You're talking actual statistics; he's talking social psychology. Americans do think/act much in the way he described compared to how Europeans think/act. You are also right that the numbers show us Americans are getting screwed by our system. But we don't shape our culture by the facts/statistics. I wish we did.

Note: I'm an American by birth, and the Western European societies I've interacted with have, except Scandinavian, been enthusiastically classist.