You're right, I find that point of view to be very controversial. I've been to rich and poor parts of the US and Europe, and currently live in a US state that's in the bottom quintile of per capita incomes among states. There's absolutely no comparison to actual third world countries. I'd love to hear your supporting arguments for your position.

> Honestly, from my point of view, the US is a 3rd world country, but I expect that viewpoint to be very controversial.

As someone who lives in a real third-world country...I'm of the opinion that this is a silly thing to say. Yeah, the world's biggest economy ($23T GDP) that constantly sends payloads to outer space and back is third-world...maybe you could come live in a place with 80% of people below the poverty line and see what third-world is.

This is a good perspective, I can’t imagine anyone who has lived in or spent any significant time in a third world country making such a ridiculous claim.

When a country’s poor can still manage to be overweight, have cell phones, have gaming consoles, have automobiles…your perception of poor might be a tad subjective.

And before folks go off on the “what abouts”, yes I realize there are some folks in the US without those things, but let’s face it, you sample just about any “poor” person in the US, you will find at least 50%+ of the things I listed.

I doubt that you could do that with a random sample of the poor in say Burundi

Cell phones are ubiquitous now even in poor countries.