In my country people see Americans as generally rich and successful people. People live in big houses and drive big cars. So is it a misconception or a fact that most Americans are rich?

43 comments

  3. Are we fuck!

    Most of us are one medical emergency away from total bankruptcy!

  5. By global standards, yes. It’s from 2012 but the World Bank says to have a top 1% income in the world you need to earn $34,000/yr

  6. Compared to people living in the third world, yeah. But that’s a pretty low bar. Being poor in America by American standards isn’t fun.

  10. If my car broke down tomorrow I’d be in danger of losing my small house. That’s all I’ll say

  11. Rich is very subjective and relative.

    I’d say a lot of Americans have debt and are not “rich” but they definitely have a higher standard of living than many countries and have access to resources at reasonable prices that’s unavailable or very expensive in said many countries.

    Not everyone has big houses and big cars. If they do, they have a mortgage and car payments to make to be able to be seen in them.

    I wouldn’t see Americans are rich and wealthy but just having a little more money to lead a much better lives than you can in other countries. The location matters a lot as well as the opportunities available to you.

  12. Most of Americans are in the top 1%, yet like to cry like they are the 99% we are doin alright folks

  13. Globally, yes. Americans have some of the highest incomes in the world. Doesn’t mean everyone enjoys a “rich” standard of living though.

  14. Massive misconception.

    https://www.statista.com/statistics/203183/percentage-distribution-of-household-income-in-the-us/

    Living here is very expensive. The country is very large and our cities are very spread out with a lack of mass transit so you will almost certainly have to own a car to operate.

    Most of the areas that do have mass transit are cities and have extremely high living cost.

    Most of us are living paycheck-to-paycheck with the Eternal fear of some type of medical emergency permanently ruining our chances of ever having a retirement.

    The basically if your idea of America comes from our movies our YouTubers and our news you do not have an accurate understanding of America.

    Here’s a good common misconception.

    A lot of people in the world think that America is rampant with gun violence because of the way that our new stations shoe our country.

    In 2020 there were a little bit less than 17500 gun homicides in a country of over 350 million people.

    All forms of violent crime have been on a decline since 1987.

    https://www.fbi.gov/services/cjis/ucr

    That link is to the Federal Bureau of Investigation crime database and shows a year-by-year breakdown of all forms of crime in the United States of America.

    You’ll notice that the numbers are a lot lower than what you would expect them to be.

    Honestly the two biggest issues facing most Americans right now is lack of proper pay for living expenses and lack of proper Medical Care. Most notably mental health care

  16. No sadly not. California has one of the biggest homelessness rates out there

  17. Depends on what you mean by rich. Only a few people (about 5.4 %) make 6 figures a year in the US and most people are middle class or lower class. But even poor towns in the US will look good compared to poor towns in Europe and 3rd world countries.

  18. We have privileges that others don’t but we also have “the working poor” as in lots of us are a major illness or injury away from actual poor

  19. we’re not “rich” but the middle and working class are a lot more well off than most other countries. The place i go to school in is very well-to-do and most people have at least 3 room houses and 2+ cars, but you can still see many homeless people walking about. The average American is pretty comfortable, but we do have many, many, outliers of those who aren’t so fortunate

  20. Most Americans are paid as little as possible and are from birth told that if they only work harder, they too can be rich. Meanwhile, infrastructure is crumbling, medical care is controlled by corporations, the free universal education of the past is increasingly controlled or gutted by religious extremists, and selfishness is treated as a virtue. Americans are a lot more impoverished than a lot of us realize.

  21. No most Americans are not rich. I’m almost 40yo and have a degree and I could barely support myself till I was 35… and that’s with working consistently, taking opportunities when available, and not having any health conditions. Life in America is hard for most people and we don’t have the social nets of other first world countries.

  23. Most Americans are in the top 1% of global wealth.

    Make of that what you will.

  24. Compared to the rest of the world maybe. Because they’re some countries with higher salaries

  26. Not really. Most care too much about impressing people and societal norms so they are willing to drown in debt to maintain appearances.

    Compared to third world countries? Sure.

  27. Big cars are cheap and suck, we’re looking at you GMC, and except for four billionaires we are all poor af. You need to look up how much all the insurances cost that we are required by law to pay. We get by, but we all work like 50’hour weeks and still stuff is tight. We have it better than a lot of people, it can always be worse, but no, we don’t all live in big houses.

  29. You’d be surprised to see how poorly a considerable amount of us live. I’m from the backwoods of East Texas and a lot of my town could be mistaken for some third world country. Not that there aren’t some perks that come with being from the single current global superpower, but if y’all think we’re all fat and happy and living the dream, you’re absolutely wrong.

  30. It depends on how you view rich I guess. Compared to a lot of countries I think our houses are just built with more space. My house is 140 years old, there’s styrofoam on my porch ceiling instead of…well…ceiling, the floors slope, most of the house is subfloor with no flooring over it, it’s outdated and poorly insulated which makes it expensive to heat and cool, and heat doesn’t even go in every room of the house. To walk through it, it’s huge. But it’s by no means a nice house. (we rent btw and can’t find anything else we can afford and have been looking for years) we have two cars because we HAVE to have two cars because we both work in different places in different towns, there are no local jobs, so it’s not a choice to work out of town. (There’s literally not even a gas station where I live). Our infrastructure isn’t really pedestrian friendly and most people have to travel for their jobs making a car a necessity. Seeing someone with a big house and a car doesn’t mean they are doing well. It can mean they are giving all they have to not live in the street. If anything happened to my husband right now we would be screwed. I don’t make enough to support us on my own. We cant save anything because it all goes out on bills. It’s a no win right now for us.

  32. Ngl If every American was rich we’d be able to afford property and not worry about debt lol.

  33. Depends what you do. If you are well educated with a white color job you’ll probably have a better standard of living than almost any other country doing the same job. My health insurance in the US, private, is far better than what I had in Germany. I’m also paid far more in the US, but this is a manager job at a tech company, with our household income $300k+ I have some friends with $500k+ salaries which is pretty unheard of in Europe. But this is an example of how the wage gap between positions is pretty high.

  35. Well as with any country there are top percentages and bottom percentages and the gaps between the middle and bottom tend to come down to things that are auctioned/rationed (limited number of healthcare employees, homes in desirable neighborhoods, ect.). Despite having a very high per capita income and median income, over $30,000 however the gap between the bottom 20-30% in the USA and else where in the developed world (outside Korea which has similar problems) is driven by these factors.

    For example, a lot of housing especially in areas like SF or LA is really expensive and cuts into people’s incomes substantially. Even in rural areas a defacto ban on modular housing really just hurts poor people who could use cheap mass produced housing. So you can end up paying easily $12000 a year in rent depending on size of the home and living standards. There’s also a difference between dual and single income families (two people working = twice the money). Healthcare is also shaped by this. The American Medical Association makes it impossible for CANADIAN doctors to work in the USA while most of Europe and Canada run their medical systems cheap to a not insignificant degree by importing doctors and nurses from abroad to push down wages, which being much higher in the USA for medical personnel really screws over consumers, especially at the lower end.

    But the driving bigger Houses and having bigger cars on average is true due to the fact that in the non-ultra expensive area’s land is cheap and most contractors feel the need to build big homes with space due to public demand and generally high wages offsets it. Similarly put high wages drove the carless rate from like 35% to 10% from 1960 to today.

    So in conclusion while the wealth for a lot of symbols is really bigger, there are few area’s of note that are bellow developing world standards.

  36. Define rich: I own my own car, husband owns his own car, combined we have a mil in retirement funds.

    We can’t afford a house so we rent.

  37. No. Most Americans basically make enough to get by. A lot are able to save some for a house or retirement. A lot are not able to do that, and or are in debt.

  38. Search “Appalachia” or “the projects.” What you’ll find is that, yes, people have a structure to live in and shelter from the elements. But there are deeply disturbing elements to life in both of these locations. Nobody from the Bronx projects is driving a Lambo.

    Given the GDP per capita of the US though, it seems the standard of living is not equivalent to that.

  41. I think that a lot of Americans live outside their means and owe a lot in credit card debit, student loans, etc. People think they are rich because they own or spend like ab&c, when in fact they are poor because they own or spend like ab&c.

    The poor in other countries are probably wealthier than a lot of the seemingly well-to-do in the US because they tend to buy things outright.

  42. Lol no. We left an upper class upbringing in Peru to move to the USA and became low income and on government assistance.

  43. I would say yes, on a global scale.

    My roommate and I live in a far from luxurious apartment, she works as a server in a restaurant, and drives a used car. We have little food in the fridge. Seeing that, you’d have no idea that her parents are actually literally millionaires.

    My roommate and I we’re not “rich”, but we do have “money safety nets” if shit hits the fan.

Leave a Reply
You May Also Like