> no one is lacking for $3

I mean, it must be nice to believe this, but the lived experience of millions of Americans would beg to differ.

"Lived experience" is just a fancy word for "anecdote". I can also point to the lived experience of millions of Americans that enjoy dinner every day (myself included), and we'd be no better off in understanding what the truth is.

Per the data, the US is ranked #11 in the world for food security: https://foodsecurityindex.eiu.com/Index

“The lived experiences ...” is what sanctimonious rich liberals say to sound profound when they don’t have anything intelligent to say.

> Believe it or not, America is a welfare state [...]

Compared to where? Certainly not most industrialized western countries.

Thank you for the source.

I can't help but feel confused how the US can spend so much per capita on social welfare, yet I hear all those horror stories about medical costs, people having to work multiple jobs etc.

Because our medical (and other professional) cartels are powerful. A massive amount of that money is literally directly transferred to the world's least-efficient healthcare industry. The vast majority of that money is never given to people.

Believe it or not, the United States has a higher median income PPP adjusted after taxes and transfers than pretty much every European nation; it's ranked #3 in the world:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c...

The US also has a lower percentage of low-income people than almost any European country, despite having greater inequality:

https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1376074233642557442

Also, the US is ranked #11 in the world for food security, ranked higher than Canada, Germany, Denmark, New Zealand, France, Norway, and Australia (to name a handful): https://foodsecurityindex.eiu.com/Index