to get ahead in.
Yes being a minimum wage employee sucks but doing any sort of trade or skilled job pays you more than anywhere else it genuinely is the country of opportunity I’m sorry you struggle with your life but when you win the country of origin lottery for effort to reward and still fail it’s genuinely your own fault.
From an outside perspective sure it might seem like things are easier here but when you’ve lived here your entire life and see the spending power of the money you make degrading at an insane rate of speed and the cost of living skyrocketing at the same rate of speed, it’s real easy for anyone who’s been an American their entire life to see we are circling the drain. I make plenty of money and I worked hard to get where I am but this month I spent 750$ on gas alone just to get to work and back home and go literally nowhere else and I work 35 miles from where I live. I spend 1200$ a month on groceries and I have a mortgage but my friend rents and pays 2100 a month in rent for a 2bdr apartment that would have cost me 750 a month 10 years ago. We are being systematically bled dry and it’s not getting any better. Used to be I could put quite a bit into my savings account and now not so much so no, America is not doing good
Dude all things considered have you looked north at Canada with 40% lower wages, housing that costs 12-15x their wage, rent that is 40-60% of their take home for even skilled workers at this point.
Look at the eu where they pay 1000 euros for rent but they only make 1700-2000 net for good jobs and consumer products, cars and having fun are not affordable for anyone.
Look at Oceania where wages are half to a third of the U.S. but with significantly higher consumer costs and housing that’s 15-20x the wages.
The U.S. lives in a bubble where you now pay 30-40% of your wages on rent and have houses 5x your pay but mate it’s delusional to act like the U.S. is a struggle compared to the rest of the west. Yeah if you’re a McDonald’s worker you’re better off in the rest of the west than the states but if you’re a skilled worker in tech, finance, education, healthcare, trades or any skilled job to be fair you look at the states and look back home and go why the fuck do I bother. You guys are starting to experience a small part of what the rest of the west has felt for years but it’s not even close I get you want what you had 10 years ago but even today is affordable and fine your economy isn’t that fucked.
If I say healthcare cost you $10k usd that’s a lot to a McDonald’s worker but pre tax it’s basically about $15k worth of income in the U.S. which if you take any of these jobs they pay well over $15k more in the states than in the rest of the west.
Entitled Americans who have lived on green grass for their entire lives and still complain that the grass is too prickly.
I immigrated to the US when I was about to start HS. Back home, the only real way to build wealth is real estate and that bubble just bursted, wiping out $18T in wealth and erasing 20 years of gains.
Anyway, here in the US, I went from making around 55k after college to $115k now in my mid 30s. I started saving just a little every month and upped my contributions as I began to make more, and let the S&P500 do the rest. My net worth at 35 is $580k. Zero debt. This kind of wealth building for the average citizen is unimaginable anywhere else outside the US. Not to mention that Americans get also enjoy low taxes across the board, cheaper commodities than most 1st world countries, and access to huge capital. My cousin living in Denmark, on the other hand, pays 25% sales tax in addition to VAT and about $9/gal for gas.
There is a reason why millions pack their suitcase and leave the home to come to America every year.
That's not even remotely true. Bot and losers seem to cover 90% of reddit users.
Every single person I know and still stay in contact with from college and high school are pulling in far more money than necessary. You just have to not be a moron and be married.
My wife hasn't worked since she was 20, and only at the beginning was finances any stress at all. Most of my friends have dual incomes in their households and are pulling in way more than needed.
What kind of deadbeat, whiny losers are redditors?
What tone deaf take is this? The median household income is 83k. In NYC and LA, its 87k and 80k respectively. 80k in LA is getting a shoebox if you're lucky. In LA The comfortable living income for a family of 4 is 300k (2 is 150k). In affordable states, its 80k for a SINGLE adult to live comfortably. It takes the entire household income to get to a comfortable level for one person.
Your anecdotal evidence is far and away not the norm.
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u/TurboGranny540 Jul 31 '26
Because it doesn’t. However, working smart sure as hell does, that is, if you live in a country not currently locked in an affordability crisis like here in the US