The US is a welfare state. Its welfare programs consume a larger share of GDP than the welfare programs of Canada or Australia, and is just below Switzerland. The US is spending 19.3% of its GDP on social welfare programs, just behind the UK at 21.5%.

https://i.imgur.com/JQfZ5vi.png

Inflation adjusted per capita income transfers have roughly doubled since 1990, from ~$4,400 to ~$8,600 in 2016.

So where is all the money going? The UK has a (diminshed) NHS and spends less as a % of GDP.

I suspect that a big part of it is that money is being wasted (the Fed.Gov cannot negotiate drug prices!), and not reaching the intended beneficiaries. My perception is that there is an industrial-welfare complex that diverts the money.

It's going towards cost disease, waste, bureaucracy, nepotism, lawsuits, etc.

Of course they still perform worse, a school cannot magically change the parents of those students into middle class parents.

A better question would be: Is the performance gap between poor students and middle class students lower in Germany?

Indeed but they perform much better relative to the difference between poor and rich students in the US.

It used to, and then Schröder passed the Hartz reforms and the German welfare state has never been the same since.