Ah, more grist for this study: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/02/14/american...

(It appears that Americans are over-optimistic about social mobility, Europeans over-pessimistic. Americans are very unlikely to go from poor to rich (bottom quintile to top in this case), but think it's easy. Europeans are rather more likely to, but think it's impossible.)

This is actually kind of what you'd expect (in particular because of how expensive university education is in the US), but it doesn't really gel with how people _think_ the world works.

I'm not sure that is true: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/02/14/american...

Social mobility is perceived as greater in the USA than some EU countries, but in reality the opposite is true.

Nope. US doesn't have very good social mobility, though there are a couple European countries that aren't better.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Social_Mobility_Index Not according to this study

Are you sure that's the case? My intuition would tell me that that's the 'myth' that keeps the American dream alive, but you might actually have a much harder time in the US getting out of poverty because of the lack of social safety nets. I don't have data to back that intuition up either, though.

This also reflects on family relationships. It's fairly rare for Europeans to 'move to where the work is' whereas in the USA it is very normal. As a result social cohesion differs considerably. Though institutions such as churches compensate for this to some extent in the USA.

I haven’t lived in Europe but my impression has always been that it’s a trade off. Less mobility, but less chance of being completely fucked by poverty.

In your experience, is this the case?

There are some European countries with worse mobility than US, but the top countries on most indices I've seen are mostly European, and the US is a ways down.

I see the study posted above but I seriously doubt this and think there’s some statistical nuance being lost here. Looking at a list of the worlds richest people outside of the US most of it is entirely inter generational while the US citizens shot from middle class to billionaires thanks to tech and what not. The income disparity alone means it’s gonna be hard to argue against US citizens having a better chance at building wealth than Europeans and median/average wealth in the US vs the biggest European countries confirms this.

Sort of depends where you are. I was working in the UK and moved to the USA and my earnings and lifestyle shot up. The USA is very variable depending on the state you are in. The studies mentioned may not properly account for that variability.