The people outside looking in has a clear vision of success that's why they will do everything to be able to migrate. It will still be an upgrade. The people inside have no other reference than their own so everything they lack the immigrant perspective.

The only difference between the poorest parts of the US and "3rd world countries" is that a (domestic) war upending peoples lives is less likely.

Otherwise? Poverty in the US gets intense real fast

That is not the only difference. The fact that you can save and have a stable currency and stable rule of law matter a lot too. The U.S. has not experienced an episode of hyperinflation in the last 150 years - that's quite notable.

The U.S. certainly has issues and disparities and everything else. But it has vast vast benefits that you can only understand if you've lived somewhere else for a while.

That said, Europe probably does a better job at creating a more liveable society, at least since WWII.

This is completely false by almost any economic metric.

You clearly know absolutely nothing about poverty. You can just compare monetary numbers - median incomes in many countries are smaller than poverty line in the US.

But even by objective standards. I actually feel it for working poor, especially immigrants - they don't get much help because US welfare state is completely out of whack. But non-working poor with free healthcare because hospitals have to treat them, food stamps and tons of private food charity, section 8 and other housing help, etc.? By world standards they live in luxury and they deserve none of it.

"By world standards they live in luxury and they deserve none of it."

What a disgusting thing to say

"What a disgusting thing to say"

What a disgusting thing to say

Also: but is it true?

This is a good point. And a lot of what these people inside are fed as a means to success are scams or lotteries. It's easy to become disillusioned pretty quickly when those don't work out.

Class mobility in the US is incredibly overstated. The number one predictor of what socioeconomic class you'll die in is the one you were born in. In fact, we're not even more mobile than other developed countries: On the contrary, at 43% of bottom quintile household-income individuals staying there their whole lives, we rank pretty damn poorly.

Like, sure, it's a step up from "100% of serfs died a serf", but it's not good, either. It's certainly not "the American Dream". Maybe try "the Danish dream".

Just because some people can succeed does not mean that everyone can succeed.

One person who puts in weeks or months of dedicated searching may find an apartment within an hour's commute of their job that they can afford or a good deal on a used car. Such opportunities do not exist for everyone even if everyone expended the same amount of work.

I'd be suprised if those people clawing their way out of poverty are these people though. It feels like many of those advancing are new Americans, while the population described here are sinking further into despair.

This is a political failure: we have incentivized the hiring of immigrants while failing to help our own citizens grow into productive workers.

We all know the answer here, but it’s taboo for whatever reason

Maybe it's the crawling? Crawling is demoralizing.

If you find yourself in a pile of shit, you can whine about it and stay there, or be demoralized for awhile as you crawl out.

According to this article you can opt out of the shit pile entirely. Maybe these guys are right and we should present them with a society that isn't so well-served by the crawling through shit metaphor.

The article describes the life of a bum/leech. I don't think most people aspire to live their lives as a leech.